In which subject (discipline) are you pursuing your graduation?” Once one of my higher secondary level teachers asked. I simply replied “B.Ed. (Bachelor of Education)”. “Oh boy, are you going to be master (teacher)?” I respectfully made him understand that studying in B.Ed. does not mean someone is going to be a teacher. I provided some information about my discipline instantly.
“Education” is a special branch or discipline of learning like Accounting, Economics, Physics, etc. But there is a very small number of educated people in Bangladesh those know it. I guess it will cross 80 or 85 per cent of educated people who are unknown about one of the most important learning sectors, Education. Graduates in Education in Bangladesh are setting up themselves at glorious positions with their merits. They are doing better in different sectors alongside government and non-government educational sites.
Teacher Education is a part of Educational Science and there have differences; our neighbouring country, India is going to introduce professional course for the teachers as “Teacher Education” to make people aware of this. Some day we (Bangladesh) had the same name as Professional Bachelor of Education which is a one year programme. Educationists of our country have proposals to change the one-year B.Ed. programme to Teacher Education (T.Ed.) as people are confused between undergraduate and postgraduate B.Ed.
It would better if there was an Education specialized university in Bangladesh. There are many Medical, Engineering, Science and Technology, Agricultural specialized universities alongside general universities in Bangladesh. Every special university has different views and goals than others, then you all have the right to ask me why should Bangladesh Government establish an educational science-based university?
As far as I know in almost every country in the first and second world has University of Education with different names. And these universities offer programmes like undergraduate, postgraduate, M.Phil., PhD., etc in Education. They also run some training programmes. Countries like USA, UK, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Thailand, New Zealand, and Egypt have Education specialized colleges and universities to provide knowledge to interested learners in Education in various programmes. Their doors are not only open for their home but also foreign students and trainees have the opportunity.
Many Bangladeshi are taking degrees and training in every session at universities like Della-Salle University in Thailand and Canterbury University in New Zealand. Also, a good number of teachers do the same or join there to make them trained. But they do not pursue degree or training at their own interest and costs. Government of Bangladesh arrange it for them and bear costs. On this purpose, Bangladesh have to pay huge amount of money. Can you imagine why do the government do this?
Minimum a single degree is must enter into the teaching profession in the developed and under-developing countries. In Bangladesh, there is the same thing but this is for them who are going to serve as primary and secondary school teacher, non-governmental college teacher as well; pursuing an Education degree is not mandatory for university and government college teachers. Education experts say- degrees like Professional Bachelor of Education, Diploma in Education, etc should be needed for teachers at any level.
Suppose, someone with strong efficiency in English is interested to become a teacher of English Language; in this case, he should have more proficiency than competency in English language. Firstly, they must have solid ability to teach language learners. Then they need deeper idea and proper understanding about teaching-learning methods or strategies (according to the learners’ age, grade, merit and knowledge level, ability, interest, tendency, etc), pedagogy, educational psychology, guidance in education, detailed concept about education policy and curriculum, lesson planning, class management, proper use of materials, ethics and values, morality, student evaluation methods, pre-post activities of examination, preparing tests and question paper, marking, teacher-student relationships, pure concept of sex and gender, foundation of education, leadership in education, professional knowledge and skills, etc.
Since the time of the creation of Bangladesh, the education system has been going through hard controversy. We can write in the bold format ‘we have no better education experts comparatively.’ This is why we use to see foreign experts or consultants in different government educational projects. But results of coordination of education experts from home and abroad are not as good as we expect today. It is not a good sign for the great future of Golden Bangladesh.
At the secondary level examinations, learners have to face creative tests and questions, but a large number of our teachers do not know about the proper creative question method. Some people say that there has no good teacher in our country; some educationists of Bangladesh may support it as well. But this is not true as they say confidently; we have good teachers (small number) but they are not trained or well trained. Because we have no better education experts, trainers or educators as we need. There is no big opportunity to make professional experts of education as we have no university of Education. And we feel why the government should set up an Education specialized university.
I am a student at Govt. Teachers’ Training College, Dhaka. I have seen a large number of teachers’ trainers who are not well at their position; some are doing well but they have taken a single degree or training from abroad. I do not say that all who trained from abroad are good and who did not make them trained are not good; exceptions are everywhere. I have just tried to clear my readers why we need an Educational Science University. An Education university able to help the government to develop education policy, curriculum and in other sectors by continuous research alongside academic activity, they can run training programs also.
Currently public universities in Bangladesh like National University, University of Dhaka, University of Rajshahi, University of Chittagong and Jagannath University have colleges and institutes of Education and Research. Recently Noakhali Science and Technology University has opened a faculty named Educational Science. These colleges, Institutes and faculty offer to study in Education in different programmes like four years’ B.Ed. (Honours), M.Ed. (1/2 year), Professional B.Ed. (1 year) and PhD. under said universities. But this is not enough.
The People’s Republic of Bangladesh Government has a plan to set up universities in all districts. In the list of this plan, the authority should include education specialized university. Many intellectuals have recommended for setting up this kind of university, some of them have made an outline for this. Hopefully, our government and administration will carefully think over this matter. Some day we will get this, I believe.
(The article was published in the Daily Observer and the Daily Sun, Bangladesh)
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