Feature

In 2005 the Confederation of British Industries (CBI), the Association of major British employers released their own study and said 'the education system is failing to ensure enough school leavers master reading, writing and numeric skills.' Half of those surveyed thought school leavers lacked communication and team-working skills. 46% lack basic knowledge in maths and 40% cannot write correct English. Again the primary reason for such a disappointing scenario was ascribed to unavailability of competent teachers.

The problem of unavailability of competent and qualified teachers is a major problem throughout the world, more so in developing countries. In countries like Bangladesh the problem is more acute and it spreads from primary school to university level. In last thirty years Bangladesh has witnessed often mushroom growth of educational institutions-from primary to university level. Today there are thousands of primary and secondary schools both in the primary and secondary level. There are 3150 intermediate and degree colleges and 70 universities in the public and private sector. The number of Madrassas is in thousands as well. In one square kilometer of Dhanmondi area there are 22 English medium schools, I was told. Such an unplanned establishment of schools in places like Uttara, Banani, Gulshan, Mohammadpur and other residential areas has become somewhat a necessary public nuisance for the locality. However that is a different issue. Often the founder owners of these schools or even the universities in the private sector face the problem of finding suitable teachers to teach in their institutions. The situations is not better in public sector. The problem is endemic and as time goes by it continues to multiply and there is no respite in sight. As the institutions have to keep going it can not just shut its doors because they are unable to recruit competent teachers. So most of them settle for incompetent and inferior teachers. In countries like UK and USA one cannot enter the teaching profession especially in the school level if one is not in the possession of some sort of certificate from a competent and recognized authority. To get a license there are certain training and tests that one has to take. Such is not the case of Bangladesh. Often the situation is if you are waiting for a good job and if that takes time you can always try teaching in a school, not realizing good teaching needs extraordinary amount of skills.

What makes a competent or outstanding teacher? Opinions differ. The base line of course is one must be knowledgeable enough in the subject he is expected to teach. He or she must continuously update his or her branch of knowledge by monitoring what is going on around. Many teachers fails miserable to do this. Some say one must have a good communication skills to become a good teacher. You can not differ with that. Teaching is getting across to the students. If you cannot communicate you cannot get across. To do this you must not only be good in the language you are using to teach but you must also be capable enough to use the appropriate words when you are delivering your lecture.

To do this you must possess a very good vocabulary. Knowing more than four hundred words (English) is normally considered having a good vocabulary. This would exclude nouns, verbs, prepositions, articles etc. A researcher told me an average Bangladeshi struggles after fifty. For Bangla, things would not be much better perhaps. So to communicate well, an outstanding teacher must have a mastery over the language he uses for teaching. Communicating well with students and young people is a real talent and a key part of the process that challenges young minds and unlocks potential. Every good teacher has this talent in abundance and those who truly connect with their young students are seldom forgotten. How many of us, who are in the profession of teaching is aware of this I am not sure. Most people who are in teaching unfortunately thinks they are teaching gospel, all those heavy revelations. Students should not question what the teacher has taught or argue his point of deliberations. Some teachers, even in the university level declare on the very first day that in the class he will explain a concept only once, and if the students did not understand then it is their problem. Many teachers do not take questions from students seriously or normally. There are teachers who label many questions from students as 'dumb questions.' Many ridicule students in the class or treat them very negatively. Such a person is in a wrong profession. A student should never be intimidated or ridiculed. A teacher not having patience and openness is not teaching, he is just telling. Teaching involves sharing. This fellow is not sharing; he is just talking, taking his salary and the students' time and energy. Does a good student make a good teacher? May be. But he needs to have an open mind, be compassionate, have lots of patience and must be willing to learn from students. Surely teachers must be highly knowledgeable and up to date in their subject area, but they should not pretend to know it all, they must be willing to learn from pupils. In my last three and half decades of teaching I am amazed to realize that I have learnt so much from my students.

In the winter of 1998 I was invited by UNESCO to attend the First Indian Educational Science Congress (28-30 December 1998) held at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. I was to give the keynote address on the focal theme of the Congress: 'Educational sciences: exploring the millennium.' The eminent economist and the former Vice-chancellor of Visva-Bharati Professor Amlan Dutta was the Chief Guest. In his speech Professor Dutta said 'if the student has not learned, the teacher has not taught. A school is only as good as its teachers.' A learner is sent to the school for knowledge addition. The primary function of knowledge addition lies on the shoulder of the teachers. If the knowledge addition has not happened in a meaningful way the teacher has not done his or her job. In a much hyped recent game show anchored by the Indian Film Star Shah Rukh Khan on an Indian TV channel, a model, who claimed she was the first girl in her school, first thought Karachi was the capital of Pakistan and later 'corrected' it to Lahore. Her more brilliant sister, who was sitting along with the audience, thought her model sister was dumb, and declared that 'Istanbul' has always been the capital of Pakistan! Well so much for knowledge addition in the schools. I can bet we will have many such 'brilliant' students in our country and part of the 'brilliance' can be traced to their brilliant teachers.

I went to St. Placid's School of Chittagong which will be celebrating its 155 years of glorious existence. During my school days I was really fortunate enough to have teachers like Bro. Bertin, Bro. Alberic, Bro. Joseph, Mr. Moqbul Hossain, Mr. Armond Roy, and others who really played a very strong inspirational role in my life. I owe much of my life to them. I want the current generation also to say the same of their teachers.

One should not forget teachers can transform the lives of their pupils. They normally do at the early years of a student. To summarize, a mediocre teacher tells, a good teacher explains and an outstanding teacher inspires. A good teacher is one who adapts well, is dedicated, and has a positive attitude to professional development. We do not have many role models in our society. An outstanding teacher can be good role model to his or her students. To become an outstanding teacher is not very demanding. One just has to try it.

(Professor Abdul Mannan is a former Vice-chancellor of Chittagong University. Currently he teaches at University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. He can be reached at abman1971@gmail.com)