Our experience shows that whenever a new government takes office, it takes on the task of changing the curriculum, which is a gigantic undertaking, but we hardly think it can be done immediately or by putting quick pressure on the relevant people. The present government is also doing the same and wants to provide one tab to all teachers. Is that a solution?
However, the curriculum should indeed be aligned with the current global situation so that learners can become familiar with it and adapt to these changes. Their course of study and way of learning should align with the global scene and practicality, so that students can support themselves by applying the knowledge and skills they develop in their academic life.
So, it calls for revision at specific intervals, not a drastic change all the time, which sounds exciting but is practically unreasonable. Putting forward the idea of changing the entire curriculum, terming the existing one as quite obsolete, lacks any justification. We need to ensure proper and smooth teaching learning situation ranging from classroom to the national stage but this area experiences serious negligence as we think changing entire curriculum is the only solution!
A curriculum is a comprehensive, long-term, and broad educational framework that defines overall learning goals, methods, and assessments for a total education program. In contrast, a syllabus is a subject-specific, detailed, and short-term outline of topics covered, often designed by individual teachers for a specific semester or term.
A syllabus gives specific details about a course or subject, while a curriculum is a broad framework that describes the objectives and organisation of educational institutions and programs. It so happens in our country that a teacher may not see the centrally developed curricula in his/her life.
Teachers focus solely on completing the syllabus prescribed by individual institutions rather than ensuring understanding; examinations emphasise predictable recall; and students’ progress is even without a proper grasp of the courses or topics they study. Even many teachers do not have a clear understanding of the curriculum. They know, see and deal with syllabi and textbooks.
Textbooks serve as essential tools in the educational process, offering a range of functions that support both teaching and learning. Through the textbooks, the aims and objectives of the overall educational goals are designed to be reached.
Most teachers have very little or no familiarity with this fact. When a new initiative to change the curriculum at considerable cost is taken, it hardly reaches the teachers, let alone the students. An excellent vacuum lies between these layers and stakeholders that our policymakers never think about.
Their thoughts revolve around a different world where the curriculum stands on its own, while teachers and students move at their own pace. No bridging ever appears here.
While unveiling a 12-point policy agenda at a press conference at the Ministry of Education in the Secretariat on 19 February 2026, our state minister for education noted that in recent years, allocation had hovered around 12 per cent of the national budget and roughly 1.5 to 2 per cent of GDP, which he described as a structural limit.
Referring to international norms, he added that countries typically spend 4 to 6 per cent of GDP and 15 to 20 per cent of total public expenditure on education. Under a medium-term budget framework, the education ministry will work with the finance ministry to prepare a three-year fiscal uplift plan. Around 53 per cent of the secondary and higher education development fund remained unspent last fiscal year and was returned.
This is not only a financial failure; it is a loss of time and opportunity for students. To address this, he said, the ministry plans to realign project approval and annual development program processes with the school calendar, introduce milestone-based cash releases instead of equal instalments, and ensure early procurement planning through the electronic government procurement system. These two proposals retain merit. However, only their successful implantation will make us really smile, not now.
We tried to draw the new government’s attention as soon as it assumed office to bring the students back to the classroom, where they had left it many years earlier, even though we ignored this fact, and this issue reached its peak after the July Uprising. Then other points should come gradually. Curriculum is not the problem! The problem is the great vacuum that has developed in the learning situation and needs to be addressed.
Maybe our new Education Minister listened to our first request. So he has announced three immediate priorities for the sector, such as creating conditions to bring students back to classrooms, reviewing the national curriculum, and modernising technical education, even though he hinted that the curriculum would be changed entirely.
Our biggest problem is the teaching-learning situation, which is totally mismatched. Sound teaching is ensured through teachers, students, guardians, the school environment, and the social environment. All these elements call for serious attention from society and the state.
Why does teaching not take place? Students frequently miss class because they show little interest in it. Why that? Teachers’ teaching style is neither attractive nor thoughtful. Next, students can pass the examination regardless of what they write in the script.
Even if they write a cock and bull story in any subject without answering what is asked, they pass in the examination even with a good grade, due to indirect or silent pressure from the authorities to make them pass well, just to fatten the number, not quality. When this is the situation, students lose interest or show no obligation to attend classes.
When students are quite irregular in class, teachers also show the same attitude. This area needs an overhaul, research, and pragmatic steps to make the teaching-learning situation much more effective. The questions should be developed very creatively, which most of our teachers cannot do.
So, they take help from different sources. Even in the board examination, questions come from the notes and guidebooks. I must say, note and guide books are not responsible for that—teachers’ abhorrence to read anything or do anything by employing their own labour and industry and intelligence. The new government must take practical steps first in these cases.
Questions in public examinations must not be stereotyped. The question set in one institution or board is followed by other institutions year after year. Neither the school nor the teachers, guardians, and authorities bother about it. As a result, this assessment never accurately reflects the students’ true merit.
We know ‘O’ Level and ‘A’ Level test questions never get repeated, but the questions of our public examination are repeated again and again. Any teacher or coaching centre can easily forecast which questions will be set next year. When they do it successfully, that is claimed as great coaching or a great teacher, where no intelligence or creativity is exposed.
Many conventionally successful students struggle to read with confidence; mathematics feels too mechanical; and concepts memorised for examinations fade quickly. This is hardly a failure on the children’s part, but a predictable outcome of an ineffective system that needs to be addressed, not just by changing the curriculum.
The “One Teacher, One Tab” initiative is a promise made by the new education ministers to ensure that every teacher has a dedicated tab for lesson planning, attendance, and tracking learning evidence. The promise is part of a broader effort, as they say, to modernise the education system and enhance the quality of education in the country.
Under the initiative, which is a pedagogical reform introducing digital literacy, AI awareness, and cyber safety, every teacher will be given a tab.
The initiative sounds very exciting, but it reminds me of two events that happened to me personally. BRAC Education introduced it around 2005-6 in 70 schools as a pilot program, and the dedicated BRAC officials who lived close to the schools used to look after the schools and provide all-out support to the teachers.
The teachers were also given residential training at BRAC Training Centres. However, did not work well even after one year. A similar experience when I worked as Country Director at VAB Bangladesh (an NGO dedicated to developing rural education), which introduced the same program.
To my utter surprise, teachers filed complaints every week about their tabs. Students were also given the same. Countless problems arose almost every day, and finally, the program turned into a fiasco. The same type of program our new education ministers promised to introduce! I am afraid that when dedicated NGO people absolutely failed to continue it in a limited area, the government desires to do it.
Moreover, it has no soothing effect on students or teachers. Several developed countries even backtracked on this step due to their health and social problems. Are we going to encourage that aspect?
About the Author
Masum Billah works as a President of the English Teachers' Association of Bangladesh (ETAB), Dhaka, Bangladesh. He previously worked as an Education Specialist at BRAC, an international NGO in Bangladesh.
