THE quality of secondary education in Bangladesh seems to be deteriorating by the day. Everyone must have been happy to see the increase in the pass rate and the number of GPA 5 holders in the past few years. Sylhet had the lowest pass rate only two years back but now has the highest rate in the country. This development in education has not happened overnight.
Teachers are said to be the builders of a nation but the incumbent government has not done anything meaningful to recruit the best candidates in the profession. Most non-government secondary schools are recruiting less qualified candidates allegedly in exchange of money. The corruption is perpetrated largely by local influential quarters and local members of the ruling party as they are placed in school management committees.
If we recruit less qualified candidates as teachers, they are bound to prove unable to teach and give the best output for society. The salary of the teachers must also be increased reasonably to attract the best in society to teaching.
It appears that some schools have got multimedia, laptop and other modern equipment and the rest will hopefully get those soon. But there is no point in pouring huge amount of public money in this regard when the quality of teachers is way below the standard.
To increase the quality of education, some teachers are transferred to teachers training colleges for training. But these trainings are hardly applicable to the prevailing conditions in Bangladesh.
The incumbents need to first and foremost increase the salary for teachers so that we get better ones in the profession. The policymakers need to realise that better equipments do not ensure better education if the teachers are not capable enough to provide better teaching. And if we do not get better candidates, we can never have better teachers.
Mawduda Hasnin
Rajshahi