Masum Billah
Mysterious things continue happening in NCTB and more importantly they happen without any reason and things seem that they hardly bother about the people concerned and national criticism. The Education Policy 2010, free distribution of textbooks among school going children, hybrid examination results are considered to be the success in the field of education. Side by side if we look at continuous question paper leaking, lax exam and evaluation processes, increasing the burden of exams on children and serious mistakes and errors in the national textbooks, we get frustrated. In setting questions in English NCTB plays mysterious games almost every year.It has been a practice for many years that the textbooks contain a model of how style of questions will be set in the public examinations. It’s a good way as all the students and teachers concerned use and deal with textbooks, they easily learn the model and style. Things remain clear to them. But some interesting reasons, NCTB change English question format again and again without any reason or some reason which seem mysterious to us and without consulting the people concerned. As a result, the real stakeholders remain in the dark about how questions will be in the examinations and this gap is filled up by the low quality note and guide books of the market.
The same kind of questions year after year cannot evaluate the acquired skills of the students which happen as usually in our English examination system. The main objective of the English test should be to test the linguistic ability of the students based on four skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. The question set in the board examinations stand miles apart from this objective and spirit. But it is seen in English question that the four stages of knowledge, comprehension, application and higher order skills type questions have been introduced recently in the name of so-called creative system. It is a fact that our students cannot demonstrate their acquired language in any situation with some possible exceptions. Our efforts and objective should be to enhance the linguistic capacity of the students, not to baffle them in the name of creative questions in English like other subjects. It is seen that how questions will be set is determined by the so called note and guide books of the market and NCTB creates this opportunity for them. This mysterious game played by NCTB pains us as we think and consider that NCTB is the custodian of real pedagogical things.
Suddenly some questions or documents are seen available on the website of NCTB which disappear after some days. Again, some new question formats suddenly appear on the website which don’t go with the question type given at the end of the textbook. Students, teachers particularly rural teachers get confused which question formats to be taken as standard and which way they should follow as frequent changes take place. They provide different answers. One changed questions were seen on the website which were developed on the basis of workshop arranged by NCTB and the questions were signed by a member curriculum which is very good. But at present another question format has been given on the website without any signature of any valid official. Now question arises, when the question setters will set the question which model will they follow- the one given on the website which is not widely circulated among the rural students and teachers or the one given at the end of the textbook?
More precisely we can say in the question of class six English For Today ( EFT) two seen passages are supposed to be set as students don’t read the textbooks when all the passages are chosen from outside the textbook. If questions are set from the textbook, they will read the book. No unseen passage is talked about but the model recently available on the website show two unseen passages. In questions of class ten one question signed by professor Moshiuzzaman ( 20.9.2016) shows from seen passage MCQ for 07 marks, question answer for 10 and gap filling for 05. But in February 2017 a questions suddenly appears on website which shows that for gap filling another special passage has been introduced which seems unreasonable as nobody’s signature is there and it is different from the question provided in the textbook model. Matching item in the textbook model and previous model shows two columns but in the newly developed questions show it with three columns. Our question is can any individual member of NCTB do it without consulting or holding a workshop with the relevant persons? They must consult students, parents, teachers, educationists and other stakeholders to make any change and the consultation must be open, long term and democratic, not in any other process.
Another problem we came to know that 15 lakh school books that are worth 4 crore taka were cancelled because two writings remained there despite some group’s demand for their exclusion. This 4 crore taka is the hard-earned money of our poor people and none should waste it. With this amount of money, a large number of poor children could be provided with basic education or a larger number could be provided with a meal. But these books worth so much money were thrown away for two ‘unwanted’ writings. One cannot do such things with thoughts and writings. Those two writings still live and will live in this world. Then why such futile efforts at such a high cost? Developing textbooks has a history and tradition that should be kept in mind while making changes to it. Children’s textbooks are like trees which grow and change gradually, not in a sudden way. If you just uproot a tree, it will take long for another tree to grow in full, it cannot be done in a day. And our school textbooks are far more important, sensitive and valuable than many other things. r We, therefore, should not make any stupid attempt to make major changes as we wish.
The unnecessary changes in question papers in general and English question in particular creates confusion inciting demonstration of students, guardians and teachers. Rural English teachers get really confused which model will be followed, which one is the standard. The ministry of education must be firm in this regard. Nobody will be allowed to play games with question models. Again, change and changing game is played only in the question of English. It hardly happens with other questions so frequently. It keeps ample room for the people concerned to criticize the noble efforts of the government. It frustrates many good intentions and efforts of the governments. If any change need to be done, it must have a general and national consensus. No hide and seek game should be played by NCTB. Changed things must be made available to all the students, teachers, guardians and others concerned through appropriate media. People don’t want to see any hide and seek games of NCTB.
(The writer works for BRAC Education Program and formerly taught in cadet colleges and Rajuk Uttara Model College. Email: masumbillah65@gmail.com)
