Critical thinking means analyzing and evaluating something through reasoning. Since it is one of the key factors for survival in the 21st century, one must know about it.
Why is this a crucial factor?
Often, students in our country fail to apply this skill since, from early childhood, skills like critical thinking are not given priority at schools. Due to that, many students who go abroad for their higher studies struggle to do well in foreign universities. Since this is an essential skill that has great importance in the assessment process of foreign universities, students of our country should adopt this.
What are the Obstacles to Developing Critical Thinking among Bangladeshi Students?
In this blog, four crucial points have been discussed in the context of Bangladesh.
Culture of Dominance:
Since in our schools, students are heavily dominated by the teachers in different ways, skills such as critical thinking cannot be developed. As most of the classrooms are not student-centered, teachers get a chance to impose their ideas and opinions on their students. As a result, it has become one of the significant issues behind the development of critical thinking among Bangladeshi students. Furthermore, in the domestic sphere, adults do not allow children to be opinionated; rather, they decide everything for the children, which often makes them unable to make their own decisions. Along with that, students are expected not to be outspoken. As a result, they grow up resisting their ideas and opinions, which is a barrier to developing their critical thinking.
Rote Memorization:
It is one of the bitter truths that most of the students in our country just memorize things rather than understand them. Students do not want to take any cognitive load or make any efforts to understand topics on a deeper level. As the majority of students just read to pass the exam, they do not try to comprehend things.
Questioning Spirit is Not Encouraged:
In our schools, students are encouraged to have a questioning spirit. Most teachers do not like to answer the questions of their students. Many of them even scold students when they want to know anything. Often, teachers insult students, saying that they lose their curiosity about knowing things and start to be afraid of the teachers. To avoid the embarrassing situation, they do not have that questioning spirit anymore.
Inappropriate Education Policy:
Though the government has been trying to improve the education system, there are still many pitfalls in our education policy. The conventional system does not give students enough room to practice critical thinking. Furthermore, the evaluation system does not have appropriate criteria to evaluate students’ critical thinking.
Day by day, critical thinking is given immense importance, which has become an integral factor in every sector. Many recruiters now enlist this as a crucial factor for the candidates. To get the desired success, one must know how to apply this skill. To keep pace with this fast-changing world, students in our country need to adopt critical thinking so that they do not lag behind.
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Writer
Erina Chowdhury Prome
Intern, Content Writing Department
YSSE