Piloting of new curriculum to begin from 22 Feb

The government is set to begin the piloting of the proposed new competency-based national school curriculum from 22 February at 62 secondary schools.

The piloting was initially scheduled to begin at 100 primary schools but the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) could not start it due to delay in budget allocation from the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education.

Meanwhile, the education ministry has completed all preparations including teachers' training and printing new books to begin the piloting.

The ministries will take pointers from the piloting and will implement it to other institutions in phases all over the country. They will also train the teachers and government education officials to cope with the new curriculum by 2025.

The new curriculum will emphasise competency rather than theoretical knowledge and that is why the ministry has identified 10 main competencies for students when they pass the 12th grade.

Professor Md Moshiuzzaman, member (curriculum) of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, told The Business Standard that they have selected 62 schools from 62 upazilas under 24 districts across the country.

"We have sent teaching content for four months and the NCTB will monitor the new system every day. After four months the NCTB will provide their evaluation and identify the problems. We will prepare the next courses of action after evaluating the teachers and students," he said.

"We have trained 900 teachers and 106 academic supervisors. We will continue to train the teachers," he added.

Asked about the new curriculum, Education Minister Dipu Moni said, "We hope that the new curriculum will help produce skilled and quality next generation. We will identify the errors and weaknesses of the new curriculum after completion of the pilot."

"We will build teachers through training so that they can understand the new curriculum and implement it properly," she said.

Education experts have also hailed the piloting of the new curriculum but they emphasised on proper training for teachers about the new system.

Professor Dr Siddiqur Rahman, former director of the Institute of Education and Research at Dhaka University, told The Business Standard that they are very happy that the government is going to cancel the public examinations for primary and junior secondary students. Actually we have been raising our voices against the PEC and JSC exams for many years.

"Many teachers are yet to cope with the creative system which was launched in 2010. Most of them cannot prepare question papers yet. So, the new system will go in vain if the government fails to train the teachers," he said.

Content is not ready for primary

Although the piloting will be started at secondary schools from 22 February, the NCTB cannot start it at primary schools right now.

It will take at least one month to start the piloting at primary schools, said NCTB officials.

Professor Dr AKM Reazul Hassan, member (primary curriculum) of the NCTB, told The Business Standard that they are yet to make the content and also train the teachers as the primary and mass education ministry did not allocate the fund yet.

"We will make content and train the teachers after getting funds from the ministry.  The teachers will be trained through an online platform," he said.

"We want to start piloting at 100 schools across the country. But the schools are yet to be selected," he added.

Future plan of curriculum

As per the government policy, the students of classes 1, 2, 6 and 7 will get new books based on the new curriculum in January 2023 if the piloting brings positive results.

The Students of classes 3, 4, 8 and 9 will get books in 2024 and the students of grade 5 and 10 will get new books in January 2025.

The ministry will provide new books to the students of grade 11 in 2026 and grade 12 in 2027. As a result, students will take part in the SSC examinations under the new curriculum from 2026 and the HSC exams from 2028.

The new curriculum from the pre-primary to the higher secondary level in the country will go through massive changes from 2023 – no annual exams up to class 3, no public examination before SSC and no separate streams of education in classes 9-10.

According to the proposed curriculum, all students from classes 6 to 10 have to read 10 common subjects while the SSC examination will be based on the syllabus of class 10 only. At present, the public exam is conducted on the basis of the syllabuses for classes 9 and 10.

There will be two public examinations in classes 11 and 12 – meaning public examinations will be held at the end of each year. And the final result of the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) will be published by combining the results of these two examinations.

A different evaluation based on competencies

The competencies are – student's ability to communicate, collaborate, express themselves, honour other people's opinions, think critically, solve problems, learn languages, communication, mathematics and reasoning, science and technology, the ICT, environment and climate, and values and morality.

Subject orientation, delivery and distribution patterns will also change. Content will be made following the framework of the new curriculum. Teachers will be trained throughout the year of 2022.

Students of class 1-3 will get their result from their performances in classes. Students of classes 4 and 5 will get 40% marks for Bangla, English, Math and Science subjects on the basis of their performance in classes while another 60% will be determined by annual examinations. All marks in Physical and Mental Health, and Religion subjects will be based on class performances only.

For students of classes 6-8, 60% marks in Bangla, English, Math, Science and Social Sciences subjects will be based on class performances and another 40% will be determined on the basis of their performance in annual exams. Full marks in Life and livelihood, Science and Technology, Physical and Mental Health, Religion, Arts and Culture will be given based on class performances.

Students of classes 9 and 10 will get 50% of the marks in Bangla, English, Math, Science and Social Sciences on the basis of class performances and the remaining 50% marks will be given on the basis of annual and public exams, respectively. Their full scores in Life and livelihood, Science and Technology, Physical and Mental Health, Religion, Arts and Culture subjects will be determined on the basis of class performance.

For students of class 11 and 12, 30% of the marks in all their subjects will be given on class performances and the remaining 70% will be calculated based on their performances in public examinations.