Alaul Alam :
It is no denial that teachers are the architect of a nation but teachers hardly contribute to building up a nation unless they are quality resources. In the present era there is a dearth of quality teachers that causes a concern in the field of education.
It is obvious that in Bangladesh, usually talented students do not show their interest in teaching profession and those who find to fail desirable jobs, enter this profession that might not create their passion to teach but a matter of survival.
If you are not passionate to your profession, it is tough to serve the society with your efforts. The quality education of a country cannot be ensured until the generation is served with quality teachers and it is the qualified teachers who can play a significant role to contribute to sustainable education along with the development of a country.
We know that primary education is the foundation for the learners and if the foundation pillars are not strong enough, it is tough for any learner to cope with the further advancement. It is certain that country’ school education has seen tremendous success in regard to student enrollment. But it is more challenging for teachers to check dropout rate of the learners if they are not well trained.
Not only in primary education there is dearth of more competent, compassionate and trained teachers in all levels of education in the country .On top of that, the discrimination between rural and urban education is still visible.
According to the latest Human Development Report 2019, all the teachers teaching in primary education are not trained and among many despite undergoing training their classroom management is not appreciated.
Truly, over the years especially at secondary level of education most teachers have been teaching students Math and English, did not study the core subjects in their graduation and master’s levels. The question is pertinent to raise; how they can be quality teachers as they lack sound knowledge what they teach in the class?
One case is apparent here that the remuneration teachers are offered which discourages many to choose on this profession. Again, qualified teachers hardly show their interest to teach students in rural areas as in the city they have scopes to earn more through private tutoring.
Many studies report that the teachers who have not studied in the core subjects, they are teaching only to continue their job responsibility. They use unauthorized guidebooks as the main tool for teaching in classes instead of textbooks prescribed for the purpose that discourages the learners to be creative and in most cases teachers compel students to memorize the lessons.
It is surprising that compulsory English subject is taught students from class one to class twelve. Even after completing this twelve years of English study majority of students neither can write nor speak English well because teaching methodology of many teachers is not appropriate enough to bring positive outcome in this regard.
However, State Minister for Primary and Mass Education Zakir Hossain has recently stated that 1.30 lakh teachers of government primary schools in the country will be made master trainers in English and some 2,000 teachers will be given training initially through British Council. Obviously, it can be a great initiative to make teachers into quality ones to serve the students in an appropriate manner.
At tertiary level of education creating quality teachers is also a challenge. The existing promotion practice of the faculties at tertiary level is somehow reflective as only to get promotion dishonest teachers find out short- cut way thus doing plagiarism. It seems astonishing that a certain number of publications are the basis of a teacher to be promoted from his existing designation.
Only some years of experiences along with a fixed number of publications cannot be the basis of a lecturer promoted to be as professor and if it continues; how teachers can be quality teachers to serve the nation? I think that a teacher should undergo a rigorous process of study till the last day of teaching.
According to the report of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in 2016, corruption was rampant in the recruitment process of lecturers in the country’s public universities. The study also found instances where teachers engineered academic results of students favored by them so they would later be recruited as lecturers. This fraudulent process is mainly an obstacle on the way to creating quality teachers.
Also we see that there are many teachers after being requited at public universities go abroad for pursuing MPhil or PhD but they do not return after their degrees that obstructs to create quality teachers for the nation. Similarly, there is no job security of the teachers teaching at private universities to refrain them to be passionate to teach.
However, in a bid to create quality teachers, it is imperative to ensure inclusive training for all teachers irrespective of any education level they are working. It is the demand of the time to ensure selection of competent teachers in all areas of education. Lucrative remuneration package has to be offered to attract the brighter minds. More importantly, there finds no alternative to creating more research opportunities for the teachers to enhance their skills.
(Alaul Alam teaches at Prime University. Email: [email protected])
