Bangladesh’s education system is once again on the brink of a major change. The National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) recently announced a major pivot for the upcoming academic year. Following the July-August 2024 mass uprising, the interim government halted the rollout of the 2023 competency-based curriculum and ordered a return to the 2012 curriculum framework. This transition resulted in significant changes to textbooks, historical narratives, and assessment methods for the academic years of 2025 and 2026.
Now, the BNP government is again extensively revising primary and secondary-level books. The new books will be introduced to incorporate new subjects like “Joyful Learning” and “Sports and Culture.” Historical content, prominently featuring the July 2024 uprising and other key political events, will also be added to the new books.
This restructuring of the curriculum or redesigning of examinations again and again shows intent to modernise learning. Such ambition is not new. The issue, however, does not lie only in the motive for reform but also in its pace.
It has to be acknowledged that the latest wave of reform proposals does not come without merit. BNP government’s 12-point agenda aims at modernising the education system, giving importance to skill-based learning, extension of technical education, enhancement of governance, and re-evaluation of assessment arrangements. Also, there is a renewed focus on how education can be aligned with employability and global competitiveness. Notably, the agenda is an indication of a greater fiscal commitment with plans to increase education spending to five percent of GDP and to allocate up to 15-20 percent of government expenditure to the sector, as indicated in a recent report on the reform roadmap.
If taken in isolation, it will indeed be hard to argue that these are not timely and necessary directions. The difficulty, however, is not necessarily in the ideas themselves, but in the interplay between these ideas and reforms that are already underway. Meanwhile, an alternative set of proposals is also gaining traction: reinventing SSC exams with a revised number of subjects while scrapping previous public exams and re-evaluating structural factors such as subject streams as a part of recent secondary reform plans. Each of these ideas might seem well-intentioned, individually. But together, they run the risk of producing a system in which the change will come more quickly than it can be comprehended, much less sustained.
The actual risk that we need to worry the most about is not the isolated gaps of training or infrastructure, but something less visible to the naked eye: the system’s inability to build institutional memory. Reforms are being rolled out faster than the system can absorb their intended benefits. Teachers are being instructed to adapt to new pedagogical approaches just as they begin to make sense of the previous ones. Students are getting exposed to constantly shifting expectations from the system, often without clarity on how they need to perform or how they will be assessed. Just imagine a child who was a third grader back in 2020; before reaching grade ten in 2027, they will have already gone through at least three different types of education formats. The cost may prove far greater in the years ahead if we hesitate to slow down for a moment and reflect on what these fast, “get-set-go” reforms have actually accomplished so far. And in terms of clarity among the parents, they are also left navigating mixed directions about what new expectation the system has from their children this time.
And finally, if we look at the real scenarios of our schools, they are clearly not getting sufficient time to experiment, adapt, and implement the new practices into their daily operations. What we often fail to comprehend is that there is a thin line between a reform and a restart. If a reform is not continuous, then it does not add up to progress; it just resets the system. When an institute cannot retain what it has already attempted, each new reform risks putting the institute right back at the starting line, rather than arranging a meaningful step forward.
Many of the new ideas being put forward, such as expanding technical education, introducing a third language, reducing high-stakes exams, and promoting skill-based learning, are not intrinsically flawed. To be honest, they beautifully reflect the contemporary global shift that is happening towards a more holistic and employability-focused education.
But, to ensure their success, we also need to shed some light on the context where they are introduced. Educational reforms of Bangladesh from the recent past have echoed elements of systems like Finland’s competency-based curriculum, which was established after years of consultation and phased implementation. Furthermore, suggestions regarding multilingual education and technical pathways resonate with features of India’s National Education Policy 2020, as well as vocational models seen in countries like Germany, among others.
Even though Bangladesh has managed the courage to go down the policy borrowing road, which is actually commendable in this global era, a burning question still hovers over our heads. Are we taking enough actionable initiatives to tackle challenges like overcrowded classrooms, uneven digital access, and persistent reliance on rote learning, like the Finland and India’s education systems have? When such structural hurdles are kept unaddressed, even well-intentioned reforms run profound risks of being performative, introducing changes that sound modern on paper but are limited in reality.
The question, then, is not whether Bangladesh should or should not continue its journey towards reformation but how the reforms should be approached. From where we currently stand, it is no longer enough to just talk about change; we must actively facilitate it. This may require the pace of reforms to be eased, or allowing the system to absorb and start producing results out of what has already been introduced. Piloting ideas before scaling, clarifying assessment structures early, and investing in sustained teacher preparation are surely not freshly brewed recommendations, but they do not stop being essential, especially during phases like this. Just as important is policy continuity that allows time for the stabilisation and development of policy reforms.
We do not have to choose between ambition and caution when we have the chance to bring them together. The true strength of reform exists not only in its vision but also in its ability to take root deep in the classrooms and grow over time. The growing influence of global educational models underscores the critical need for local adaptation. To avoid performative reforms and ensure tangible outcomes, policy customisation must be treated with the same importance as policy borrowing.
Rifat Hossain Digonto is postgraduate student in the Institute of Education and Research (IER) at the University of Dhaka.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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