It is worrying that, according to an assessment report prepared by the Monitoring and Evaluation Wing of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, Bangladeshi students are found to be very weak when it comes to proficiency in mathematics and English, two of the most important qualifiers of employment, business, and higher education.
Our education system has long been criticized for its many failings, from questionable content in textbooks to question paper leaks, but one of the more fundamental problems lies within the very way our children are taught.
All too often, our education system concerns itself with rote learning instead of practical experiences which can truly take a student's understanding to the next level, and when it comes to learning languages and understanding subjects such as mathematics methods such as memorization will never achieve anything.
To that end, the new school curriculum has much hope riding on it that it would finally put an end to our education system's culture of relying on rote learning by focusing on creative work and critical thinking. However, education experts have identified that lack of qualified teachers for these subjects is one of the biggest reasons behind the apparent weakness in these two important subjects.
How can we expect our education system to be fixed if our teachers themselves continue to fail the mark?
As things stand, one of the biggest impediments to training skilled teachers is the centralization of the training process itself. The training process needs to be decentralized and sped up, needless to say.
Our education system's faults can be traced down to a cultural level. If we wish to see a truly prosperous Bangladesh for our future generations, we will need to leave the old ways behind.