A report submitted by Planning and Development Unit of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE) to the Education Ministry is a shocking eye-opener in quite a few ways. It unveils after three years of the creative method having been introduced at the secondary level of education that 30 percent of the teachers are unable to set question papers in the creative segments of the text books. Even this is a partial picture based on surveys of 4810 out of 18404 institutions. Which means absolute number of teachers unskilled in this particular area must be quite overwhelming.

The logic behind adoption of creative method has been to discourage learning by rote and reducing dependency on note books. The standard practice requires a thorough grasp of the narrative sections by students to be able to answer questions set in the method.

The skill inadequacy runs so deep that teachers buy question papers from external sources including deferent teachers' associations which have stepped in with their versions of question papers of, at best, asymmetrical qualities. Thus question paper setting has turned out to be a business with the ramification of some forced private tuition on the sides. Furthermore, possibility of question paper leaks is in-built.

In other words, the credibility of the proficiency test is laid open to question. The education ministry has been credited with organising the SSC and HSC levels of education with commendable results. In light of such performance, why should it leave such a lacuna to undercut the creative method in teaching and testing pupils? Clearly, one training session is perfunctory, so that a few more interactive engagements would have to be held to facilitate retention of a new skill being demanded. Understandably, the teachers are at sea without reference literature or, more importantly, authentic handbooks containing guide lines for setting question papers. These must be provided.

Actually, the general issue of intensive and extensive teacher training and retraining needs to be placed at the top of the education ministry's list of agendas for all levels of schooling - - primary, secondary and higher secondary.