Masum Billah :
The traditional education cannot help fully bloom the talents of our learners that impels to introduce and give importance to alternative education. Corona has added another point to it. The concept of education has started changing around the globe. One survey conducted by Oxford University that was published in 2017 tells in twenty years the middle point jobs in the USA will decrease by 47 per cent. Internet based service organization Mackinac Global Institute reports that today the staff working for ICT can be reduced to 50 per cent by using computers. When that is done, the staff of this field will lose their job. The survey also explains that the creativity of humans, their inquisitiveness, power of imagination and emotional intelligence will be prioritised and definitely these elements will take the center stage in the future job market or meaningful productive works. That directly sensitizes us to bring about revolutionary change in our way of teaching and disseminating knowledge to the learners of this age. We cannot certainly say that even after decades away what will be the demands of the job market.
It has been observed that the traditional or the ongoing education system hardly promises to bloom the full potential of our children, hence, it calls for different stream of education that will help develop the sleeping talents of our children which we most of the time or through our prevailing assessment cannot identify, let alone help foster and unfold. This stream indicates the loopholes of the prevailing way of teaching, nursing and assessing the performances of our learners. The education system of the United States is based on two streams and for the last three decades its education system accommodates alternative way highlighting four layers such as (a) school choice. On this stage, a student can choose what he wants to study. (b) Alternative school-it is established on the basis of new life theory. The style of their study, subject choice, political philosophy of students, and freedom of thought are shaped by this kind of education. Traditional way of thinking does not exist here, hence dropout rate registers very thin (c) personal style and individually owned schools and finally (d) home based education that stands as similar to our Open University system.
The graduates coming out of colleges and universities can hardly cope with satisfying the needs of industries, corporate sector and other areas of job market with the proficiency and knowledge they gain from the educational institutions. So, higher skilled employees, executives and technical people from outside the country mainly from Sri Lanka and India are hired who show better performance, commitment, dedication and obviously communicative ability along with sound technical knowledge. This area deserves sincere attention of the relevant authorities. One statistics makes us worried that only India takes ten billion dollars from our country every year by sending us their executives and technicians. On the contrary, the bulk of educated unemployed gets fattened every year in our country and currently the total unemployed youths constitute 46 percent graduates coming out of university that genuinely talks the traditional education contributes to increasing unemployment. We should, however, seek ways to get out of this mire. Besides, our expatriates remain deprived of getting satisfactory amount of remittance due to the lack of language proficiency and technical know-how. Had our education based on well thought out plan, they could have contributed to the economy of the country several more fold. But who bothers? When economy gets fattened by their toil, we just try to take credit on it. We are lagging behind in the global market, in reality. Still no pragmatic step appears to bring about desired change in education.
We know Japanese children go to school walking even though almost all of the guardians have personal car. They don’t allow their children to use cars for going to school and creating a supremacy over their classmates that constitutes a bigger part of education children learn at their beginning stage of education. They rather enjoy mixing with all kinds of students together that bears the sign of their schools being the most enjoyable place. They dine together in the schools to learn manners and etiquette. There students don’t fail in the exams, rather their teachers fail in case they cannot do their duties properly. They learn in the schools loving each other, sympathy, empathy and love of nature. Also they learn moral education and how to show honor to others and elders.
Our education minister said in a function once ‘when our students want to study books beyond their textbooks, parents discourage them not to waste time by reading other books. You should not do that. Let your children read books other than their prescribed textbooks. Let them read literature, science, travelogue, ICT books, life story of great personalities. The individuals who have become famous in the world many of them don’t have good degrees from educational institutions. However, they read books of various kinds. They read books beyond their textbooks. To become really educated, we need to read books, many kinds of books, not necessarily our textbooks only but books of many kinds.’ Rightly she has said so. Only textbooks cannot fulfill the desire of our learning and many important things. That again talks that only textual materials cannot make our children equipped enough to face the challenges of the 21st century lying ahead of them.
(Masum Billah is Chief Of Party, Out Of School Children Education Program, BRAC Education. Email: [email protected] )
