Teacher crisis hits education of pre-primary indigenous students

The pre-primary ingenious students are finding it tough to read the books for not having proper tuition. Most pre-school indigenous children in Rangamati are facing trouble dealing with the books since they have no trained teacher or instructor in their locality. According to the District Education Office, there are more than 600 primary schools in Rangamati. Each school is supposed to have at least one teacher appointed for the pre-schooling. But, the areas dominated by Bangalis in the hill district hardly have a trained teacher for the indigenous students, badly hampering education of the minors. The school authorities in Rangamati attributed the situation to the shortage of trained teachers, which has left the children starting their academic life in mother tongue in a poor manner. Porinoy Chakma, education officer of Kaukhali upazila in the district, said: “We received the textbooks, but we do not have skilled teachers for the pre-primary children. We have discussed the matter with the district education officer, aiming to find a solution to the problem. “We cannot just help impart education to the ingenious students in their mother tongue without a professional language teacher.” Principal of Bonorupa Government Model Primary School, Archana Talukdar, said: “The teachers in her school know Chakma language, but they have not practised it for a very long time. So, we can only teach our students the language after receiving training.” Prasnna Chakma, one of the seven specialists appointed by the National Curriculum Textbook Board (NCTB) for Chakma Language, said training is a must to help provide tuition on the language. He, however, claimed that the government in June last year had decided to train up teachers, but that did not happen. The government initiative of printing and distributing textbooks in the mother tongue of indigenous groups will face a setback because of the shortage of trained teachers, he observed. There has been a lack of planning to implement the initiative which needs trained teachers. If teachers are not trained on the five indigenous languages, the project will fail, said Banchita Chakma, member of the National Human Rights Commission and a former principal of Rangamati Government College. Triratan Chakma, upazila education officer of Rangamati, however, said: “There are some trained teachers. The government will start to provide training to teachers soon. Next year, there will be no shortage of trained teachers.” Rangamari District Education Officer Zillur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune that as many as 375 teachers will be trained in Chakma language for pre-primary schools. The government organised Textbook Festival Day on the New Year’s Day across the country and distributed books. The occasion turned exceptional for the pre-school indigenous students this year as the government distributed textbooks in their mother tongues that day. The NCTB has printed 52,000 textbooks in Chakma, Marma, Garo, Sadri and Tripura languages this year for around 25,000 pre-primary indigenous students.