Classrooms Lack Lustre
Higher education is one of the few fundamental indicators of a country's prosperity. With quality of education remaining where it was a hundred years ago, that indicator seems to lead us nowhere in a fast changing world where knowledge, of science and humanities alike, is considered power.
Rifat Munim
“Although education nurtures free thinking, it has to be related to employment," says Chowdhury, "because a student must expect a healthy economic life after his education is finished. If he fails to secure a job by means of his education, he'll definitely divert his attention from study.â€
He, however, stresses that education is an integral part of university life but not the whole. The rest of it must be complemented by cultural and social activities and sports through which students will explore their talents and areas of interest.
Azad Chowdhury opines that in order to create more employment for students of science and arts, the curriculum must be modernised to keep students abreast of the present day requirements.
“IT education should be a must. All subjects in the science and arts faculties should incorporate more technical courses with the aim of producing skilled manpower that would be fit for the job market at home and abroad,†he says.
Education minister Nurul Islam Nahid welcomes the idea of modernising the tertiary level education. He believes that if we cannot break away from the traditional system, we won't be able to make any progress in social and economic terms.
“I'd like to envision a model that will not only make the students well equipped with necessary scientific and IT knowledge, but also will also help flourish their creative faculties fostering in them a patriotic zeal. Keeping this broader vision in mind, we have formulated the national education policy the implementation of which has got underway. But
before setting our eyes on the tertiary level, we have to improve the primary education, then secondary and higher secondary levels.â€
The education minister, who has brought about remarkable changes in the improvement of primary and secondary education, also draws attention to our colonial mindset that impedes reformation of the education system.
“Whenever it comes to education, people think of obtaining an honours certificate even though that does not relate to his interest or offer any job whereas vocational training and other IT courses are left unattended.
It reflects our colonial mindset that sees education as a status symbol, not as a key to national development,†says a despondent Nahid. Asked about any specific step to initiate qualitative change, he mentions the generation of an approximately 800 crore taka fund in association with the World Bank that would be utilised through the UGC to strengthen research in the public universities.
Much as large-scale research works are essential to qualitative change, the elementary act of producing a researcher through proper education should not be glossed over. The vicious circle that has confined higher education to indifference, memorisation and uncertainty can never be conducive to progress and development. Hence, modernisation of the curriculum and incorporation of new, state-of-the-art courses to cope with the job market is of utmost importance. However, all such steps should be preceded by a devoted as well as co-ordinated effort on the part of the teachers to make education a sacred process of self-discovery whereby s/he would learn to evaluate himself against the world.
The Colonial Model
Serajul Islam Choudhury
Serajul Islam Choudhury, emeritus professor of the Department of English at DU and a leading educationist of the country, says that the purpose of higher education is to encourage creativity and arouse an indomitable curiosity for knowledge in students. In the whole process, he adds, independent thinking will be invigorated to shore up originality of the students. However, university education in the Indian Sub-continent, he informs, was installed by the British Raj to placate the frequent incidents of uprisings and resistance. Terming the existing system of tertiary education 'an inherited model', he says:
“The colonisers had specific purposes in mind. In fact, they wanted to create a subordinate Indian class who will help them run the administration smoothly by mediating between them and the colonised. That's why the system they initiated was
examination-oriented having nothing to do with originality. Those universities were not teaching or governing bodies but were merely examining bodies much like the model of today's National University. So the emphasis was on examination, not on true learning or creativity. Even after forty years of independence we haven't been able to break free from that colonial model.â€
http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2011/06/04/cover.htm