Unified education system
The speakers from TIB and SNC at a recent conference, that promoted the idea of a unified education system, claimed that adopting a unified system of education and denying the present freedom to have Bengali-medium, English-medium and Madrassah education would produce a society free from 'discrimination, corruption and fanaticism' - but I still don't buy it!
Of course, I applaud these as excellent goals and want to add 'snobbery, hostility and prejudice'. We all want to rid our society in every country of these evils. Moral education is one of my passions and I have put in hours of work, over the last nine years, to produce Bangladesh-friendly worksheets on the subject and test them out on classes that have seemed to love them. (Would anyone like to pay me to take time out to put them into a book with no copyright?) But how can changing the words on a school notice-board destroy these evils? Children learn to look down their noses at others and cheat and copy, not from the SYSTEM under which they are being educated but by the PEOPLE they come into contact with parents, teachers, friends and whether such people encourage them to think well or poorly of other children in other schools or of people who are different from them or behave corruptly. The root of the problem are those adults, who turn up in every society and nation, whose lives are dominated by their prejudices against others and their determination to 'get on' in the world, at any cost and the influence they have on the younger generation. These people are the cause of the damage not the educational systems……
Children are also influenced by the media they listen to and watch but who can legislate for that?
I have to say that, from my knowledge of the UK and here, it is possible, although it is hard work, to create a good moral 'climate' in a school and ensure that these evils do NOT predominate. I am sure your readers can name schools across all the systems of whom that can be said.
You do not counter the forces of evil by just fiddling with the machinery! The evils that we all want to protect children from are spiritual forces that do not lend themselves to reform by officialdom! They will simply dig in and stay there, whatever 'unified system' is imposed. Many nations in the last few decades have tried to impose a 'unified system' and found out, the hard way, that, despite enormous cost and disruption, the longed-for improvements in behaviour and attitude have failed to materialise.
Moreover, as any teacher in any school will tell you, we all have a job helping children to learn to be nice to each other and not copy and cheat - even in the same school! Any child, in any school, that is 'different', can be picked on. Any child can be tempted to copy and cheat - and I regret to report that there are some families who encourage them to do so….. It is part of the moral and ethical training in every school to teach tolerance, respect and honesty and it is VERY hard work, in every system, in every country especially (dare I say it?) in this one…….
Instead of wasting money on re-jigging systems - which will only exhaust and frustrate teachers, pupils and parents in the process - let us concentrate on developing moral education across all the systems and let us include the parents so that good parents and good teachers, in every system, will extend their influence on our children so that more and more can develop as loyal citizens with educational and social skills and more enlightened moral attitudes that will enable them to serve the nation without fear or favour.
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