A common voice of concern echoed in the minds of all stakeholders at the beginning of 2023, a year that saw a rather radical change in the NCTB curriculum. Most who passed this stage fairly recently, fueled by a default state of juvenoia, saw it as the final nail in the coffin that is our children’s future.
Some went on to ridicule the existence of entire books dedicated to wellness and livelihood. Few saw the merit behind such initiatives, claiming these as part of a pragmatic roadmap in the likeness of some foreign curricula.
Albeit the laudable intentions, the execution thus far has been misguided, making these experiments either subjects of ridicule or yet another soporific, commodified chore everyone wants to get over with.
The commodification is, in part, a result of the ingrained values of being competitive and result-oriented. General science in high-school was split into two books – one called the ‘Exercise Book’ – to slowly transition out of this formulaic and unsustainable culture of studying. The Exercise Book, in short, features a series of individual or group activities akin to experiments. Each chapter has charts to fill up based on the learnings of the accomplished task, and has a noteworthy year-round evaluation tied to it. To no one’s surprise, it did not take time for coaching centers to churn out fake learnings as notes, since it carries marks.
Now, at first glance, it might seem like an issue of the deep-rooted competition culture. But being an instructor of a coaching center myself back then, it feels quite reductionist to push the blame to brown parenting. Since the schools’ faculty members themselves were as dismissive about it as were the recent high-school graduates, the classes turned into tiffin breaks and the parents turned to coaching centers. And it would be an understatement to say it was inefficient (and embarrassing) to have to fill up a chart by googling – a chart that was intended to be filled up by the students after interviewing a farmer.
This incident points out the underlying inadequacy of it all – feasibility. 12-year-old students cannot be expected to carry out these projects of different geographic, demographic, and financial requirements. And to top it off is the continuous evaluation tied to it, the lack of time for which eventually triggered the resistance to change by the students, indifference by the faculty members, and note-providing service by the coaching centers.
The quintessential question of any critique of our education system thus comes up – How to make the children care? The children and manchildren usually respond suggesting the discontinuation of exams. The glass-half-full experts draw parallels with Norway’s continuous assessment system but realize (not acknowledge) the vastly different psychography of Bangladeshi children. Yet, 2023 happened and it did not change much in 2024.
Likewise, the naive optimists also advocated for the proliferation of Multimedia Classrooms in primary, secondary and higher secondary levels. A semi-decent setup would require a laptop, a multimedia projector with screen, internet modems, and speakers in each classroom – another idea that lacks feasibility. Yet, 2016 happened (when the government took up the project to introduce multimedia classrooms in 31,340 secondary and higher secondary schools and madrasas). By 2021, not a single classroom received a full set of equipment in this Tk1,353 crore project.
Feigning proactive planning and acting on datasets that worked for different demographics or under different financial conditions will fit any novel idea into the mold. Multimedia classrooms would enhance the children’s learning – clearing their basics and increasing their retention. But financially and logistically, it is an inefficient option. And for continuous assessments to work, years of proactive planning is needed to alter the psychography of this demography.
The first step in that decades-long roadmap would be to acknowledge the behaviours of the resisting, conformist children, and work around it instead of against it. Likewise, integrate multimedia (since it’s inevitable), but in a cost-effective way. Does a project that can potentially check both these boxes sound too good to be true? Cue in the well-established but less-mentioned technology called Augmented Reality (AR). AR is a 3D experience that merges virtual items into the users’ actual world, making simulations more engaging and realistic. To put it simply, AR showcases multimedia by interacting with the landscape that the phone’s camera is working on. The most common use of AR can be seen in the hit game Pokemon GO! The players walk around in real life which is depicted as roaming the Pokemon world. And when encountering a Pokemon, if the user opens their phone’s camera, the Pokemon will be shown as standing on the road.
When first introduced to AR, most have a default reaction of confusion. But most have used/seen it without realising. And that is in the form of Instagram and Snapchat filters. These filters, in the simplest form, put elements on our face. Slightly more complex forms feature interactivity – filter-based games like putting the basketballs through the hoop by tilting our heads. Some filters use the back camera instead, laying a jigsaw puzzle on a flat surface for the user to solve.
Numerous studies have found AR to be an effective tool in education. In Canada, Spain, Hong Kong, Ukraine etc. AR has piqued the interest of both academia and industry, for the range of opportunities it can open in STEM. Its potential is further bolstered by an instance of success in Bangladesh.
A thesis report showcases the differences in performance of students who were taught the exact same materials on human lungs either using AR or using a regular textbook. The textbook readers scored between 19-27 (out of 30) in the follow-up exam while the AR-readers scored between 22-29. Hence, the key considerations of Bangladeshi demography, something absent in the 2023 continuous assessment models, need to be cross-checked.
Next comes financial feasibility. The tool being a great source of customer engagement, and something as common as Instragram filters/effects, Bangladeshi brands were quick to use it as a marketing medium. Examples include Dominos pizza D-box campaign where, upon scanning the pizza box, it shows a football field through the phone’s camera, and the customers have to score from penalties. There’s also the Instagram effect of Atom gum, where one has to catch the falling bubblegum and then blow the bubble till it bursts to show Atom’s tagline. These gimmicks have become common offerings of digital-first marketing agencies. Since the AR models in question are of high-school science experiments, the complexity of these models matches that of the marketing stunts.
When asked how much the development of an AR model for a single physics/chemistry experiment would cost, Oliduzzaman Sawon, the associate strategy director of Lie To Eye Advertising Ltd., quoted a ballpark of Tk1 lakh. He added that development of a full set of models would drive the per unit cost down due to bulk order.
Accounting for the cost of development of the app that would house the AR simulations, one can safely assume that a project like this can be capped at less than half of the Tk1,353 crore allocated for Multimedia Classroom.
In terms of logistics, there is no requirement of distributing multiple equipment sets to every classroom around the country. A few smartphones within the classroom or of family members is more than enough.
The beauty of AR lies in maintaining both the accessibility of the students and the capacity of the providers. Whether integrating it into the curriculum as evaluated tasks is a viable option or it diminishes the very purpose of learning is up for debate. This also begs the question as to who the provider would be. If it is not meant to be an evaluated task, the government might be disinterested in this project. On the other hand, if it is meant to just enhance understanding of concepts (like a YouTube video but with viewer interactivity), it is logical for EdTech platforms to take up this project as an effective means of differentiation. Adding the value of VR headset experiences in their newly opened offline centers does not seem like a far-off idea too. But the monetisation of such a service might be a threat to its accessibility around the country.
Even after considering the initial feasibility, there is a long way to go about other factors and whether the cost will justify its ‘perceived’ value of academic improvement. Nevertheless, if implemented, it could spell the end of the ridiculous culture of making the children copy-paste laboratory notes and submit entire handwritten booklets only for those to be sold in exchange for onions.