NEWS reports in a national daily on Sunday has produced a dismal situation in most government secondary schools of the country where lack of enough teachers and classrooms facilities is deterring teaching. Everyone knows that education is the backbone of a nation and primary and secondary schools are highly sensitive part of the system to engage and inspire students towards inclusive learning. But according to a disclosure by Department of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, over 20 percent of government run secondary schools are suffering from shortage of teachers as their sanctioned posts are lying vacant. Similarly, 29 percent or 6,594 secondary schools out of over 18,598 are not having the required number of classrooms.The Secretary of the Ministry of Education has been reported as agreeing to this huge gap in terms of teachers and school infrastructure facilities. The report quoted him as saying that the government has taken steps to recruit teachers, but as always the high politicization is feared to be impacting recruitment of meritorious candidates. Thus it will not remove the quality shortfall if it continues to dominate the selection. The initiative to remove the classrooms shortage as the Secretary said may also face setback if the budgeted money ends up to corrupt persons in their misuse of funds. Reports said most schools are not having washroom facilities forcing students to open air service. It can’t be expected to produce a generation of civilized citizens. Statistics showed most schools are running without enough teachers in English and Bengali. Teachers for Social Science, Geology, Geography, Accounting and such other disciplines are also not available in enough number forcing students to appear in examinations with poor preparation. It is an open secret that the government is failing to run the schools the way they need to be run. The Ministry of Education and particularly the Directorate of Education have proved to be utterly incompetent, except talking tall of huge success while misusing government funds in multiple corruptions. There are even many schools, particularly primary schools, which were damaged during election in January 2014 and they are yet to be repaired. Shortage of money to build new classrooms or buildings can’t be an excuse. What is visible is the lack of proper attention of persons responsible for it. Here indifference and inefficiency of officials can only explain in most part the poor conditions of the schools without enough teachers and other facilities. There is no doubt lack of skilled and qualified teachers is causing setback to teaching and this can be overcome with more teachers’ training programmes. Special financial incentives may also be announced to those studying at Degree and Masters level who would sign up to become teachers in specific subjects that are on high demand but the supply is lacking. We can’t allow the situation to continue.
