IN a sweeping change to primary and secondary schooling, the government may scrap the primary and junior term exams and dissolve the science, humanities and business disciplines. A new outline of a curriculum meant to be put into effect from January 2022 proposes many other changes. It suggests holding the Secondary School Certificate and its equivalent exams in just five subjects, based on the syllabus of grade-X only. The Higher Secondary Certificate exams will be held in two phases: in grade-XI and XII.
Instead of holding the PECE and JSC exams, the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) said emphasised on continuous assessment at schools. Many educationists frequently termed the exams unnecessary and slammed those for stressing out the students. Experts asked for holding one public exam at the end of the school level. Under the new policy, the SSC exams will be on Bangla, English, mathematics, social science and science only. The other assessments will be made at schools. After studying a syllabus for two years in grades-IX and X, students take the SSC exams on 10 papers. They sit for the HSC exams on 12 papers after studying a two-year syllabus in grades-XI and XII.
Students of grades-XI and XII will study the compulsory Bangla, English and ICT. And they will be able to choose three other subjects from science, humanities and business disciplines. They will pick another subject from vocational courses. Most countries do not have science, humanities and business disciplines at the school level. The new outline also proposed two-day weekend-Friday and Saturday-in schools, instead of just Friday.
The new curriculum will emphasise competency rather than theoretical knowledge.
As per NCTB, after grade-XII student could be able to communicate, collaborate, express himself or herself, honour other people’s opinions, think critically, and solve problems. The curriculum puts emphasis on learning languages, communication, mathematics and reasoning, science and technology, ICT, environment and climate, and values and morality. The proposal sounds good but frequent change of education system is destructive, thus plans to change the education system must be based on ample research and expert opinions.
