Education Minister Dipu Moni has said the joy of learning is missing in our educational system and that moral values are mandatory in developing social and emotional learning capabilities.
She was speaking on Monday at an online webinar, “TAGe – Talking Across Generation – Education and Environment”, organized by the Unesco Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP).
The education minister said: “We want to focus on joyful learning and reducing pressure. But the part related to joy is totally missing in our education system. There is no joy left anymore. Only pressure, pressure and pressure.”
“But everyone should be a responsible citizen, improve himself or herself morally and ethically and focus on contributing to the making of a progressive society,” she added.
Responding to a query, Dipu Moni said the government was working to bring indigenous and remote area children under proper education facilities.
She pointed out that the expectation on the part of everyone always to come first in class should not be there. She said: “The education system should not be just about knowledge and skills. We need to have combinations of knowledge skills, soft and emotional skills, and the right kind of attitude.”
Tasmia Rahman, a medical bioscience student at Monash University, said mental health, sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR), and climate change education should be integrated and focused on in the education system.
She also elaborated on the need to have a uniform education system in Bangladesh before ensuring that teachers received proper training to actually teach in a comprehensive manner while also focusing on the individual growth of students.
Among others, Shiny Christy, teacher activist, Microsoft certified SDG, and innovation leader and Keziah Gersano, student at King’s College in New York were present while Rosie Chawla, director of Global Education Project Unesco, moderated the dialogue.
At the event, they focused on formal and informal education and its relevance in being a building block for an individual to develop myriad skills. The importance of how a proper education could influence character building by instilling the right values and developing social and emotional learning capabilities could not be ignored.
They also dwelt on the educators themselves, stressing the need to provide them with plausible solutions and including their needs in policy changes.
