Are we creating a Frankenstein?
EDUCATION SYSTEM in every country is always under public scanner as it affects almost everyone – students, parents, business communities, and the government. The education system ensures elastic supply of the appropriately and adequately skilled manpower. But the quality of education depends on a number of variables that includes the curriculum, teaching learning process, quality of assessment, and adequate availability of logistic support. If any of this chain is missing or is weak, the quality of education is seriously compromised.
In the middle of the present decade, the launch of the home grown courses under the umbrella of the new national university induced high aspirations and expectations from the service consumers. It was a time when the old and irrelevant courses were replaced by new, more Bhutanese and more locally relevant curriculum. It also challenged the pedagogical and assessment methods applied under the old system. The focus shifted from the teachers to the learners. It was aimed at giving the learners an opportunity to learn themselves.
Now the question being asked is whether things have really changed as desired. The answer is not very heartening. As a person who was actively involved as well who closely watched the process of change, I can comment on the issue with greater understanding.
Most of the curriculum that is designed under the Royal University of Bhutan still had greater imprint of the Delhi University under which tertiary education in Bhutan had earlier matured. Most of the curriculum and modules within were developed by greenhorns who even lacked adequate teaching experience. Framing a curriculum requires in-depth understanding of the subject matter; it is a basic prerequisite that was not met. In most of the cases it became a copy and paste task which precluded any possibility of adequate procedures to ensure relevance of the modules.
Some of the Bhutanese specific modules that were created did not have adequate materials to support teaching learning process. Such modules are now actually administered by the faculty and at times new and expatriate faculty teach these modules without having any background knowledge of Bhutanese aspects. The academic outcome of such fill-in-the-gap approach is bound to be disastrous. The curriculum remains Bhutanese specific but the delivery is either not there or is very poor. The absence of a long term functional planning results into such problem.
Honestly speaking, in many cases the educational institutions are aware of this but are helpless. Experienced faculty is leaving and is hurriedly replaced by anyone easily available. Somebody wisely said that quality of education is as good as the quality of teachers. The RUB should analyze the problem with greater focus and find long-term solution rather than taking a myopic perspective of the problem.
Assessment process is another vital key to ensure good quality of education. In my opinion, none other than the personal conscience of the teachers can ensure fair assessment. The assessment should necessarily reflect the knowledge and skills acquired. Without any centralized system of examination, the quality of assessment has to be internally ensured by the affiliate colleges. Quality of examination and evaluation is not adequately benchmarked. The students’ performance is extremely skewed across the colleges. In the absence of mismatch between marks obtained and knowledge acquired the long term credibility of the degrees provided would be seriously compromised. The old and tested system of rigorous assessment produced some our brightest educators including, of course, the education minister.
Any liberal process without any appropriate check and balance system is bound to become anarchic. I am not against the changes. It is fine to make experiments and design a better system as it helps us to become better but unrestrained experimentation has inherent danger of creating a Frankenstein, and in this case an educational Frankenstein. The risk is very high and is Bhutan ready for such risk at the time when it is planning to embark upon the platform of making Bhutan an educational hub in the region?
Source: thejournalist.bt