Critical thinking and higher education

With a gradual decay in the education system of the country as a whole, and a flailing state of liberal arts and sciences education, leading academic Dr Belal E Baaquie, once the ‘toast of the town’ in Dhaka’s theoretical physics fraternity, and now with the National University of Singapore, talks to Mahfuz Sadique about the multifarious issues facing the practice, image and breadth of ‘the process of learning’ and the general perception of knowledge both in the country, and globally

Mahfuz Sadique (MS): As an academic involved in curriculum formulation, what is your take on the global trends in liberal arts/ sciences education at the higher education level?

Dr Belal E Baaquie (BEB): It is widely accepted worldwide that intellectual broadening for students in majoring in all subjects is necessary to keep up with the rapid changes in global knowledge and in the job market. All students should take at least 20-30 per cent of their courses outside their field of specialisation. Almost all universities in the US have adopted this approach, and European countries are also moving in the same direction. Countries in East Asia are also adopting this approach. A pillar of higher education, in addition to intellectual broadening, is to impart critical thinking to all students. This is a bit more difficult and most elite institutions of higher learning worldwide have undertaken specific steps to inculcate critical thinking in their students.

MS: With specialisation as the driving mantra of academia today, what are the advantages of an elaborate liberal arts/ science education?

BEB: All specialisations are based on the application of the fundamental knowledge of the Arts and Sciences. For example, MBA and business specialisations in general are all offshoots of the study of economics, sociology, political science and so on. All of engineering and medical sciences are applications of the fundamental physical and life sciences. Without a sound foundation in the Liberal Arts and Sciences, a society can never master the specialised and applied forms of knowledge.

<>MS: Does the incorporation of a holistic approach to education need attention at a more rudimentary level i.e. primary and secondary?

BEB: Imparting breadth of knowledge should start at the primary and secondary schools. Reading, writing and numerical skills should be developed from the earliest age. Given the large amount of knowledge that has been generated and accumulated, specially in the 20th century, more and more educational material is being pushed down to the primary and secondary levels. A curriculum that integrates elementary schooling with higher education is becoming more and more important for successfully educating the new generation.

<><>MS: What are the basic changes required to have a globally competitive, and locally practical, education system?

<><>BEB: To be globally competitive Bangladesh first needs to emphasise on English as the medium of education for all university and higher degrees. The courses need to be designed keeping the best global practices in mind. Courses based on memorisation and book knowledge are useless as these can be replaced by having access to a good library or to the internet. Education must emphasise critical thinking and intellectual breadth.
For having education to serve local practical needs students need to have problem solving skills since local problems need unique and specific solutions. Copying solutions from other countries will not work. Solving problems creatively and with originality needs independent thinking and education should focus on imparting these intellectual skills.

<><>MS: Aptitude for the sciences and mathematics is at an all time low in Bangladesh. In fact, science education is seeing an alarming depreciation across the globe. What do you attribute this to? Is there a larger socio-economic factor contributing to this in Bangladesh?

<><>BEB: Science and mathematics are the lynchpin, the key link, in the contemporary explosion of both theoretical and applied knowledge. All of the sciences are undergoing a process of deepening quantification and mathematisation, with the current focus being on arriving at a quantitative and mathematical understanding of biology.
In this circumstance, any society that ignores science and mathematics will certainly end up by falling behind others. The global depreciation in science and mathematics is an illusion. There is enormous effort being put into the three leading and cutting edge technologies, namely information science, nanoscience and life science; all these three technologies are based on an advancing foundation of science and mathematics.
In Bangladesh the subjects that students choose to study is largely determined by the job market, which at present does not require a high level of science and mathematics. In this circumstance the leaders of the country should ensure that a sufficient number of students study science to keep up with the rapid development of world science and to train science teachers for the schools and colleges. Universities have to keep upgrading their level of science and mathematics or else face the prospect of becoming irrelevant.

<><>MS: What steps do you feel are needed to turn the tide, to induce a resurgence in a purer, knowledge-based education system?

<><><>BEB: Education moves through cycles. A few decades back engineering was quite the rage, which was replaced by computer and information sciences and with the current rage being the life sciences. There has also been a rush for students going for degrees in BBA and MBA.
A knowledge-based education needs an economy driven by research and that depends on innovations, inventions and patents for developing new technologies. It is only a matter of time that all the simple avenues for advancing the economy will be exhausted forcing society to draw upon the fundamentals of science to make further progress.
Knowledge is also an important component of the social consciousness of a society; once a society goes beyond merely bread and butter issues science becomes a major component of the culture of a society, of how the society views the universe.

<><><>MS: How big a role do you feel market dynamics plays on the education system, subject choices, curriculum formulation in today’s skill-driven corporate and professional world? Is the trend positive? What long-term implications would this trend have on the intellectual health of the nation? Or, for the world as a whole, for that matter?

<><><>BEB: The corporate world needs not only trained manpower for mid- and higher- management. There is a pressing need in the corporate world for experts having technical knowledge as well. The educational system can benefit by responding to the needs of the market. For example, given the growing importance of textiles there should be a concerted effort to develop textile technology and the sciences that contribute to this. Another great growth area for education is information science and software in general.
As long as the educational system produces graduates with real skills and knowledge, education will thrive; however if the graduates only have paper certificates with no real knowledge everyone will suffer.
The greatest danger for the world is a growing divide between those who have, and those who do not have knowledge. The exponential growth of knowledge means that all those who want to possess knowledge have to integrate an enormous amount of ‘vertical’ knowledge before they can even reach the frontiers of knowledge. This enormous integration of knowledge can be carried out successfully only if students are properly trained from early childhood uptil adult hood. If a society does not take this task seriously their members will be permanently trapped in ignorance and the concomitant social and economic backwardness.

<><><>MS: In a previous interview, you had talked about ‘intellectual corruption’ in our intelligentsia? Would you care to elaborate.

<><><><>BEB: The intelligentsia of Bangladesh has a glorious history with the University of Dhaka having been the home of many outstanding academics and alumni. A drastic decline occurred after the [War of] Liberation when both students and academics were admitted to the public Universities based on their political allegiance rather than on their merit; quality education took a serious beating. Matters have come to such a state that at present one can be a full professor in the University of Dhaka without even having a PhD degree. Something quite unheard of in any university of good standing the world over.
The reputation of academics is determined by quality of their intellectual products, be they original research or other scholarly texts. Once this criterion is given up academics, who should form the backbone of the intelligentsia, are in a state of free fall. Intellectual corruption is a term that refers to ‘intellectuals’ who hold forth on all matters without themselves having any creative and original intellecual output in their own field of specialisation. These ‘intellectuals’ should rather spend their time more fruitfully developing their own expertise.
Only those intellectuals who have studied a subject deeply should offer their views to the public; the last thing we need is so called intellectuals passing judgements on matters based on guesswork and hearsay, or worse, based on their political leanings.

<><><><><>MS: Research is almost non-existent at our higher learning platforms. Some argue that with such a dilapidated state of the education system, and also the flailing socio-economic condition of the country, research funding is ‘unwanted’ and only a novelty. What is your take on this? What areas of the sciences would you recommend to get for research funding, if at all?

<><><><><><>BEB: Research is the lifeline of higher learning. Without research higher learning will soon be out of step with the rest of the world and Bangladesh would be permanently relegated to the backwaters of the world. Research depends crucially on the leadership of the Universities and of other centres of higher learning. For example in India even the most obscure University, with funding and infrastructure much worse than say the University of Dhaka, has a few dedicated souls writing papers in international journals. A culture of research has to be fostered that recognizes and rewards research. It is up to the Universities how they organize this.
As I mentioned the three areas of science and technology that have been identified as being at the leading edge of science are nanoscience, information science and bioscience. Research funding for these three sectors, or even one of these sectors, should be organized on a national scale.

<><><><><><><>MS: The private higher education setup has expanded over the years. There has been repeated criticism of these institutions for their lack of academic diversity, stopgap ‘patchwork’ knowledge dispensing and an excessive market-driven mindset. What is your analysis of this? Are private institutions going to be the mainstay of future higher education?

<><><><><><><><>BEB: The public universities have been politicised since 1972 and are beset with unending chaos, disruption and ‘session jam’. Serious scholarship and education have taken a back seat in the public universities. This situation may be reversed in the future but at present there seems no sign of any improvement. In this circumstance, private universities represent a historic breakthrough for higher education in Bangladesh and the pioneers who made this breakthrough have done a great service to the country. There are now at least a few centres of higher learning where classes are taught seriously and regularly, and with degrees being conferred on time. Another positive factor is that all private universities use English as the medium of instruction, thus providing a lifeline to the vast body of worldwide knowledge.
Since the private universities are entirely funded from student fees, there is little option for them but be market driven, since as I mentioned earlier most students choose a subject to gain appropriate employment. To demand the private universities be comprehensive and well rounded is quite premature and unrealistic, as they simply do not have the resources or the students for such a broad curriculum. As the private universities mature, they will themselves broaden their curriculum as they will realise that a sound education requires teaching a broad range of subjects and not just job-market related subjects.
To avoid the exploitation of students by unscrupulous people setting up private universities a first step could be to allow only non-profit organisations to set up private universities. Furthermore to ensure that the courses being taught are of acceptable standard there should be some sort of quality control of both curriculum and classroom teaching, preferably involving international academics to avoid the trap of being under the sole ‘supervision’ of local corrupt officials.
Given the high cost of private universities and the huge population of Bangladesh, private universities can never be the mainstay of future higher education. Public universities need to be urgently developed since they are the mainstay of higher education and need to provide the required higher education to the youth of Bangladesh. Private universities will however continue to play a crucial role in the higher educational system. Private universities will hopefully continue to provide high-end university education that is responsive to the market and hence directly serves the economic and technological needs of the country.
I hope that in the long run the private universities will evolve into universities providing the highest quality of education, something similar to the Ivy League and other private elite universities in the US, and will complement the public universities.

<><><><><><><><><>MS: It seems there is a lack of general appreciation for knowledge. It’s almost looked down upon. Why do you think this is happening?

<><><><><><><><><><>BEB: Of the many reasons why Bangladesh has lost its respect for knowledge, other than the obvious ones such as growing materialistic tendencies, or lack of opportunities for knowledge-based endeavours, it is the chronic corruption of our intelligentsia. It is a simple matter of professionalism. Just as doctors are supposed to cure, and politicians are supposed to serve, with due professionalism, the process of gaining, gathering and practising knowledge is no trivial matter. It needs professionalism.
Well, for one, our intellectual class is doing everything else other than their primary concern: exercising intellect! Skimming off the surface, and just surviving on the stopgap materialistic solutions of consultancies, is destroying our academic community and bringing down with it the sliver of respect for knowledge and the credibility of the academics.
Here is the danger: while the masses do not need to be knowledgeable — that is not possible — it is dangerous slippery slope, when they lose respect for the finer learning, or knowledge in general. Our intelligentsia should be wary of the trend that they are losing the respect once given to them. A society that finds no purpose in knowledge is not healthy.

<><><><><><><><><><><>MS: How is knowledge and its practice perceived globally now? Is there any depreciating trend?

<><><><><><><><><><><><>BEB: While the American idea of knowledge is segregated within the elite class, the European idea is quite different. The American mass is not in touch with such matters, though their intellectual class enjoys respect, as do the general academics; in Europe, and especially in my personal experiences from staying in Paris for six months, the knowledge earns the highest pedestal of respect. They feel honoured, and appreciate the company of a knowledgeable person. In fact, in general, the Oriental philosophy also holds great respect for it, still now. In Japan, no one is more respected than a scholar.
However, I gather that this has a lot do with socio-cultural evolution. Most of the societies that respect and cherish knowledge are also economically and socially at equilibrium state, countries; whereas, developing and least-developed countries are yet to find a balance between the pursuit of materialistic gains and the scope of knowledge in that. Probably, this will need time and a strong sense of purpose.

<><><><><><><><><><><><>MS: Appreciation and inculcation of knowledge is a primary role of higher education platforms. Where is this going wrong?

<><><><><><><><><><><><> BEB: Higher education is the platform to inculcate both practical and intellectual leadership. Yet, sadly, over the decades our universities have lost touch with any of the discourses expected of a podium of ‘higher learning’. While donor-prescribed policy had just spearheaded primary and secondary education, to mixed results, a complete indifference towards the bastions of intellectual rigour — our universities — has resulted, with even further catastrophic consequences, of new leadership, be it political, economic, or social, which is devoid of intellectual rigour. Or, for that matter, even respect for it.

Published: The New Age/ September, 2006

Churning out ‘lost generations’

<>Mahfuz Sadique on the state of public schooling in Bangladesh…

<> ‘Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.’ Forgive me for not being able to extract the original context of Bertrand Russell’s comment but it is so true to the topic at hand that it seems to me that the formative education given to children and teenagers at Bangladesh’s primary, secondary and higher-secondary platforms might as well have been modelled on the premise of this screwball comment. They are churning out ‘stupid’ young men and women, who are neither ready to enter today’s competitive market dynamics due to their lack of practical skills nor anywhere near the required general educational competency to pursue a deeper study of a specific subject. Even more alarming is the fact that the parade of ‘lost generations’ is growing longer and longer. And this legacy is a not a three-decade-old one, but one of more than a century.

To start with, thirty-four years after independence, it seems, we haven’t even figured out what we want to teach our young minds, let alone how to do it. Last year, our ever vigilant educationists, came up with another — the sixth, to be precise — education commission report headed by Professor Maniruzzaman Miah. If the 1974 Qudrat-e-Khuda Education Report is to be considered the first declaration of the new nation’s vision of its tomorrow’s citizens then it was a good one. For it envisaged a restructured two-tier primary and secondary education system with a modern structure and uniform approach befitting a modern and a new nation. The Qudrat-e-Khuda Commission suggested that primary education should be of eight years (Class I to Class VIII) and secondary education will be of four years (Class IX to Class XII) and regarding curriculum, syllabus and textbooks, the commission suggested a uniform curriculum for primary level based on competence. The commission gave special emphasis on ‘improved assessment system’ and suggested letter grading in the assessment of student performance in all stages of education.

With letter grading introduced just in the last few years in both the Secondary School Certificate and Higher Secondary Certificate Examination systems and almost every education commission report after the independence recommending a two-tier system stating that ‘there should not be separate institutions for secondary and higher secondary education as these impede quality development and management’, the lack of constructive change is appalling. Furthermore, most reports have recommended a single-track education system, instead of the current multi-track, up to the secondary level; this too has met little, or no, attention. So what happened in between these thirty years? Well, everything under the sun, and yet nothing.

The children of Bangladesh have turned out to be dummy cases for each and every new whim the educationists could come up with. Be it the regular change in the national textbooks, not on the basis of new and improved content but more on certain ‘ideological’ issues or the ever changing examination system — more objective MCQ style and the vomiting of memorised generic notebook subjective answers.

To begin to understand the state of a mind that goes through the process of the Bangladeshi education system, it is imperative to start from the beginning.

Before attending government primary schools, for which the starting age is six, children in urban and semi-urban areas attend one- or two-year pre-primary education in either private schools, kindergartens for almost two years, or just informally in government primary schools for six months. Though very little attention — in terms of critical importance — is given to such forms of pre-primary education, those are the formative years in terms of the basic moulding of cognitive and analytical skills so crucial for future learning. Time and again, the need for good language skills have been emphasised. The 2004 education commission report emphasised ‘teaching of Bangla and English at the primary level’.

One would not be incorrect in stating that the primary education system in Bangladesh is in shambles and in terms of quality lacks even the basic requirements. However, enrolment rate is probably the most positive side of the primary education system and special mention, in terms of increasing the general literacy rate is deserved by the non-formal primary education initiative undertaken by various non-government organisations. Since 1985, over 34,000 thatch-roofed schoolhouses of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee with earthen floors and simple teaching materials sprang up in villages across rural Bangladesh and nearly a million children received primary education through this initiative. With eleven types of primary schooling institutions totalling 78,126, government primary schools constitute the bulk portion of this with above 50 per cent of the total number. But almost justifying Nietzsche — Large state public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad — our public primary education system is plagued by inadequate classrooms, teachers and textbooks. The other inadequacy that disturbs many social scientists is the growing lack of playgrounds and other non-academic activities that create the proper platform for a primary level of education filled with joy. If Tagore was right when he had said, ‘An education without joy is not education at all,’ then primary education is hindering the first step to creating proactive citizens.

The need for competent teachers is the other big issue when it comes to primary education. Like a vicious cycle, since primary school teaching has become an outcast job with uncertain and meagre pay, less and less well-trained teachers are opting for primary teaching positions. Even if we solve the infrastructure inadequacy of primary education as a stop-gap solution, the attitude towards primary education itself is an ominous sign.

Though this is the scenario, the crux of the matter remains that expenditure for salaries constitutes the major part of the public budgetary expenditure breakdown. For starters in addition to paying the salaries of teachers of government primary schools, teachers in non-government registered schools also receive almost full salary payment from the government. Non-registered non-government schoolteachers also receive grants. While successive governments have kept one of the highest budgetary allocations for the primary education sector, the percentage of that allocation going as salaries still remains in their 1990s. But the sheer volume of students still keeps the teacher-student ratio down and expenditure on infrastructure also remains ignored. Like a double-edged sword, we are stuck with low paid primary school teachers — taking up huge budgetary allocations — imparting equally low quality education to ever growing numbers of students under appalling educational conditions.

The sad eventuality is that a huge portion of these primary-school goers will either drop out or discontinue their studies at the secondary level.

The secondary education system has its own separate failures on the other hand. While the textbooks for the secondary level have been massively revamped, the issue of concern still centres on skilled teachers and a lack of infrastructure.

But the greatest hurdle facing the secondary education system of the country lies, not inside the classroom, rather outside it. It is at the secondary level that out-of-the-classroom education has gradually turned into a full-blown ancillary business, if not a bigger operation than the schools teaching apparatus itself. Private teaching by the same teacher who teaches at the school, or the armada of coaching centres with ‘KG I to Degree’ make education nothing less than a money spinning machine. And with meagre salaries, no wonder teachers are opting to teach less and less in their classrooms. And on the issue of notebooks: solutions and made-easy publications are widely available everywhere in the world, but in Bangladesh, the attitude towards these sub-standard pre-fabricated answers-for-exams halls have taken a dubious turn. They have eclipsed the education imparted in the classroom or even the main texts. It should not be a surprise to find a student in our secondary schools scampering over dozens of notebooks and not even knowing the basic content of the textbook.

Obviously, the mainstream education in secondary institutions is not yielding results in terms of providing required foundations for a self-sustained individual in a high unemployment scenario. A solution to this could be through diverting a larger portion of the students in secondary education institutions towards technical and vocational training. During the 1990s this need was felt. With just 2 per cent of total budgetary allocation for education going to this area, the realisation did not materialise. But in recent years, especially in several policy guidelines being considered by the education ministry, the establishment of at least two vocational training colleges with the capacity of providing more in-depth technical know-how is being planned. If this plan comes through and the basic principle of education at secondary institutions is geared toward a more practical, real-world solution, the ultimate goal of creating qualified self-sustaining individuals shall be attained.

Not sounding too idyllic, it is a nightmarish situation to find hundreds and thousands of students, literally, attending school just as a stop-gap solution, while memorising same answers for questions from notebooks and teacher’s ‘private notes’ for the sole purpose of giving that perfect answer on the exam paper. On the issue of exams, our SSC examination is probably the other factor fuelling the growth of this unhealthy education habit. Our question structure imposes the need to memorise rather than deliver analytical answers to questions based on concrete study of the subject. In the early 1990s, our education system came up with the ingenious idea of ‘objective questions’ i.e. multiple-choice questions. However, the logic that this would force students to study the original text and thus increase ‘objective’ knowledge is a farce in itself. Here is the catch: first of all, the idea that multiple-choice questions plucked out from the original text would increase the student’s objective understanding of the subject is not only flawed, but also detrimental. Just feeding information into brain would make it less competent than a processor run memory bank, while the primary premise of any education is not just to feed information but harness analytical skills to use any information – acquired in the classroom, or outside. The second, and more alarming, scenario for this type of examinations system is that it creates a massive problem of mass ‘cheating.’ Sadly, the idea of putting something on the answer sheet from any available source is not a matter of shame, rather a necessity. Parents, siblings and the plethora of ‘suppliers’ providing material for examinees (inside the exams hall) is a pitiful sight even more so in semi-urban and rural areas. Commendable, though, is the ‘crusade’ attitude taken by the government and especially, the junior minister of education in stopping mass public cheating. His helicopter rides across the country and one-man invigilation army may be the first step to stop this mass hysteria of pass-by-all-means attitude, but in reality it is the core problem which needs attention. And that is the examination system and method of teaching at our schools, or rather the lack of it.

Those who survive (or are damaged) by the secondary education system move onto the perplexing world of higher secondary institutions or commonly known as colleges. The sheer leap that the higher secondary syllabus takes from its predecessor is huge. With an inherent systems loss within the system which wastes nearly six months, students find themselves in a quagmire of rhetorical theory and a race to know them.

Any self-respecting educationist will tell you that it is during the higher secondary phase of education that a young mind sets forth forming an opinion on what higher education to pursue in the future, or any other course of action. Not to mention the lack of any guidance on such crucial issues, the education imparted on the teenagers of such delicate age is nothing less than sad.

The mainstream education system — all the way from primary to the higher secondary platform — is not quite different from the attitude we have towards education, or rather what we consider important. As mentioned in the beginning, it is the legacy of makeshift solutions to our requirements for decades that is to blame.

The nauseating replay of the same old notion that we have inherited a subservient education system from the education system from the colonial period is what I spare you from. But I ask a different question. India has inherited the same education system that we have. Look at that. India is a superpower in the ‘knowledge economy’ that has taken centre stage in today’s global information-driven dynamics. Indians may have had a two decade headstart, but their present state was not attained in one stride of a decade. A knowledge-based economy needs professionals with a solid grounding on the basic sciences, on the lingua franca of the world i.e. English and a plan (that a nation sticks to).

The idea that a higher percentage of students passing public exams serves as a benchmark is preposterous. Producing hoards of force-fed incomplete humans with a certificate to show their competency is the last thing Bangladesh needs. Not taking much liberty on the interpretations of the many philosophies of education, this is what I have felt. Education is a state of mind that enables individuals to make choices bearing on its merits and demerits, and eventually acquire skills to fulfil that choice.

I see a never ending procession of young minds lacking the power to choose, bereft of real world skills with an almost catastrophic lack of confidence. I just see ‘lost generations.’

Published: The New Age/ August, 2005