Creative method raises worries

A growing number of high school teachers don’t even understand creative method of education introduced in the country seven years ago. 
Lacking a clear comprehension of the new method many teachers still find it quite difficult to help their students in the classrooms, said education officials. 
The ground realities contradict authorities’ claims that the quality of classroom teaching improved since around five lakh teachers were given three days’ training on creative method of teaching each subject.
Now 45 per cent of the teachers can’t set the question papers for school exams, up from 42 per cent in May 2014, revealed the government’s academic supervision reports.
As a result, many schools buy question papers from teachers’ associations flouting a ban in place. 
When teachers and schools depend on purchased questions none would expect proper evaluation of students by them.
The academic supervision report for May 2016 was prepared by the government after surveying 6,442 out of 18,600 secondary schools in the country.
The academic supervision report for May 2014 was prepared after surveying 6135 schools, said officials.
The schools surveyed were in Dhaka, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Chittagong, Rangpur, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Comilla. 
The dismal picture came to light seven years after the creative method replaced the age old education system based on rote memorization.
The academic reports exposed the real picture about the teachers’ competence when students are opposing the moves of the government to increase creative method questions in their exams. 
When the teachers themselves don’t understand the creative method, how they could be expected to provide classroom lessons to their students, asked former director of the Institute of Education and Research of Dhaka University Siddiqur Rahman. 
Admitting the situation, director general of secondary and higher education SM Wahiduzzaman said, ‘we could not reach the desired goal.’ 
He also said ‘A variation of two or three per cent should not raise worries as we are still training the teachers’
But he could not identify the reasons for such dismal performance.
Educationists said creative method would help the students later in life. 
They said that the creative questions evaluate students’ cognitive, analytical, application and higher abilities. 
Teachers of Adarshaw Uchchya Bidyalaya in the capital’s Mirpur area said, ‘The three-day training we received is proving far from adequate to help students tackle creative questions.’ 
That’s why, they frankly admitted, the students as well as the teachers were increasingly relying on guidebooks available aplenty.
Many teachers still have no clear understanding about the creative method of teaching, found a study conducted by the National Academy for Educational Management in June 2011.
A single training session can’t be expected to make teachers proficient in it, says the study report.
NAEM recommended providing more training to the teachers and make the reference books available to them.
Plans are underway to extend the training for at least for six days, said the director general of secondary and higher education. 
On October 9, education minister Nurul Islam Nahid said that the creative method had come to stay and the number of creative questions would be gradually increased.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net