Shortage of teaching aids leaves students reliant on rote learning

A ninth-grade physics class at Dhaka Collegiate School in Old Dhaka. On 19 August, assistant teacher Abdullah Al Nahian was using a simple pendulum to explain the concept of conservation of potential energy. By demonstrating the pendulum’s motion, he was showing students how energy is transformed and conserved.

The students were able to grasp the concept. According to Abdullah Al Nahian, even difficult topics become easier for students to understand when appropriate teaching aids are used in line with the lesson.

The problem is that such a picture is far from common in secondary schools across the country. Many schools lack the necessary teaching aids. In many others, the available materials are not used. Even where teaching aids are available in classrooms, they are often not relevant to the subject being taught.

As a result, questions remain about how much students are actually learning, particularly in subjects such as science. In many cases, students are forced to rely on rote learning rather than understanding concepts.

A recent inspection report by the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE) paints a worrying picture. Between April and June, officials inspected 5,431 secondary schools across the country. Classroom activities were monitored in 2,747 of those schools.

In nearly 57 per cent of the schools, the teaching aids being used were not aligned with the subject matter. The report also found major weaknesses in assessing what students were learning and how much progress they were making. In 52 per cent of the schools inspected, records of continuous assessment were not properly maintained.

The DSHE report identified the use of teaching aids and continuous assessment as the two weakest aspects of the teaching-learning process.

Teachers and education experts say that having teaching aids is not enough; using them properly in the classroom is equally important. If the materials do not correspond to the subject matter, students may struggle to understand the lesson. This can prevent them from achieving the expected learning outcomes and create learning gaps.

The report does not specify what is meant by teaching aids. Teachers, however, provided some examples. The materials vary depending on the subject. In physics, for instance, a simple pendulum can be used to explain the conservation of potential energy. In other science subjects, items such as test tubes, beakers, funnels and measuring cylinders, magnifying glasses, magnets, wires and small bulbs are needed.

A science teacher at a well-known school in Dhaka, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they teach students how to dissect a frog. But this is not done in many schools. As a result, students often have to memorise many scientific concepts without actually understanding them.

To understand the situation in rural and upazila-level schools, Prothom Alo spoke to an assistant inspector in an upazila of Jhenaidah. He said that when he visited a school for an agricultural science class, he found that the teacher in charge was not using any teaching aids.

Asked what kinds of teaching aids should be used for agricultural science, he said, for example, if students are being taught how to plant rice, seedlings can be provided so that they can learn the process hands-on.

There are more than 20,000 secondary-level educational institutions under the DSHE. Every three months, the Monitoring and Evaluation Wing of the DSHE inspects secondary schools through field-level officials under its Digital Monitoring System (DMS).

Between 1 April and 30 June, more than 5,000 schools were inspected across the country as part of the second quarterly monitoring exercise of the year.

The report also contains information on various issues, including whether students have the opportunity to take textbooks home, unauthorised absences of teachers and staff, and allegations of sexual harassment.

Officials of the DSHE’s Monitoring and Evaluation Wing said the director general of the DSHE had been informed of the findings so that necessary measures could be taken.

DSHE Director General Professor Khan Moinuddin Al Mahmud Sohel told Prothom Alo that monitoring was being strengthened and schools were being instructed to ensure that teachers use appropriate and relevant teaching aids during lessons.

Teaching aids available, but not relevant to lessons

The picture is not simply one of classrooms having no teaching aids at all. Of the 2,747 schools inspected by the DSHE, 2,098 had the necessary materials for conducting classroom activities. In other words, most schools had at least some teaching aids.

The major shortcoming, however, lies in how teachers use those materials and how closely they correspond to the lessons being taught.

According to the inspection report, the teaching aids used in 1,557 schools were not relevant to the lessons, while the materials used in 1,190 schools were found to be appropriate.

Dhaka had the highest number of schools using irrelevant teaching aids, at 321. This was followed by Mymensingh with 249, Khulna with 194, Rangpur with 193, Barishal with 153, Chattogram with 135, Rajshahi with 132, Cumilla with 111 and Sylhet with 69.

The report also highlighted the classroom situation at one particular school. During monitoring of a ninth-grade agricultural science class at a school in Shailkupa, Jhenaidah, in the Khulna region, officials found that the teaching aids being used were not relevant to the lesson.

Not only that, the school had none of the materials necessary for conducting the class. No locally sourced, free or discarded materials that could have been used for teaching were visible in the classroom either.

Having teaching aids does not guarantee learning

The use of appropriate teaching aids can prevent lessons from being limited to memorisation. Students can understand concepts more easily by seeing them and gaining practical experience. This can make learning more lasting while also increasing students’ attention and interest and creating opportunities for them to ask questions and participate actively in class.

But having teaching aids and using them effectively are two different things.

Subject-specific guidelines issued by the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) call for the use of appropriate teaching aids in classrooms. The DSHE inspection data, however, show a significant gap between those guidelines and what is actually happening in classrooms.

The report also found that teaching materials made by students as part of learning activities were preserved or displayed in classrooms or schools in around half of the institutions. The remaining schools did not have such materials.

Those concerned with education say this is directly linked to teachers’ skills and preparation. There are gaps in teachers’ access to necessary training, while regular follow-up to determine whether teachers are applying what they have learned after training is also lacking in many cases. As a result, many teachers continue to teach using conventional methods or simply go through the motions.

The shortage of teachers has compounded the problem. When there are not enough teachers for a particular subject, one teacher may have to teach several classes and take on additional responsibilities. This leaves less time for lesson preparation, tracking individual students’ progress, and selecting and using appropriate teaching aids.

The teacher shortage is particularly acute at the secondary level, especially in government secondary schools. According to DSHE data, there are 702 government secondary schools in the country. Of the 15,293 sanctioned posts for assistant teachers, more than 3,000 are vacant. Another 383 posts for headteachers are also vacant.

The shortage of information and communication technology (ICT) teachers has added to the problem. Even 13 years after ICT was made compulsory, separate ICT teacher posts have not been created in government secondary schools. Teachers of mathematics, business studies and science are being trained to teach ICT or are being assigned the subject as an additional responsibility.

A teacher at a government secondary school in Dhaka, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was not an ICT teacher but was nevertheless required to teach the subject. Recently, while he was taking an ICT class, an English teacher was absent, forcing him to manage an English class at the same time.

Education experts say the teacher shortage, lack of training and inadequate monitoring after training cannot be viewed in isolation. Unless the quality of classroom teaching improves, simply providing infrastructure or teaching materials will not produce the desired results.

Lesson planning is also lacking

The purpose of continuous assessment is not simply to assign marks. It is meant to identify what students have understood, where they are struggling and where they need additional support.

According to the DSHE report, learning activities are conducted according to lesson plans in more than 2,000 educational institutions. However, this does not happen in nearly 23 per cent of institutions. In addition, 52 per cent of schools do not properly maintain records of continuous assessment.

This means that in many schools, the process of identifying students who fall behind in a particular subject and providing timely support is weak. As a result, a student may move to the next grade carrying a learning gap from the previous one, which gradually becomes larger and more difficult to address.

Education experts say such gaps do not only affect students’ performance at school. They may also make it difficult for students to understand subjects in higher education and acquire the skills they need in the workplace.

Yet if effective teaching can be ensured in the classroom, a significant portion of students’ learning can be completed at school itself. This could also reduce their dependence on coaching centres and private tutors, those concerned believe.

Coordination is needed

Education experts say that ensuring effective classroom learning requires more than a new curriculum, textbooks or teaching materials. Schools must also have enough teachers, provide needs-based training and regularly monitor whether teachers are actually applying what they learn in training. This could help reduce learning gaps as well as dependence on coaching and private tuition.

Professor SM Hafizur Rahman of the Institute of Education and Research at the University of Dhaka told Prothom Alo that teaching aids are extremely important for achieving learning outcomes. However, he said it is necessary to consider what kinds of learning activities are expected under the curriculum and whether teaching aids are being developed and used accordingly.

According to Hafizur Rahman, there needs to be coordination among what the curriculum demands, how teaching aids are designed, and how classroom teaching is monitored.