Secondary Education | Articles on Education of Bangladesh | Articles on Education of Bangladesh

RIFAT AFROZE, MD. MAHBUBUL KABIR AND ARIFA RAHMAN

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ABSTRACT: This study investigated the effect of the BRAC training programme for English language teachers of rural non-government secondary schools. It examined the change in the teachers in terms of their pedagogic skills, language skills development, knowledge about Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and their attitudes towards this new approach. The findings pointed to a mixed picture. In spite of a general improvement in teachers’ knowledge about CLT and the skills involved in its application in the classroom, there was little evidence of much difference in the existing classroom practices of trained and non-trained teachers. More importantly, students were not being affected positively. Although most teachers perceived the training programme as relevant to and useful for their professional development, they did not believe that CLT could be effectively applied to the classroom settings of rural schools, thus implying a set of ingrained beliefs which influenced teachers’ attitudes and behaviour in the classroom.

MASUM BILLAH

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Ranking secondary schools has been done for the first time in Bangladesh by the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education at the behest of the Ministry of Education. The Planning Wing of DSHE has done this commendable job. Hats off the initiators. Schools will receive appreciation and admonition according to the ranking, they said. It has, no doubt, added a new dimension in the way of evaluating a school which so long has  been ranked only  on the basis of  public examination results. In the ranking ‘A’ category schools obtained 90-100 percent marks, B-80-89.9, C-70-79.9. ‘ D’ category schools are considered weak which have got 50-69.9 percent marks. ‘E’ category obtained 20 p-49.9 percent marks and they are identified as non-functional or extremely poor performing schools. According to this ranking the number of ‘A’ category schools in the country is  two thousand 455 and 14 percent of the total school, B category eight thousand  897( 50 percent), C category four thousand  789( 27 percent), one thousand 619  and 8 percent are D category schools. One thousand 53 schools showing  one percent are E category i.e. non-functional or extremely poor performing schools.

With a view to addressing the increasing crisis of admission into intermediate level the government turned ten government schools into colleges and this process was started in 2007 as a huge number of students passed the SSC examination that year. Firstly, Dhanmondi Government High School, Motijheel Government Boys’ High School and Sher-e-Banglanagar Boys’ High School introduced intermediate class. Again in 2008 Khilgaon Government High School and Sher-e-Banglanagar Girls’ High School were turned into colleges reaching the number five. Another five schools have been upgraded to colleges outside Dhaka. They are Chittagong Collegiate School, Rajshahi Collegiate School, Sylhet Augragami Girls’ School, Khulna Zilla School and Barisal Zilla School. The decision in one sense was wise indeed. But its hastiness without giving subsequent thoughts and its present inertia regarding the next course of action in these institutions to offer quality education have exerted a negative impact on the studies in these newly turned colleges. 1500 students have already passed the HSC examinations from these institutions in the last two years facing some basic problems.

Usually, specialized subject based teachers don’t teach individual subjects in the secondary level (upto grade ten) in our country except in cadet colleges, cantonment school and colleges, Rifles Public school and College, Residential Model School and College, Rajuk Uttara Model College  and some institutions controlled by Corporations and Mills. Subject based teachers are recruited in these institutions. Here English teachers teach only English, not Bengali or other subjects. Chemistry teachers teach Chemistry, Physics teachers take classes on Physics. The secondary schools both in urban and rural, government and non-government mathematics teachers teach mathematics and other science subjects. Social welfare teachers teach sociology and Bengali, Bengali teachers teach both Bengali and English. This is the usual pattern of staffing to teach the subjects prescribed in the secondary level. This discrimination or specialized system in some secondary level institutions contributes a great deal to show a large gap of results among schools. Cadet colleges and Rajuk College and the similar ones excel in result in the public examinations and in other areas of students’ performance because subject-based teachers teach in these institutions. Teachers having masters in a particular subject and with experience definitely deliver a different and developed way of class.  Intermediate classes of all colleges are run by subject based teachers. When the subject based teachers teach in the intermediate as well in the secondary level the situation of overall teaching environment is sure to see a change. Moreover, the course of SSC and HSC shows a big difference in terms of volume as well as standard. Teachers without having masters normally cannot give proper teaching in this level. The teachers having simple graduation working in these institutions cannot give satisfactory way of delivery which these newly turned colleges experience. In our new education policy secondary level will be up to grade twelve like most of the countries and subject based teachers may be recruited then. Till now intermediate level is considered as college and subject based teachers are necessary for it. In most of the countries of the world secondary level is called high school up to twelve classes.