Schools are still closed. The need for a blended model for education is an all-time high now.
The model will seamlessly integrate the physical classroom-based instruction with the virtual technology-enabled one. We did a 18-month rehearsal of the purely technology-enabled paradigm using TV, mobile devices, and the internet from March 2020 to September 2021, with the deep and ubiquitous realization by all policy-makers and citizens alike that we need a blended model.
As a member of the National Blended Education Taskforce formulating the Blended Education for All (BEFA) framework for Bangladesh (which I am quite confident will inform a model for the developing world), I am constantly faced with designing the brain, the spine, and the limbs of that framework.
I am starting to realize that we don’t talk enough about the heart of the framework. In my column last week, I touched upon the heart; the most important thing we must ensure in our education system is the realization and conviction in all our 45 million or so learners with one motto: “I AM THE SOLUTION.”
I want you to do a thought experiment.
Not the kind Einstein used for special theory of relativity or the kind Elon Musk uses to design space flight at a mere fraction of NASA’s cost. In fact, this is not even a thought experiment. You have all faced this scenario. And have had to decide.
You are walking down the street, perhaps near Farmgate in Dhaka. You notice a person in front of you eating a pack of chips while walking. As soon as he has finished the pack, with no regard whatsoever, he drops it on the road, and goes about his business.
Take a moment to think. What would you do?
You have three options
a) You pick up the empty packet in front of you. You search for the trash can. Into the trash can the packet of chips goes
b) You go about your own way. You aren’t responsible for the actions of another person. You aren’t responsible for keeping the streets clean. It’s none of your business
c) You realize that you have been carrying a tissue paper that you’ve been wanting to throw for a while. The chips-pack thrower in front of you has just given you the license to throw your napkin next to the packet because that looks like a logical -- and accepted -- way to dispose of your little trash. Whoever will pick up the chips pack will also pick up the tissue paper
I actually have two questions. First, what do you think you will do? Second, what will you actually do? Is there a difference there?
Now, for the parents out there, or for the uncles, aunts, elder siblings, what would you tell the younger generation to do? Pick up, ignore, or add?
While many of us may think we would take the first option, the reality of Dhaka’s streets tells us that the majority do not. As for what we teach the future generation, a conversation with a dear colleague of mine provided pause for thought.
Just like the first scenario, he is walking down the street. Only, he is not alone, but with his daughter in grade one. His child is picking up the chips packet from the street. He feels that picking up trash is not hygienic, and he discourages his child. He teaches her to ignore. Because it is someone else’s responsibility.
I’ve run this thought experiment in my head a few times. Even though I think I’ll pursue option one, I’ll probably pursue option two when I actually walk down the road in Farmgate.
In our rhetoric, many of us will probably say “pick up” is the behaviour that should be done. In reality, “ignore” is the behaviour that is done in most cases. Sadly, “add” is the behaviour that is also pursued in a not-so-insignificant number of cases.
That leaves “pick up” -- the first option -- as the minority behaviour.
Can a nation which has made unprecedented strides in the last decade, ripped traditional development curves, left pundits’ predictions in the dust, emerged as a new model for socio-economic progress, and now aspires to break few new grounds towards 2041, afford to turn a blind eye to the first option?
Who will need to take the first option? Certainly, all of us.
How will we inculcate this behaviour and the courage and conviction towards this behaviour change? Certainly, through our education system.
It is obvious to us that when we throw another pack of chips to the streets, we add to an existing problem. But what even the best among us fail to realize is that when we ignore that packet, and do nothing, the problem remains. Just because we choose to look away from a problem does not make it go away.
Worryingly, as far as education in Bangladesh goes, we are imbuing our students with the same worrying pattern: Of ignoring our problems. While we are correct that littering is a problem that cannot and should not be expected to be solved by a primary school student, the message we are sending our children, to ignore the problem, is the incorrect one.
On the flipside of the coin, it is when our education system -- supported by us parents -- empowers the students to each be a problem-solver in society will collective societal problems be solved.
Haim Ginott, a relatively unknown schoolteacher in the US, who was also a child psychologist and a parent educator, wrote a letter to educators where he said: “I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness: Gas chambers built by learned engineers, children poisoned by educated physicians, infants killed by trained nurses, women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates. So, I am suspicious of education.”
I don’t want to be as pessimistic about our education system.
However, we are all in violent agreement that it is not fit for purpose. And what is that purpose? Not just self-prosperity, but communal prosperity, national prosperity, global prosperity -- leaving no one behind
As we design the education system for 2041, we want all our students to pick the first option: To “pick up,” because it will have ensured the realization and conviction in all our 45 million or so learners that “I AM THE SOLUTION.”
Anir Chowdhury is a US techpreneur turned Bangladeshi government entreprenur serving as the Policy Advisor of a2i in ICT Division and Cabinet Division supported by UNDP.
