Introducing an inclusive educational curriculum

Children learn during their early days about how to express themselves, read clearly, speak articulately and using pitch and tone in their class presentation and speech in any event. Children at elementary stage also express themselves through writing skills such as creative writing practice, listening to and counting numbers. 'A culture of peace' component should also be included in the educational curriculum to develop tolerance and solidarity in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious classroom, especially in societies which are prone to violence.

Science should be made mandatory in all education systems such as public, Aliya and Qawmi streams from elementary level in order to train up quality workforce, uphold the country's secular status and enlighten its people. Also, for the sake of the young generation in the Qawmi stream and to ensure balance in the country's social mindset, the government needs to be careful about the Qawmi education practice and not promote the stream to solely learn Quranic education. These young madrassa students do not know their future while studying in the stream. Also, there is evidence that these students are also interested to learn science. A large number of students from Qawmi stream are joining Aliya Madrassa to appear SSC exam and are in the process, learning science.

Science, a rationalistic discipline, can not only be a way out of the veil of ignorance, it can also resolve conflict and establish peace.

There is no alternative to bringing all the different education streams under one umbrella of the national curriculum. The government should make mandatory the teaching of national curriculum for all the secular, Qawmi and Aliya streams. All madrassa boards and secular board should sit together to reconcile the two separate madrassa systems and develop an inclusive education system in this 21st century. It is no longer British colonial rule and there should be no problem of funding to teach madrassa students under the national curriculum.

Science education has become imperative for Bangladesh to tackle the different forms of violence stemming from extremist behaviour.

There have been incidents of attacks, killings of science writers, bloggers, rights activists, foreigners and people of other faith. Also, there were many mob attacks on Hindu, Christians, Biharis and members of ethnic communities over the past few years. This is very alarming for sustaining social peace in the country.

The government should encourage Qawmi to join with Aliya and teach national curriculum besides Islamic curriculum, so that this large number of Qawmi students can take part in the local and global markets equally. Inclusive education through rational subjects like science and maths will serve their best interest. They will be able to expand their knowledge in social science subjects and literature as well.

We all want to see a nation that can understand and appreciate the heterogeneous nature of our culture. Children need to learn new techniques on how to avoid religious, cultural, social and political conflicts.

The Education International, a global union federation of teachers' trade unions consisting of 401 member organisations in 172 countries and territories that represents over 30 million education personnel from pre-school through university, noted in an article titled 'Peace Education': "A culture of peace and non-violence goes to the substance of fundamental human rights: social justice, democracy, literacy, respect and dignity for all, international solidarity, respect for workers' rights and core labour standards, children rights, equality between men and women, cultural identity and diversity, Indigenous peoples and minorities rights, the preservation of the natural environment to name some of the more obvious thematic."

Pamelia Khaled is a Doctoral candidate of the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada.

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