August 6, 2025
DHAKA – If Bangladesh’s national curriculum were a recipe, it would go something like this: take a bright, curious child, add 12 years of rote memorisation, sprinkle in fear of GPA disasters, mix well with coaching centre propaganda, and bake under pressure until all signs of individuality are thoroughly extinguished. Serve cold, preferably with a side of exam-induced anxiety that manifests as vehement vomiting or diarrhoea.
But what if I told you that, after all this academic seasoning, the finished product barely qualifies as half-baked on the global scale? According to the World Bank, Bangladesh’s Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) is now functionally equivalent to Grade 7 internationally. Yes, after 12 years of schooling, our students are emerging five years behind the global standard. That’s not a learning gap, it’s a canyon and not the grand kind.
Despite noble intentions and plenty of committees with acronyms longer than novels, our national curriculum still operates on one central principle: education is less about learning and more about surviving a system designed to test memory rather than meaning. The National Curriculum Framework 2021 promised to revolutionise education through “competency-based learning,” “integrated assessments,” and “lifelong learning skills.” Lovely. But much like my New Year’s resolution to take up pilates, the intentions are there—just not the follow-through.
The truth is that the curriculum continues to reward regurgitation over reflection. Want proof? Open any board exam script. You’ll find students rewarded for copying textbook paragraphs verbatim.
Science, meanwhile, is less about discovering the world and more about memorising definitions like a corporate compliance manual. Religion is taught as moral absolutes with minimal room for interpretation. And civic education—formally lumped into “Bangladesh and Global Studies”—remains stuck in the glorious past of the Liberation War, with little engagement on democratic values, constitutional rights or climate justice. The idea that a student might question why freedom of expression is only celebrated in textbooks and not tolerated in classrooms is, frankly, revolutionary—and not in a way the authorities would appreciate.
And speaking of values: where is the conversation around consent, gender equity or mental health? We have an entire generation going through puberty with the emotional intelligence of a brick because the word “sex” still sends policymakers into a shameful panic. There is no comprehensive sex education, no guidance on bodily autonomy, and no meaningful engagement with the reality of gender-based violence. But sure, let’s spend three pages explaining types of sedimentary rocks.
If we are to believe the curriculum is designed to prepare children for the 21st century, then can someone please explain why financial literacy, digital safety, media misinformation, and climate adaptation are still missing from the syllabus?
To be fair, the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) has tried to modernise. The new curriculum for classes 1-5, launched in 2023, ditches final exams and introduces continuous assessment. It also encourages thematic learning across disciplines. But implementation has been chaotic. Teachers remain undertrained, class sizes balloon, and textbooks are riddled with errors. According to the 2022 BRAC Education Watch report, only 23 percent of primary school teachers had received in-depth training in competency-based instruction.
And let’s not forget the elephant in the classroom: inequality. Students in elite urban schools get smart classrooms, extracurriculars, and debate clubs. Meanwhile, rural schools still lack toilets, let alone trained teachers for integrated learning. The English version of the national curriculum is marginally better resourced, but it still suffers from the same outdated pedagogy, just in awkwardly translated English.
The truth is, we need an education system that doesn’t just manufacture employees or engineers, but nurtures citizens to become curious, compassionate, and capable of questioning the status quo without fearing that a red pen will ruin their future. This means reimagining the entire philosophy of the curriculum. Ditch rote learning entirely. Revamp textbooks to pose questions, not just provide model answers. Reward analysis over memorisation. Infuse classrooms with real-life context.
Teachers are the backbone of this transformation, and they must be treated as such. This means proper pay, professional development, and pedagogical freedom—not just strict instructions to finish the syllabus like a robot with a whistle. It also means democratising the curriculum design process. Right now, it’s a top-down exercise dominated by bureaucrats, where educators, psychologists, parents, and—dare we suggest—students have minimal input. The 2024 textbook controversy, where glaring errors and politically sanitised omissions made headlines, should be a wake-up call for genuine transparency and public review.
We also need to audit the relevance of the curriculum. Why are children still learning about out-of-date agricultural production figures instead of sustainable farming practices? Why are their moral lessons framed around obedience, but not empathy or ethics in the digital age? Why is Life Skills Education an occasional workshop rather than a core subject that includes mental health, climate resilience, conflict resolution, and the basics of being a functional adult?
Until these questions are taken seriously, underneath those perfect GPAs and patriotic essays will remain a grim truth: we are handing out Grade 12 certificates for a Grade 7 education.
We can either keep producing graduates who top the charts but bottom out on creativity, confidence, and critical consciousness, or we can start treating our children like future leaders. But for that, we need a curriculum that doesn’t just pass the exam but passes the test of life.