We should avoid staging the theatre of education The covid situation and the theatre of introducing so-called ‘competency-based’ curriculum pushed the teaching and learning situation in the lowest rung. The teaching learning scenario, receiving and giving education, in the true sense of the term, evaporated many years back from our classes, educational institutions, society with some exceptions occurring in some institutions like missionary and privately run schools and colleges along with cadet colleges of the country. The tradition of going to the class, conducting exams and publishing results happen without any tangible effects as nothing of these goes professionally and fruitfully. There lies no account of what is really going on in the classes, students are learning or they are really participating in the teaching learning situation. Classes go on but what happens here there lies no real account of it. Result is the gap between real learning and these traditional activities is widening day by day. The country now sees holding the largest public examination known as SSC. Every day, a huge number of examines remain absent, get expelled and copy on mass without facing any hurdles. The dailies of Bangladesh bring us to the second day of SSC exam when we see 28 thousand 943 students remained absent, 83 expelled and 18 teachers were also expelled. This number is increasing while exams go forward. Till that day, the percentage of remaining absent in this public examination stands at 1.65. On 15 April English first paper exam was held under nine general education boards where 13 lac 57 thousand 593 examines were registered but that day 15 thousand 628 students were absent. In Dakhil exam 1thousand 490 and in technical education board 2 thousand 825 students remained absent while 36 students were expelled the same day because of adopting unfair means. The very first day of beginning SSC exam, Bengali first paper was the subject when students were seen writing answers opening books. Interestingly, teachers were not seen to take any action. The same thing happened in English exam also that got spread by virtue of social media. Why does it happen? Many practical reasons can be held responsible for that. In the micro level, students don’t come to the class regularly, even though some of them are in the class- they remain there just physically not mentally and attentively. There actually lies no incentive, no encouragement and no positive threat from any side that will convince the students to be attentive in the class, try to learn the subjects through repeated practice, asking questions to teachers and doing several exercises on the topic. All this left from the education scene with the advent of Covid and finally during the trumpeting of so-called ‘new curriculum’ which pushed students into a culture of not reading, not learning, not sitting for assessment. Students are now busy with demonstration against teachers, head teachers, chanting slogans against exams and for short syllabus and without facing any exam instead. They were not seen with any demonstrating in the previous years when the nation killing ‘curriculum was introduced. They take to the streets time and again sometimes for very negligible or some flimsy grounds and sometimes for nothing. They cause untold sufferings to the passers-by and people of all walks of life for any issue which is not related to them at all. The country witnessed the unrealistic and unreasonable demonstration of the students belonging to National University. They demanded to upgrade several colleges into universities. Why? We want to say just to fatten the procession of educated unemployed. Currently, the entire national watches the unruly demonstration of the polytechnic institutions for realizing six demands. We practically see that the students coming out of these institutions don’t acquire any skills of the 21st century which are absolutely necessary for getting jobs. They don’t gain any skill either in their respective disciplines. Now they are found in the streets announcing one program after another remaining away from the class, laboraroty, library or in any workshop or industry where they should go learn skills practically. The education sector definitely harbours many loopholes. To address those, ways must be quite different. To conduct the public examinations a series of directions as usual go to the field to be followed but who bothers? Despite this rotten situation, when examination scripts are distributed among the teachers for evaluation, the board authorities further direct the examiners to go through the scripts very sympathetically without being harsh or tight to check them. This was my experience when I used to be the examiner of boards or question setter. The situation now in this area is far worse. Now examiners are threatened so that no student should fail in any subject and this threat is producing hybrid results every year causing irreparable loss to the students and entire education system. Still things continue happening. We need to decide whether we should allow it to happen further. This educational mismatch produces our officials, teachers and administrators. Necessarily things cannot appear quite refined from it rather with a tinge of it. We know copying goes on in the BCS exam even. Not only that, question leakage in the previous BCS exams was a common affair and some of the perpetrators have been arrested but that rotten culture could not remove the officials it gave birth to. And so, the society must see the consequences. We all want good teachers to teach our children so that they can be engineers, doctors, police officer or administrators. Nobody wants their children to become teachers. So, how can we expect good teachers in the society? You see, for receiving real treatment we go abroad as we don’t have any trust on our doctors and there lies not reason to trust them actually. When we need to do any complex work or sophisticated construction, we need to invite engineers from outside the country. Our students do have merit, they do have creativity but our entire system of teaching learning, nurturing and developing them and assessing their performance prove faulty. That’s why we produce doctors without real medical knowledge and almost the similar situation goes with other areas. In the public examination, questions are very traditional. Students and teachers know which questions will come from which chapters. What kind of questions will be there. The style of questions is also known to them. Despite these facts, students copy in the examination. Its adverse effect will appear in every aspect of their life lives when they occupy any position in the society. Even, the madrasa students who are supposed to be guided by moral and religious education. When they are also copying and their teachers are helping them, words fail to explain the moral degradation of the society! So, we should come forward to avoid staging the drama of education and embrace how real education can be instilled in the minds of our pupils. Masum Billah Lead Education and Research: Dainikshiksha and Amder Barta.President- ETAB ( English Teachers’ Association of Bangladesh) Cell:01714-091431 Email: masumbillah65@gmail.com

PSC’s Clarification on BCS Examination Deserves Appreciation PSC has clarified its stance on the backlogs and the measures it has taken to remove the problems heaved over the last several years in holding BCS examinations retains merits. It has postponed the preliminary examination of the 47th BCS shifting its original date from June 27 to 8 August 2025. Responding to the repeated demands of the job seekers, PSC has decided to defer the examination. Despite the rescheduling of 47th BCS preliminary exam, the written examination of the 46th BCS will proceed as planned and begin on May 8, as per the previous announcement. The circular for the 47th BCS was published in 2024 planning to recruit 3,487 cadre and 201 non-cadre officials where around 400,000 candidates initially vied for those positions. The BCS examinations experience a backlog of four exams with some processes dragging on for over three years. The 44th, 45th, and 46th BCS exams were initiated under the former Awami League government whose final results and recruitment have not yet been done. The 47th BCS circular, the latest, was issued in November last year. We know that the interim government has formed a `Public Administration Reform Commission’ which has submitted a report to the government recommending that the entire BCS process — from examination to recruitment — be completed within 18 months. According to the proposal, exams should be concluded within the first 12 months, followed by six months for publishing final results and completing recruitment. The newly employed PSC officials aim to complete each BCS cycle within a year to clear the backlog that we cannot but appreciate. PSC has been trying it level best to untie the knot developed in conducting 44th,45th and 46 the BCS examinations. According to its latest decision, the examination on compulsory subjects of 46th BCS exam will be held between 8-19 May while position related subjects will start from the last week of June with the completion date by 7 July 2025.The Viva-Voce exam for the candidates who qualified in the written test in 46th BCS exam during the Viva-Voce of 44th BCS exam to be held from 22 April to 19 May. And this viva-voce will be held after 16 June and will be tried to complete within the shortest possible time. And the final results of the 44th BCS examination is expected to be published by June 2025. Also, the results of the written exam of 45 BCS will be published by June 2025.The PSC has to depend on other organizations for printing questions, selecting examination centres and for some other purposes/areas. The candidates and concerned are requested to go through the messages of PSC website to get the genuine message. Generally, three to four lakh applicants participate in a preliminary examination. Out of these, 10 to 12 thousand pass the written examination, and after the viva (oral) examination, a final list is made for recruitment against the vacant posts. For this, the commission has also decided to set an annual calendar for the preliminary, written, oral and psychological tests to be held during the year. That must be a smart decision. When the Public Service Commission (PSC) has issued the notification for the 47th BCS exam, a section of the applicants from previous three other batches started movement demanding the postponement of the exam. Thus, the upcoming 47th BCS exam was now in uncertainty and in response to this uncertainly, PSC has clarified its points. The PSC published the 46th BCS circular seeking applications for 3,140 posts. Of the posts, the highest number will be recruited in the health care. About 338,000 candidates have applied for the positions. The activities of the 44th BCS have not been completed even after four years, while the written examination of the 45th BCS was completed 15 months ago; but the results have not been published. Thus the activities of the four BCS exams from the 44th to the 47th are in a mess. Controversy has also arisen over the results of the 46th BCS preliminary. PSC has resolved to expedite the publication of the preliminary exam results and schedule the written test promptly to mitigate the setback incurred by its postponement. The commission has decided to hold the preliminary examination on April 26. Additionally, the," he said. The 46th BCS preliminary exam was earlier scheduled to be held on March 9 this year. The PSC also issued a notification in this regard. However, the date of the examination was changed due to the city corporation elections. Candidates’ protesting in front of the PSC demanding the postponement of the examination does not show a good sign as a handful of candidates’ demand does not necessarily reflect most candidates’ desire and demand. Postponing any one exam will have an impact on every subsequent exam. Where there are many vacancies in government jobs, postponing the exam will mean increasing the uncertainty of job seekers. Therefore, we expected that PSC would be adamant about the exam schedule. However, considering some practical reasons such as clearing the previous exams, selecting the deserving candidates through a series of screening process must be completed before floating advertisement of new BCS examination. It tends to relieve the candidates’ tension, save time and ease the hassle. We cannot afford to forget that BCS is a competitive exam. It does not mean that a course to be completed and then an examination should be held to assess the course. It does not also mean that some teachers of an institution are morally obliged to complete a course and they cannot conduct the exam without completing it. When the case and purpose of BCS examination proves different, we should not bow down us before any hasty or differently motivated demand of the candidates just like the students of SSC and HSC exams who want to change their dates of exam, want auto promotion and have any examination based on short syllabus. From time and again, media unfolds the reports of incompetencies of our public servants in various sectors that actually originates from the faulty recruitment system along with the touch of corruption in the form of question leakage and so-called quota system. We do believe that the current PSC setup would take pragmatic and honest steps to save PSC from these allegations. . Masum Billah Lead- Education and Research: Dainikshiksha.com and Amader Barta And President- ETAB

Women in science education

Women’s global scene   in science education and Bangladesh

The UNESCO Science Report: towards 2030 has been released which tells     the women of Bangladesh have achieved equality in science education but they are lagging behind in engineering and research. In agricultural and medical science post graduate and research levels women’s participation has increased worldwide but Bangladesh lags behind. This picture in Ph.D. and in higher level research between men and women also proves discriminatory. Their participation decreases drastically in these fields. According to this report, at present 72 percent researchers are men and 28 percent are women in the world but in Bangladesh only 17 percent women are found in this field. They get married after graduation or post-graduation education and get engaged in looking after children, families and other familiar affairs. So, it becomes difficult for them to conduct research. Their participation in agriculture is 31.1 percent and 33.3 in medicine globally whereas this percentage is still below 30 percent in Bangladesh. This report gets published every five years and presents a picture of the trends in global research and development, based on a wealth of qualitative and quantitative data.

Women tend to have more limited access to funding than men and to be less represented in prestigious universities and among senior faculty, whether on faculty boards or at the higher levels of decision-making in universities. The regions with the highest shares of women researchers are Southeast Europe (49%), the Caribbean, Central Asia and Latin America (44%). Sub-Saharan Africa counts 30% women and South Asia 17%. Southeast Asia presents a contrasting picture, with women representing 52% of researchers in the Philippines and Thailand, for instance, but only 14% in Japan and 18% in the Republic of Korea. While, globally, women have achieved parity at Master’s level, their share diminishes at PhD level to 43% of all doctoral graduates. The gap continues to widen after this, as women only represent 28.4% of the world’s researchers. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development increased globally by 31 percent between the period of 2007 and 2013 rising from $ 1,132 billion in 2007 to $ 1,478 billion in 2013. Five regions represent 77% of the global investment in research and development: 28% for USA, 20% for China, 19% for the European Union and 10% for Japan. The other 67% of the global population just represent 23% of global investment in research and development. The investment in research also translates into an increase in the number of scientists, estimated at 7.8 million worldwide, which is up by more than 20% since 2007.

The trends and developments in science, technology and innovation policy and governance between 2009 and mid-2015 described here provide essential baseline information on the concerns and priorities of countries that should orient the implementation and drive the assessment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the coming years.  The world can learn from the report that despite the economic crisis that hit industrialized countries in 2008, gross domestic expenditure on research and development increased globally by 31% between 2007 and 2013. This increase was more rapid than that of global gross domestic product  during the same period (20%).Research investment by countries such as Brazil, India and Turkey is increasing rapidly.72% of the world’s researchers can still be found in the European Union, China, Russia, the United States and Japan.

To alleviate global poverty the study, research and development of science is a must and women’s active inclusion and participation in science is crucial. Encouraging women to take part in science would allow any country to maximize its valuable human assets, empower its women, and improve its economic prospects. We cannot lag behind in this respect if we really want to alleviate poverty. It is still rare to find women working in scientific fields in many countries.  Female researchers, those that continue to actively practice science after obtaining higher education degrees, remain under-represented. Bangladeshi women have already proved their worth and potentiality in various fields such as administration, armed forces, police, doctors. It tells us that they have every potential to shine in scientific fields if we can give a genuine drive.

Why Bangladesh students particularly girls in rural areas don’t study science is not unknown to us. They get promoted to higher classes with the poor conceptual ideas as they didn’t get proper guidance in science subjects. They develop a fear to study science subjects. Those who already study science experience limited or no access to laboratory facilities in the schools.  

To address these issues, some TV channels can introduce science programs where the basic and tough chapters can be discussed. The rural students can follow these programs and the programs must be developed according to their level.  The newspapers can publish at least one page a week focusing on the basic concepts of different issues of science to be contributed by trained teachers and educationists.

A student brigade can be formed by the ministry of education where the brilliant students of colleges and universities will be included. The brigade will work during the longer vacations. These students of the brigade will visit a cluster of schools in rural areas for weeks together to discuss, conduct sessions on basic facts of science where the students of rural schools and colleges will participate in to have clear conception about science subjects. The District Education Officers along with Upazila Secondary Education Officers can coordinate the affairs locally. Science education must be made easier, interesting and popular. Only then, more girls will study science who will grow up with special affinity with science education.  

Masum Billah

Transport crisis and children's going to school

Traffic jam, transport crisis and children’s going to school

Dhaka is a peculiar city in many respects. It witnesses serious traffic jam in one hand, on the other the crisis of transports has made the life of the city dwellers hell. The office going people, commuters and the children going to school and coming from schools face the worst portions of the problem. The number of vehicles is far less than the existing population of the city. And more peculiar is city dwellers have to spend a huge amount of time every day on the streets due to heavy traffic gridlock.

It’s a common scene every day that hundreds and thousands of commuters and passengers crowd in thousands of spots to catch vehicles. They are to wait impatiently and as soon as a vehicle arrives they frantically try to get into it. This is mostly during going to office, school and college and the same scenario repeats when office and educational institutions break up and it continues long hours and sometimes all day long when any political meeting takes place in any part of Dhaka. Office goers become late to reach office and become mentally upset as it continues throughout the year. Thinking to catch a bus itself is a matter of tension whether they will get it or not. This abnormal situation contributes to increasing the number of private cars. Having a private car in the city stands as a symbol of security. How can you expect to go to your destination with your wife or kids or both when the traffic situation poses so abnormal? CNGs and rickshaws will not go to your destination even if you wait for hours long. Rickshaws are for short distances but they are not allowed in all the roads which further discourages them to take passengers for all the destinations. To mitigate the sufferings of the city dwellers the authorities must introduce big buses to be plied on the streets from very early hours to late at night at a regular interval (every two minutes). The small and scattered bus companies, CNG owners must be made united to form big companies. Already it is learnt from the newspapers that the mayor of Dhaka North has talked to 190 transport companies to squeeze them into five to bring about discipline and uniformity in transport sector. It must be done immediately and more government and private partnership endevours  should  be developed in this sector. We also learn that a huge amount of idle money is waiting in the banks. We can utilize the money to bring discipline in transport sector. The government is trying to implement some long term projects to solve the traffic congestion but to meet the scarcity of transport no tangible effort is discerned yet. 

The authorities hold unawareness of the people about traffic rules, narrow roads, unfit vehicles, reckless driving and showing disregard towards traffic laws responsible for traffic jam. We have also different experience in this regard. The members of armed forces were invited several times previously  to control the traffic of Dhaka City and 90 percent traffic jam disappeared when they stood on the roads despite the problems mentioned at the beginning of this para. It clearly indicates the inefficiency of our traffic police who mainly remain busy with other sort of business. The authorities must take this fact into serious consideration.

During the period of 1991-2002 Dhaka city saw many buses on almost all the big roads and the passengers had to ride in those buses buying tickets from the ticket counters available at the roadside ‘. Passengers developed a good habit to ride those buses. They maintained discipline to ride the buses.  Unfortunately, uncontrolled ‘toll collection ’by mastans and the chasing of the ticketing people by sergeants on the plea of occupying footpaths have killed the good system.  When good amount of transport will be available in the city, people will feel discouraged to buy private cars.  When private cars will not flood the streets, the traffic situation can be more disciplined and fair.

All the educational institutions must have their own transports to take the children from certain places to schools and colleges. They need not wait for public transport which increases their tension and they cannot manage time to reach the classes and give concentration on their lessons. In all the developed and developing countries we can see that the schools have their own transports. Even you can see it at Kathmandu. You will see there that school buses are carrying the students and no traffic jam develops around the school campus. Can’t we follow it? In developed countries you see the yellow buses carry students. Another interesting thing is, no private car or public buses stand close to those yellow buses as children may run to and fro and may meet accident. This bears their sign of  honour towards children who will lead the nation in future. We have miserably failed to show this honour towards our children. They stand beside the streets to catch a public transport but nobody bothers about them even though they cannot manage a transport. Even, they cannot reach the examination halls on time either due to traffic jam and scarcity of vehicles.

Hundreds and thousands of private cars, office cars ply on the streets without any passenger except the driver or one or maximum two passengers. At the same time we can see hundreds and thousands of school going children remain engaged in requesting rickshawpullers or CNGs one after another but they don’t agree to go to school. The same thing happens when they come home after school break up. The experience with CNGs proves further difficult and harassing. Why do they do that? We always tell tall talks but in reality we hardly do any genuine work for the citizens. We have miserably failed to establish the commuters and passengers rights which is a fundamental right of citizens. What happens in other countries? The passengers’ first get into a transport and law tells the drivers to take the passengers without asking any questions ‘where they will go.’ They don’t have any right to ask the passenger this type of question. The drivers’ duty is to take passengers first. The passengers will tell the drivers to go to their direction and destination after riding the vehicle. Thus they have established the right of the passengers.  More interesting is, the taffic police keep standing to help and control the whole affair. They stand in the airport, stations and any important places to make this citizen facility available to the passengers. What about our traffic police? You see them everywhere but their business is different. They don’t bother about whether any passenger or commuter or children get the vehicle or not. They just bother about stopping the cars, CNGs, Lorries, pick up vans for some reasons known to all. They are very much attentive to catch the vehicle which will give them much monetary benefit. Hell the traffic jam and problems of city dwellers. Should we stare at this scene?

Law must be made that all the vehicles – public or private must- give lift to the students waiting for transport for going to school and coming from school. Any vehicle must stop to take any student with uniform when he/she raises hand even if the guardians are with them. This will not only develop their fellow feeling, it will also help minimize traffic jam which is every citizen’s expectation.