For quality education

Prof. Selina Mohsin

Photo: Amirul Rajiv

SUDDENLY a quiet road in Dhaka city was crowded as thousands of young men and women rushed out of a high rise building and headed for the nearby restaurants and cafes. Cars stopped, horns blared, rickshaw pullers rang their bells incessantly, but the students of a private university walked on in a leisurely pace. This is quite a usual scene-the 'diploma disease' has indeed spread throughout the country.

The very size, complexity and exponential growth of educational institutions of various types and levels in Bangladesh have inevitably put extreme pressure on the attainment of quality education. Quality, except in a few cases, is an elusive prospect.

The trends
Massive population growth, improved socio-economic conditions along with the country's commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has led to a large demand for education institutions from primary to higher. Private schools and universities have shot up with breathless rapidity without considering capacity building, adequate teaching staff, support system, infrastructure and facilities. Quality is compromised for the sake of quantity and commercial gains. Education has become a thriving business with social responsibility less regarded. Achievement has been mixed and often depressing. Data reveals that only 52% of primary school children complete that level. Out of these only 44% enroll in secondary schools and less than 50% of those then complete secondary education. Drop out of girls is high at this level and only 6% of the eligible students are enrolled in higher education (World Bank 2010). This illustrates the mainly weak educational background of even the small minority who ultimately enroll in universities.

Significant progress has been made in improving access and achieving gender equity at primary and secondary levels. Nevertheless, high drop outs; low completion rates; inadequate quality of teaching-learning system; lack of facilities; absence of rigorous monitoring and evaluation have all contributed to poor quality. According to the Directorate of Primary Education at the 2010 primary education terminal examination 263,026 students were absent on the first day of the largest public examination and 7,755 student on the second. This reflects the perception of communities, parents and students in regard to the utility, value, quality and responsiveness of the primary education system. These negative perceptions, which are all too often justified, can be overcome by improving the quality and relevance of education. Attitudes will then change through the experience of finding education, at all levels, justified by empowerment in daily life and by financial benefits in terms of employment to make up for opportunity costs.

In primary and secondary schools the following areas require special attention:
* material conditions of schools: The physical appearance of a school is important as it can determine its status within the community and influence the demand for education. In the eyes of the parents, the school is first and foremost a place where one acquires what is needed for advancement in life;
* teachers: They have to be interested in their jobs and in self improvement. They must generate love for learning among student and create a friendly school environment;
* contact hours: Good quality teaching and time on task or contact hours are both vital components. Due to commitment to Education for All (EFA) almost all primary schools provide double shift teaching and the contact hours are around 600 hours annually. This is the lowest in South Asia and should be increased.
* female teachers: One of the most significant determiners of education quality for girls is the presence of female teachers, particularly those trained to motivate girls. Female teachers have increased to around 51% at the primary level which is itself an encouraging good indicator of retention of girls in education.
* support: Schools need proactive involvement of community and parents in improving overall performance. School feeding programs with active participation of mothers are very useful in retaining students. Supervision of teaching quality by School Managing Committees (SMCs), local government and personnel from relevant directorates should be part of a comprehensive and coordinated program of quality improvement.

Examinations may be used to:

i. measure achievement;

ii. assess the proportion of pupils who repeat a grade or drop out. School based research is essential to find the reasons behind such trends and reveal impediments to quality education;

iii. determine students' chances of working after completion at primary and secondary levels. This requires attainment of useful terminal skills at the end of these cycles;

iv. identify which types of institutions or streams good students can subsequently enter given their interests and aptitude.

Student assessment often distorts teaching methods since both teachers and students are dominated by examinations and rote learning and lose sight of wider educational objectives. This requires recurrent teacher training in communicative teaching methodology to develop creativity, interest and understanding among students.

Most secondary schools are non-government institutions. They have some strengths and pockets of achievement but the abyss between schools with everything and schools with nothing is pronounced between urban and rural areas. Government subvention usually as Monthly Pay Order (MPO) is not connected to performance and inspection by the relevant directorate which is perfunctory. Various donor funded stipend and school improvement programs have helped this sub-sector. The main issues to be addressed are reform of the examination system, quality improvement, relevant curricula and better management linking government funding and supervision to performance. Currently, owners charge high fees to increase their own income while teachers augment their salaries by private tutoring. Usually a pernicious practice, private tutoring has become embedded in education. This has led to a de-emphasis of the teaching/learning environment in classrooms as paid private tutoring is provided by the same teachers to their own pupils, even though this is sometimes considered illegal and often operates outside the official taxation system. The high incidence of paid tuition has intensified socio-economic inequities as students from wealthy homes have access to financial means required to pay for additional lessons.

Photo: Star

Government colleges
Rampant nationalization of non-Government colleges in the 1980s led to a drastic deterioration of standards. This trend continued when in 1993 and 1994, 180 and 190 degree colleges were 'recognized' by the Government. Overall enrolment catapulted and now non-government colleges make up 70% of all degree colleges and over 60% enrolment in higher education. This increase was accomplished without provision of trained faculty, appropriate management and adequate facilities. Traditional methods of administration and management through bodies consisting largely of academics have been subject to considerable criticism of their slowness, lack of decisiveness and a focus that is inward looking rather than externally oriented. This has had a negative effect on quality.

Universities
With 51 private and 33 public universities, the country at least appears to be in a position to cater to the demand for higher education. Public universities funded by the government usually have a large proportion of excellent faculty members but they are often politicized which adversely impacts on the quality delivery of services. Private universities are self financed and need a critical mass of students in order to be viable. After the Private University Acts of 1992 and 2010 there are now over 200,000.00 students in private institutions. A large number of private universities have only dubious educational quality though pockets of excellence exist in some of them.

Universities and degree colleges need to follow the criteria laid down by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the National University (NU). Detailed discussion on this issue is beyond the remit of this paper, but it is evident that many degree colleges and private universities fail to comply with the minimum NU and UGC requirements. Furthermore, roles and responsibilities of UGC and NU ought to be reviewed and strengthened in the light of increased responsibilities and complexities of the current higher education sub-sector. More generally, all higher education has only recently entered the era of “mass production,” and has to examine how far it has developed relevance and quality for the emerging “non-elitist era”.

Challenges
Unprecedented breakthroughs in scientific and technological innovation have impacted significantly on education and the world of work. This has transformed occupational and employment trends which necessitates a development and adaptation to new knowledge, competencies and competition. The consequential shift needed in the skills profile of graduates to meet the demands of the employment market requires universities to re-think their roles and duties as responsive 'new generation' institutions. Excellence, dynamism, innovation and close collaboration with industry/private enterprises for market focused skills development are essential. Some institutions have taken up the challenge while others have lagged behind.

There has thus been a major shift in the skills profile of graduates. Along with their own subject discipline they need:

i. Constant upgrading of skills to work in diverse employment scenarios;

ii. Trainability and lifelong learning;

iii. Management of change with skills in IT and innovation;

iv. Learning by doing;

v. The ability to analyze and diagnose information and knowledge to suit the needs of the job market;

vi. Skills of creativity, problem solving and discovery;

vii. High level interpersonal skills;

viii. Knowledge of certain core subjects such as languages, literature, history, sociology and research methodology;

ix. Qualities of dynamic leadership; and

x. Social responsibility in a complex globalised world.

Readiness for change
Are educational institutions ready for change? It has to be noted that the increasing diversification of education has led to a range of difficult issues of institutional management requiring diverse skills and solutions. Moreover, innovation and technological development have generated new ethical issues in subjects such as climate change; environment management; counter terrorism and security; good governance and other relevant topics. Universities are also expected to undertake various types of research and consultancy projects for industry and external sponsors; to develop science/theme parks and establish self financing university companies. These require a style of management that is faster, more decisive, task centered and professional.

What is quality after all?
Quality in education is an inherently elusive concept, difficult to define even in the context of a single country. When assessing quality it is necessary to discover the extent to which the educational institution's quality assurance systems are appropriate and whether they function effectively. This pre-supposes institutional awareness of the need for quality assurance. Broadly, the concept of quality can be seen as two conflicting approaches-i) the idealistic approach where achievements are measured against traditional criteria and ii) the “fitness for purpose approach” where quality is measured according to whether or not it meets the needs and expectations of the consumers. This latter approach is essentially market driven and producers and consumers of education negotiate about what is wanted from the system. It perceives education as an exercise leading to certain measurable market oriented competencies. The danger of this approach is that it limits the fundamental aim of education as a process for the growth of a person's fullest potentialities and humane values. Quality, to be effective, needs to be a mix of the two. There is a universal recognition that quality is concerned with the nature of learning acquisition, the relevance of such learning and the development of a person's potential and personality for the good of society.

Education also produces a set of indirect benefits known as 'externalities' that are difficult to measure empirically. The externalities cited in some studies include crime reduction, social cohesion, technological innovation, and intergenerational benefits which refer to the benefits parents derive from their own education and transmit to their children. All these external benefits of education are equally important in developing countries, where in addition education has other critical spillover effects on fertility, health, nutrition and ethical values. The rate of return of female education is especially felt more in the area of fertility, children's health and education.

Higher average income does not necessarily produce better quality outcomes
Outcomes go beyond academic performance to the nature of the education experience itself. Furthermore, higher average incomes do not necessarily produce better quality outcomes. East Asia is often seen as a model for high standards in primary and secondary education but there are wide variations in the region. South Korea and Singapore consistently score near the top in international comparisons, but the Philippines score close to the bottom in international curriculum based maths and science. Cuba, China and Sri Lanka achieve an Education Performance Index (EPI) ranking 40 places or more above their income ranking (OXFAM 2000). Consequently the difference between EPI ranking and income ranking have little correlation.

The question
So, why are we unable to promote quality education? Is it that the vast number of students makes it difficult to provide quality services to all? Or are the reasons resource constraint; weak capacity; lack of teacher/faculty professionalism; inability to improve quality teaching /learning environment; archaic management system; absence of facilities, corruption or all of them? These are issues that require serious reflection as there is no scope for doing nothing. A large proportion of the graduates of the country are poorly educated and unemployed.

Human Capital
The human capital theory expounded by the Nobel Prize economists Shultz and Becker argued that a country's stock of knowledge and education its human capital- has more important effect on economic expansion than its stock of capital. This refers to the skills and knowledge and proactive institutions which enable individuals and countries to increase productivity and income. Evidence can be cited from East Asia. According to The World Bank, 60% to 90% of growth achieved in Japan and other East Asian industrialized countries is the result of human capital development rather than natural resources and finance. While we must treat such findings with caution because economic factors cannot be separated from wider social and institutional factors, they underline the critical importance of quality education.

Despite different approaches and levels of education, certain key features contribute to quality improvement:

i. A clear vision of the institutional vision, mission and goals;

ii. Leadership and good governance closely linked with changing culture;

iii. Management of innovation and change in education;

iv. Ability to perform according to the criteria laid down by supervising authorities and promote internal and external efficiency;

v. Networking and close links with communities, employment market, private enterprises and institutions abroad, especially for tertiary and higher education;

vi. Manpower Planning and Labor Market Analysis to provide feedback to planners;

vii. Curricula with in-built flexibility to responds to goals and objectives;

viii. Use of creative methods for better and conducive teaching/learning environment;

ix. Availability of adequate physical infrastructure, library, IT and science laboratories, campus and other facilities;

x. Appropriate recruitment/training/fellowship

xi. An evaluation system which uses multiple strategies to measure performance, summative, formative and impact evaluation to improve the learning process;

xii. Research and Development (R&D) for knowledge sharing and innovation

xiii. Faculty-student ratio, contact hours, attendance, time on task, positive institutional ethos, extra-curricular activities that are laid down, adhered to and periodically reviewed for possible revision;

xiv. Student guidance and counseling;

xv. Education Management Information System (EMIS) for transparency and accountability; and

xvi. Development of humane values and civic sense.

It is important to remember that even in the 21st century higher education is selective although it provides entry to a vast number of students. For enrolment of students in higher education, quality has to be the first point of consideration. It is also necessary to improve the general standard of tertiary education to divert some students wanting to enroll in universities to vocational, technical and entrepreneurship skills training institutes.

The challenges are great. The current Government has prepared a very constructive National Education Policy to improve the overall achievements of this sector. A potentially interesting concept is that determining institutional willingness to effectively adopt policy reforms depends on 'organizational health'. For me this includes high faculty morale, a strong commitment to implement reform agenda, adaptation to external pressure, high expectation of success and decision making dependent on competence and not power.

These entail all stakeholders to be totally committed with readiness to learn to promote quality. Are we so committed?

The writer is former Bangladesh High Commissioner to the Maldives, former Dean of a Private University and Head of Education and Human Resource Development Initiative, Commonwealth Secretariat, London, UK.