Analysis
How a nation’s future unfolds is determined, to a great extent, inside that nation’s classrooms. And the classroom’s quietest yet most powerful teacher is the textbook. If a textbook builds a child’s confidence, a confident nation grows from it. But if it reflects inequality, narrowness or irrational social notions, society bears that damage for many years to come.
For a child, what is written in a textbook is often taken as ultimate truth. According to psychologists, a child’s sense of self-identity and self-worth is built in childhood. Studies worldwide have shown that three sources — school textbooks, teachers and family — play the biggest role in shaping children’s confidence. Textbooks are therefore not merely information; they are instruments of psychological and social construction.
Even today, many in our society still think of cooking, housekeeping or family responsibilities as a woman’s job alone. Yet in the education systems of developed countries, these are treated as life skills. A boy learns to cook just as a girl learns financial planning, technology or leadership. If education does not transform society, it remains merely an exercise in filling out exam sheets.
Our biggest crisis isn’t the textbook itself, but the process of preparing it. In our country, discussion of curriculum change often begins only after the books are already printed. But the question that should be asked is: was there adequate research before the books were even written? The reality is that, in most cases, the entire process is confined to the opinions of a handful of experts at the national level. The real-world experience of teachers, students, parents or researchers on the ground often never reaches the policymaking stage. As a result, a curriculum that looks flawless in an air-conditioned secretariat office fails to match reality once it reaches a classroom in a remote village school. A quality textbook isn’t made sitting in an office; it is built from the combined experience of classrooms, teachers, students and research.
So how should curriculum and textbook development actually work? The time has come to rethink the entire process of curriculum-making in Bangladesh. First, opinions must be gathered from experienced teachers at at least two model educational institutions, one urban and one rural, who actually teach the grade level a textbook is being written for. At the same time, educationists, psychologists, linguists, subject experts and curriculum researchers who have studied that age group’s mental development, language ability and learning methods must be brought in.
After that, a draft curriculum should be prepared and published across various media, education-related websites and open digital platforms, so teachers, parents, students, researchers and ordinary citizens have an opportunity to give reasoned feedback.
The new curriculum and textbooks should first be introduced on a trial basis for at least one year. For this purpose, a national online curriculum feedback platform could be launched, where registered teachers submit feedback, problems and proposed solutions in a set format. Researchers and curriculum experts would then analyze that feedback. After necessary revisions, the final curriculum would be approved.
Looking at the world’s leading education systems, one thing becomes clear: a curriculum is never built in a single day.
In Finland, after the national core framework is developed, local education authorities and schools adapt the curriculum to match their own realities. Teachers are not merely implementers; they are also partners in curriculum development.
In Singapore, years of research, piloting, teacher training and continuous evaluation take place before a new curriculum is introduced. The education ministry, universities, teachers and schools work together.
In Australia, the draft curriculum is opened for public opinion during preparation. The final version is published after analyzing feedback from thousands of teachers, researchers, parents and citizens.
In the United Kingdom too, revising the national curriculum follows a long process of extensive consultation, research and gathering public opinion.
The experience of these countries teaches us that the durability of an education system comes from participatory decision-making, not the centralization of power. A country’s government can change. Its political philosophy can change too. But a textbook should never become a laboratory for a new ideology every few years. What a student needs is stability, research-based knowledge and impartial history. Because education is not the sole property of any one ministry; education is a nation’s collective conscience. And the most reliable document of that conscience should be our textbooks.