Like many citizens, I am also worried about status of Education in country. Education produces the human resource needed to build the nation. Similarly, education also required qualified human resource to run the system. When qualified and skilled people work in a system, the system gets better.
Recently, I got chance to participate in an interaction program related to education. The program was organized by Baglung municipality and head teachers and chair persons of all the schools of municipality were invited in the program. The program was titled "Challenge in Education Sector and Ways of Solution."
This blog incorporates thoughts and views storming in my mind, after participating in that program. Like other people, the participants of the program were also seriously worried about low quality of education in their area. Especially, the governmental officials were very aggressive towards the schools for their low performance. One of them gave a presentation on status of education in the schools and blamed teachers, head teachers, parents and even students for the degrading quality of education in community schools. Interesting thing is, nowhere, he pointed finger to the governmental stakeholders of education (education authorities and officials).
As much as he accused the community schools for low performance, appreciated private schools for their result. Not surprisingly, he appreciated some governmental schools too, which were delivering quality education, in his own words.
Which education is quality education? We'll discuss later.
After his accusations, the head teachers and chair persons of SMC also reacted and pointed finger to governmental agencies and political leaders. They also blamed parents for not taking care of their children's education. Although the interaction workshop was organized to carve future road map of quality education in the municipality, it turned out to be a forum for blaming one another.
This blog is my thoughts on status of education in Nepal. These thoughts have not been incidentally developed in the workshop rather continuously storming my mind from a long time. I am always concerned about status of education, sometimes as student, sometimes as teacher and other times simply as an aware citizen. What I see? What I find, when I ask people, why education system is ineffective. The answer rests in a deep level analysis from multiple angles. Quality education is dependent on various factors. I'd not like to go such a deep, not an area of my expertise, indeed. Here, I simply want to reiterate some simple superficial concerns.
First of all, what is quality education? In the workshop, the governmental officials insisted the community schools to start teaching learning in English language. Almost all, except a few, head teachers agreed and committed to start teaching in English language. Some questioned the ability of existing teacher to teach in English. That's different story. Viewing the mandate of the program, I found that, almost all responsible people think that English language education is quality education. Quality education produces human resources, who can read, write and speak English fluently. They might have forgotten that English is just a language, a means of communication. Though communication is also a skill to develop, it's not everything. People don't develop knowledge, skills, innovation in a language. However, they need it to communicate their findings, which they can do in some other language. Sad part of the story is, in Nepal, now everyone is running behind English. In fact, English is chasing them like a ghost. Knowledge of as many languages as students can learn is very good. But we can't lay the burden of language on them. English is international language, so its knowledge definitely helps students, but it's not everything. We can encourage students to learn as many languages as they can learn. But its their right to learn in their native language, their mother tongue.
In fact, quality education is that, which produces a human resource able to identify the social problems and discover ways to solve them. But we aren't focusing attention to produce such a human resource, rather wanting human resources dressed suit and tie and speaking English fluently. I am worried, when even our policy makers, bureaucracy, teachers, parents and students think that knowledge of English language is everything, they are forgetting the other parts of quality education besides language. I am worried the students are losing their skills on native language. This is inciting danger on our culture, language and ultimately, identification.
I am worried, now the command of students on language has become like a camel. Neither their skill on mother tongue is good, nor on Nepali and nor on English. The children must be let to learn in their mother tongue. Researches have shown that students' learning outcome is high in their mother tongue. A person having good command on mother tongue can learn other languages easily in future. We'd studied about many historical intellects, who had started their education in their own language not in foreign.
For now, this much, I will keep blogging about education system an I want discussion from your side. I think if people like us discuss more and more on such serious issues, it will definitely yield some good impacts. After all education is base of all development. So, education must be first priority.
Recently, I got chance to participate in an interaction program related to education. The program was organized by Baglung municipality and head teachers and chair persons of all the schools of municipality were invited in the program. The program was titled "Challenge in Education Sector and Ways of Solution."
This blog incorporates thoughts and views storming in my mind, after participating in that program. Like other people, the participants of the program were also seriously worried about low quality of education in their area. Especially, the governmental officials were very aggressive towards the schools for their low performance. One of them gave a presentation on status of education in the schools and blamed teachers, head teachers, parents and even students for the degrading quality of education in community schools. Interesting thing is, nowhere, he pointed finger to the governmental stakeholders of education (education authorities and officials).
As much as he accused the community schools for low performance, appreciated private schools for their result. Not surprisingly, he appreciated some governmental schools too, which were delivering quality education, in his own words.
Which education is quality education? We'll discuss later.
After his accusations, the head teachers and chair persons of SMC also reacted and pointed finger to governmental agencies and political leaders. They also blamed parents for not taking care of their children's education. Although the interaction workshop was organized to carve future road map of quality education in the municipality, it turned out to be a forum for blaming one another.
This blog is my thoughts on status of education in Nepal. These thoughts have not been incidentally developed in the workshop rather continuously storming my mind from a long time. I am always concerned about status of education, sometimes as student, sometimes as teacher and other times simply as an aware citizen. What I see? What I find, when I ask people, why education system is ineffective. The answer rests in a deep level analysis from multiple angles. Quality education is dependent on various factors. I'd not like to go such a deep, not an area of my expertise, indeed. Here, I simply want to reiterate some simple superficial concerns.
First of all, what is quality education? In the workshop, the governmental officials insisted the community schools to start teaching learning in English language. Almost all, except a few, head teachers agreed and committed to start teaching in English language. Some questioned the ability of existing teacher to teach in English. That's different story. Viewing the mandate of the program, I found that, almost all responsible people think that English language education is quality education. Quality education produces human resources, who can read, write and speak English fluently. They might have forgotten that English is just a language, a means of communication. Though communication is also a skill to develop, it's not everything. People don't develop knowledge, skills, innovation in a language. However, they need it to communicate their findings, which they can do in some other language. Sad part of the story is, in Nepal, now everyone is running behind English. In fact, English is chasing them like a ghost. Knowledge of as many languages as students can learn is very good. But we can't lay the burden of language on them. English is international language, so its knowledge definitely helps students, but it's not everything. We can encourage students to learn as many languages as they can learn. But its their right to learn in their native language, their mother tongue.
In fact, quality education is that, which produces a human resource able to identify the social problems and discover ways to solve them. But we aren't focusing attention to produce such a human resource, rather wanting human resources dressed suit and tie and speaking English fluently. I am worried, when even our policy makers, bureaucracy, teachers, parents and students think that knowledge of English language is everything, they are forgetting the other parts of quality education besides language. I am worried the students are losing their skills on native language. This is inciting danger on our culture, language and ultimately, identification.
I am worried, now the command of students on language has become like a camel. Neither their skill on mother tongue is good, nor on Nepali and nor on English. The children must be let to learn in their mother tongue. Researches have shown that students' learning outcome is high in their mother tongue. A person having good command on mother tongue can learn other languages easily in future. We'd studied about many historical intellects, who had started their education in their own language not in foreign.
For now, this much, I will keep blogging about education system an I want discussion from your side. I think if people like us discuss more and more on such serious issues, it will definitely yield some good impacts. After all education is base of all development. So, education must be first priority.
No comments:
Post a Comment