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Structured questions in SSC and social exclusion

TQI-SEP (DSHE, MoE) and PEDP-II are two iLassive educational projects and programs of GoB where, for the first time, the government is focusing on social exclusion issues and trying to include all categories of children in education.

Mahbuba Nasreen
THE Ministry of Education announced on April 25 that a structured question (SQ) system will be introduced at the SSC examination from 2010. The initiative has been taken with the support of a high-level review committee formed by eminent educationists. The new system will be partially applied (for Bangla 1st paper and Religious Studies) in the SSC examination of 2010 as the government is not prepared to introduce the system for all papers. The system will go for full implementation in 2011.
The question is; will the government be fully equipped to introduce SQ in 2011? There is no argument about increasing the creativity of the students. The question,
however, is whose creativity are we talking about? Was there enough consultation with people in all the sectors that are related to secondary education? What measures are being taken to give all categories of students the scope to adjust to the newsystem?
Will the Bangladesh Examination Development Unit or NCTB be strengthened for providing quality text-books to the students for free oratalowprice (there is a gulf of difference between "free" and "low price," and it does matter to some categories of students), or for preparing a question bank for teachers and students before 2010/2011? If so, what are the steps that are being thought about? What will happen to other expensive projects such as
Teaching Quality Improvement in Secondary Education Project (TQI-SEP), where teachers and head teachers of Bangladesh will be provided continuous professional development (CPD) training and subject-based training on the old curriculum (2006-2011)?
TQI-SEP (DSHE, MoE) and PEDP-II are two massive educational projects and programs of GoB where, for the first time, the government is focusing on social exclusion issues and trying to include all categories of children in education. Experience gathered through my involvement (including evaluation) in these two initiatives, SESIP II, and mid-decade assessment of Education for All indicates that creativity and performance of students depend on
many in-school and out-of-school factors.
Disparities in education, despite several commitments of the government, still exist because of these factors. Of these disparities, gender-based inequality is the most extreme form of social exclusion. Although girls in secondary schools outnumber boys (gross enrolment rate for secondary students is 49.15% for males and 50.85% for females), failure in retaining female students is still the most challenging issue for education programmers (drop-out rate of girls from class X is 49.06, whereas for boys it is 37.49).
The quality of secondary education, especially of girls, did not improve as much as expected. The completion rate for girls is 50.94 compared to 62.51 for boys. The lower' completion rate of girls in SSC is mostly related to their gender identity and to socio-cultural factors like extreme poverty, lower socio-cultural status, early marriage, insecurity while moving to
and from school, lack of transport facilities, lack of toilets and drinking water facilities, and insufficient number of women teachers. Furthermore, there is less scope for girls to participate in co-curricular activities.
It is also evident that women teachers are facing gender specific problems, such as lack of an appropriate common room or separate toilets. Some children either dropout or remain excluded from the secondary education system for various reasons: gender identity, poverty, living in disaster prone areas, having minor problems in hearing or speaking, or being physically challenged. Data show that children from these categories do not go from primary to secondaryschools.
Moreover, only a small proportion of women teachers received training relevant to the positions they hold. A successful project called Programme to Train and Employ Female Teachers (Promote) - which ended in 2005 --
and the ongoingTQI-SEP, however, proved their worth in increasing the number of women teachers, and developing their capacities.
Disparities are also visible in the secondary level textbooks, where men/boys have been shown to be doing "productive" and women/girls are shown relaxing or doing homestead work Moreover, there is no involvement of women in the writing, editing or publishing of most books. We need to know how the new SQ system will deal with such gender biased situations.
There are also some multiple-vulnerable children, often living in isolated communities with languages and cultures that differ from the mainstream. Many live in severely stressed families (subject to natural disasters, people in char, haor areas, remote rural areas, migrated to urban slums, indigenous communities), being constantly displaced or staying on- the-move (subject to river erosion, bedey community), in refugee camps, as orphans in women-
headed households, in other people's families, in institutions, or alone on the street.
There are also children who take care of younger siblings, work as migrants in the informal economy or as bonded labourers, are in prisons or correction homes, are abused and exploited as child sex workers or domestic servants, or even trafficked across internationalborders.
There are disabled children also, kept hidden away at home. Some may have access to the "special need schools" (under the Ministry of Social Welfare). These groups are at greater risk of dropping-out, as well as learning less and benefiting less from education. These children are always at a transition stage and vulnerable to exploitation. Researchers pointed out that they art Yiot absorbed in the formal or informal skilled labour market.
In the developed world the transition stage and grin ' ’ng employment opportunities are the responsibility ol the state, while in
Bangladesh such doors are closed. Without any linkage with vocational training these children are growing as unproductive citizens of the country.
There is no doubt that the SQ system is innovative. This is, however, going to be introduced without adequate preparation. Neither the state nor the secondary level education stakeholders are equipped enough to cope with the new system within a short period of time. A further review with mass participation is an urgent need before starting the SQ system.
The ongoing projects and programs (which are based on the old system), be those under grant or loan funding, should be reviewed in order to avoid wasting valuable times and resources. A massive media campaign on the SQ-$l>ould be earned out to make students* and teachers familiar with it. and free from anxiety.
Dr. Mahuba Nasreen is Professor. Department of Sociology University of Dhaka.