রিয়াজ উদ্দিন চৌধূরী
প্রধান শিক্ষক
১৮ নভেম্বর, ২০২০ ১১:৪০ অপরাহ্ণ
Can assignment help students at the secondary level?
Can assignment help students at the secondary level?
The idea of assignment has been confined usually to the higher education that implies research work. It entails clarification, analysis and finding out answers of a certain problem. Covid-19 crisis has forced us to bring assignment to secondary level.
In order to avoid health risk, the government stopped the annual
examination for the students of grade six to ten and they have been asked to
submit three assignments each week instead. However, their learning outcomes
will be assessed through this assignment. A total action plan has been
developed on which week which thing will be assessed. Assignments are given to
the students at the beginning of the week and they submit the same to the
schools at the end of the week.
Assignments can be submitted online or the guardians can do it on behalf of the
learners. The assignments include explanatory questions, short question
answers, creative questions, documentary etc. students will have to produce
these on white paper. Teachers are directed to receive the assignments,
evaluate, put their comments and show the students and records to be kept in
the institutions by 31st December 2020. Each and every student from grade six
to nine will have to participate in this chain of events. All the institutions
must keep the records of the students properly as DSHE directed.
The directions say that students can see and download the assignments uploaded
on several platforms including ‘Kishor Batayan’ staying at any part of
the country. However, things don’t happen smoothly. It takes time to upload the
materials and sometimes things are quite missing. It is not an easy task to
invite all the guardians to school and give them assignments for their
children. So, uploading the assignments on certain website might be a
convincing idea to get the students engaged in academic activities during this
crisis hour of Covid-19 and long closure of institutions. To call the guardians
over phone has also seen problems as many guardians are not reachable through
cell phones, many guardian’s cell number was seen blocked or closed. Many
students started working leaving the school who cannot be reached and talked.
The idea of assignment has been confined usually to the higher education that
implies research work. It entails clarification, analysis and finding out
answers of a certain problem. Covid-19 crisis has forced us to bring assignment
to secondary level. Even teachers of this level have little familiarity with it
let alone students. Still, it cannot but be appreciated as it has established a
bridge between the students’ work and book as they had been detached from
academic touch and dealing with text books since the closure of school from the
middle of March. Now the teachers concerned and the school authorities opine
that this assignment could have been given to the students after the closure of
the school that would keep the students in touch with the text books narrowing
the gap and the learning loss the students have already incurred could have
been avoided significantly
The students have become pleased to get such
kind of tasks though at the end of the year. They have started coming close to
the textbooks. In some places, they are coming in contact with the teachers and
schools maintaining safe social distances as they had been out of these touches
for eight months. Now they seem to be pleased. In the rural areas students are
doing these jobs where guardians remain busy. Their coming into contact with
the teachers and school is helping remove their monotony. The students who were
about to drop out will come back to education after getting the assignment.
Assignment develops the creative faculty of the learners and extends their
horizon of thoughts and learning. Many students do not (not all) read the
textbooks because of the availability of readymade answers, prepared answers in
the note and guide books. However, a trend has developed quickly among the
students to deal with the textbooks during this time of receiving and
submitting assignments. But some teachers or individuals have uploaded the
prepared assignments in different social media that is tantamount to using
readymade answers from note and guidebooks that hinder blooming of the creative
faculty of the learners. Definitely students will have to collect information from
different sources to further develop their own writings. However, it can never
be appreciated that students should follow the note and guidebooks to write
their answers directly from there. When it is done, the creativity of the
learners gets spoiled that we never should allow it to happen. In this
perspective the students and guardians should not follow those notes directly.
Students need to go through the basic texts that are much more enjoyable,
authentic and help them retain any idea without any distortion that note and
guide books or prepared answers of third person cannot ensure. Students can
take help from the model assignments that can be uploaded on Youtube or FB but
direct assignment given by DSHE should not be uploaded that will definitely tell
the story of note and guidebooks that will not help the students bloom their
own creativity.
Giving assignment to the students and collecting them from the students of
grade six to ten, putting respective teachers’ comments will redress a little
bit the criticism already developed due to the decision of ‘auto pass’ for the
students of intermediate level. We know that in the management of
examination, we can learn the results but cannot ascertain how much knowledge
actually a student has acquired in a particular subject. Examination is the
determinant of pass or failure in the current assessment system; however, it
does not necessarily determine the real assessment of a learner. In this
perspective, it is far better to introduce ‘assignment’ system which is a part
of gradual or formative assessment as well.
If a teacher provides every bit of information to the students, then their
learning competencies get harmed by this, and education becomes meaningless. So
students are expected to gain knowledge at their home, and clear doubts
regarding different concepts from teachers. It helps them to achieve desired
outcomes through different ways. It offers a good scope to the students to a
great extent to develop their writing skills and abilities along with their imaginative
and mental abilities. Writing assignments provide the opportunity to students
to develop innovative ideas while improving their thinking skills to a
considerable extent.
Assignment writing helps the students develop a habit of exploring different assumptions
and examples about the topic. By means of assignments, students will be able to
conduct research in a detailed manner, and this will help improve their
abilities for research also. Assignment writing helps them learn some
techniques and structures of writing that can be beneficial for them in the
long run. Finally, we can take the opportunity to appreciate the concern the
ministry of education for taking such a laudable step for our future leaders.
Masum Billah
The writer works for BRAC Education.
He is the president of English Teachers’ Association of Bangladesh (ETAB)
Email: [email protected]