Much has been said about the recent radical overhaul in the assessment process in the primary and high school curriculum in Bangladesh. This brief essay would not dwell on substantive merits or demerits of the overhaul in the assessment mechanism; this limited space is not an apt forum for that. This essay would rather seek to demonstrate that much of the hullaballoo is arguably attributable to a culture of solipsism in Bangladesh. And both the defenders and critics of the curriculum reform demonstrate that. It also argues that this solipsism is not limited to the education sector of Bangladesh but permeates the broader society.
The policymakers have, in essence, argued that the school curriculum and assessment were focused on memorisation and did not teach students the soft skills and real-life skills necessary to sustain in the contemporary world. The education needs to be more functionally and vocationally oriented. As objectives, none of these is misplaced. However, the problem with the approach of policymakers was arguably a solipsist single-minded isolationism that made them too insulated from many of the stakeholders of reform – students, guardians, and educators. Had the process been more participatory, many of the critics could have had a far better grasp of the drives and motives of the changes, and the resistance to the changes could have been more subdued, subtle, and reasoned. The overall quality of the debate would have enhanced manifold. The very caustic, if not emotive, debate could have been averted.
Possibly, few would argue that a country like Bangladesh, with the chronic challenge of severe unemployment and underemployment, needs the education system to be vocationally oriented. However, in deriding the role of memorisation, arguably, the policymakers have unintuitively shoved the debate to an extreme end. There seems to be an apparent conviction that the policymakers have made a benevolent choice, that is, quod erat demonstrandum. They do not need any serious engagement with the stakeholders. The stakeholders must toe the line of policymakers and embrace the change.
This writer, for one, has lamented, as a student and also as an academic, the reliance on memorisation as an assessment tool in the education system of Bangladesh. However, as much memorisation without understanding or inculcating the ability to apply the memory-based skill to address new challenges is something to be loathed, perhaps any educator would also say that memorisation of certain things is often a necessary step in the learning process. Even in mathematics or basic sciences, memorisation has some role. This is not an argument for the promotion of rote learning; it is just to posit that while memorisation may be the lowest form of learning, it remains a part of learning. Learning without any memory would hardly ever be of any use. Having said this, many of the harsh critics of the recent overhaul of the curriculum have also been too elitist, which is an arguable manifestation of solipsism in that they seem to have completely dismissed the place of real-life skills within the curriculum. They have argued that they send kids to skill to earn knowledge, not any so-called soft skills. The elitist perception is perhaps self-evident.
The same solipsist culture in Bangladesh is arguably a broader phenomenon in which any dominant group in our society generally takes full ownership of decision-making. In the education sector, solipsism may also account for the much-lamented disconnect between the academe on the one hand and the industry and policymakers on the other hand. Industry leaders often lament that the Bangladeshi academe does not contribute to the creation of knowledge and expertise that is badly needed by the industry. Policymakers also sometimes lament that the academe of Bangladesh does not really engage with the policymakers. However, when academics make a foray into policymaking, the academic inputs are hardly heeded, apparently insinuating that as noble-meaning as they may be, they are not conducive to sound policymaking. In short, academic input is generally sought as a tool for validating public policymaking, not as a genuine input for policymaking. This is not to argue that the academe has been too liberal in Bangladesh. In this solipsist milieu, they have been parochial too. Schools and colleges have, on the other hand, hardly been taken seriously in Bangladesh, almost rendering them subaltern. Thus, those who work in them have hardly been made a part of the regulations or policymaking that affect them.
This essay argues that any agents of regulatory reform should be free from this sort of solipsism culture. None should assume the sole agency or monopoly in the major regulatory or policy overhaul. No matter how well-intentioned, sound regulatory changes or public policymaking should be truly participatory. Solipsism, even with truly benevolent intentions, would more often than not struggle to engender the intended benefits.
*The writer thanks Sayere Nazabi Sayem for her comments on a draft version of this essay.
