Dr. Saifur Rashid :
Bangladesh is a country witha diversity of culture, religion, ethnicity, language and ecology; and is home to a variety of natural, archaeological, architectural and religious heritages. It is also considered as one of the world’s richest banks of culture with its literature, philosophy, classic music, painting, food, arts, plays, poetries and festivals.
Spanning a history of more than 5,000 years of different political and religious reigns and having ‘undergoneevents like the separation of India in 1947, the language movement of East Pakistan in 1952, and the movement of liberation in 1971;this country has gained a political, social and cultural setting, whichhashelped it to emerge as a proudand independent nation,full of different heritages.
In many countries, heritage education has emerged as a foundation for developing a sense of national identity, integrity and belongingness among the youth population. The richer the country in terms ofwealth, the richer it is inits culture and heritage. Almost every country that has developed over the past hundred years has made attempts to preserve its history by building museums, archives, libraries, and monuments, archaeological and architectural sites, writing books, making documentaries and educating their children about heritage.
All these attempts were taken to preserve and pass down their history, knowledge (wisdom and experience), and culture to the coming generations.
In today’s world, children’s interest towards the arts is decreasing; because the public find the thought of surviving in this world under this sector to be more difficult. As a result, the new generation seems to know very little about the world; and even about their country.
Hence, a country’s history, art, culture, literature, tradition and values; its geography, and its political identity at first, may become unfamiliar, and after a few hundred years, will be forgotten.
This has become the case for Bangladesh too, where many of our science students, madrasahstudents and mostly the English medium studentsare found showingvery little interest in history and culture. Except for a few, most English mediumschools do not offer any course on Bangladesh Studies and its history, culture and geography. Even worse, most parents and teachers of English medium students discourage taking such a course/ subject for one’s ‘O’ levels.
‘Cultural Heritage’, which is also termed as’Cultural Property’, includes cultural landscapes, archaeological sites, historical records, social institutions, expressive cultures, old buildings, religious beliefs and practices, industrial heritage, folk-life, artifacts and spiritual places. These heritages remind people about their past, about their struggles and successes, and igniteaspirit of nationalism among the new generations.
Just like how education is termed as a backbone for a nation, these heritages are not far behind in terms of importance. Thus, especially during war, the enemy tries to numb the enemy bydestroyingcultural and architectural properties such as libraries, museums, architectural sites, religious establishments and also kill intellectuals, poets, philosophers and journalists. The famous Czech writer Milan Kundera (1929- ), in his novel The Book of Laughter andForgetting (1978), wrote about history and memory,by giving his opinion as:
‘The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory, destroy its books, its culture, and its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, and invent a new history. Before long, the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster.’
Heritage education emphasizes the importance of culturally relevant pedagogy as it uses cultural references that developsa student’s identity and thereby empowers them academically, socially, and politically. For this reason, governments of many countries have integrated heritage education with the subjects like liberal arts and social sciences. In recent times, excessive emphasis ontechnical education, though often preached as important by economic planners in developing economies, has some unintended side effects. This has to be countered by ensuring that children are exposed to cultural values. In the United Kingdom, for example, school groups participate in archaeological mini-digs and in France there are archaeology-oriented programs in which students take part.
But unfortunately,Bangladesh does not have any formal education program to disseminate knowledge about cultural heritage.
There is no university or college, which offers any course on cultural heritage of Bangladesh. Even the museums, libraries and theDirectorate of Archaeology, hardly arrange any guided tours to the heritage sites for the students, organize any workshops, or offer any course on heritage of Bangladesh.
But it is now almost essential for a country like Bangladesh to introduce both formal and non-formal education programs for the documentation, protection, conservation and promotion of cultural and natural heritage. The Government along with its various departments can work with the UNECSO and other international heritage organizations to undertake various heritage related programs.
It is good to see that in recent times, some government and non-government organizations in Bangladesh have started working in the arena of cultural heritage; and are playing vital roles in promoting the great tradition of our culture through various activities. Some of these organizations include: Liberation War Museum, Asiatic Society, Bangla Academy, Charukala Institute, Shilpakola Academy, Chayanot, and the Daily Star.
The UNESCO has a special program on cultural heritage education called ‘World Heritage Education Program’ introduced in 1994. The program gives young people of the world a chance to get involved in the protection of natural and cultural heritage.
It seeks to encourage and enable future decision-makers to participate in heritage conservation, and to respond to the continuing threats facing our World Heritage. The idea of involving young people in World Heritage preservation and promotion came as a response to Article 27 of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention).
The UNESCO World Heritage Centre coordinates the overall implementation of the program in collaboration with various international and regional volunteer service organizations.Many countries, in collaboration with the UNESCO also implement programs for sustainable management of their natural and cultural heritages.
In many countries, heritage education has been made compulsory at the school level. The methods of delivering such education include making the children go on fieldtrips to heritage sites, making students give interactive presentations on important cultural issues, and finally by making the children watch audio-visual and photographic presentations. Some countries have regional and international student exchange programs for visiting UNESCO heritage sites.
For educating children about heritage, the UNESCO developed a special educational resource kit called ‘The World Heritage in Young Hands’in 1998 for secondary school teachers. Ithas now become one of the main tools for World Heritage Education Program in many countries. It aims to sensitize young people about the importance of preservation of local, national and world heritage.
The kit presently exists in 37 national language versions and includes six chapters supplemented with various resource materials on heritage approach,convention, identity, tourism, environment and culture.
World Heritage Youth Forum of the UNESCO is among the main activities of the World Heritage Education Program designed to foster intercultural learning and exchange by bringing students and teachers together from different parts of the world.Since the first World Heritage Youth Forum in 1995, in Norway, more than 34 international, regional and national youth forums have been held around the world.
Beside formal education, development of various non-formal educational tools is also important to facilitate stakeholders’ participation in the cultural heritage management programs.These include making students go to rural areas and interacting with society,or by bringing local people such as folk singers, gypsies, musicians, craftsmen, or storytellers into the classroom.
In many countries, cultural and natural heritages are now considered as global multi-billion-dollar industry. Getting designation as UNESCO World Heritage Site is now turned as national prestige and helps to promote tourism industry in many countries.
By promoting heritage education, Bangladesh can make ‘heritage tourism’more popular. Such education is also required to develop a group of young heritage tourist guide, who can work with both government and non-government tourist organizationsfor developing a strong heritage based tourism industry to earn a huge foreign currency and to boost up its economy.
In conclusion, we can say that that to keep our young generation aware of the glorious history and culture of our country and to give them a sense of responsibility to protect our natural and cultural heritage, we need to make heritage education compulsory for them.
If we cannot do that, within years to come everything will be forgotten.It is true that ‘we want time befitting world class education, technology, knowledge and skill for our new generation but at the same time we want our youngsters to be complete human beings imbued with morality, gratitude towards the people, honesty, integrity and patriotism’ (See, Nahid, 2015). And definitely these can only be achieved through school, college, university and community based various heritage educationprograms.
