Leadership Vision and Values Underpin
in Bangladesh Primary Level
Curriculum
By
Hossain Mohammad Amran
Education Officer
Directorate of Primary Education
Dhaka, Bangladesh
An Essay submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the Degree of MSc Education in the School of Education
University of the West of Scotland, United Kingdom
Submission date: 12-May-2018 11:51PM (UTC+0100)
Submission ID: 89036638
1
Leadership Vision and Values underpin in Bangladesh Primary Level Curriculum
Abstract
The Curriculum is the heart of an education system and it is a plan of learning consisting with
basic principles and features. In curriculum, vision and values are central issue of both the
theory of education and the practical activities of schools. Educational leadership is a process
to make policy and change activities with inspiring and motivating a group of people towards
a common goal. The purpose of the essay is to explore the place of vision and values in
Bangladesh primary level curriculum with examine transformational leadership practice. The
scope of the essay is to review leadership vision and values; concept and design of
curriculum; relationship vision and values to primary level curriculum; leadership barriers;
transformational leadership and leadership practice in Bangladesh primary education setting.
The University of the West of Scotland sponsored MSc Education module guided literature,
studies and official documents are reviewed for developing the essay. Leadership vision and
values are underpinned in Bangladesh primary level curriculum and the initiated education
programme. The central-led leadership practice is one of the barriers to achieve the vision
and values of the curriculum and policy should be reformed and developed multi-professional
development packages to ensure the quality of primary education.
Introduction
Education is a central force in society to take part in a significant function in the shaping of
future generations. The curriculum of education has a powerful legal basis and represents an
important social requirement which sits at the very heart of the education system. Educational
leadership is taken extremely seriously across the globe and governments are involved in
educational reform for improving the quality of leadership (Bottery 2004). The main
argument of the essay is to explore the place of vision and values in influencing curriculum
design in Bangladesh and to examine transformational leadership and its practical application
in an educational setting. In light of the argument the scope of the essay is- (i) to review
leadership visions and values, and concept and design of curriculum; (ii) to explore
relationship of vision and values to primary level curriculum of Bangladesh with a focus of
leadership barriers to achieve curriculum’s vision; and (iii) to investigate transformational
leadership and leadership practice in Bangladesh primary education with emphasis on an
educational setting. The limitation of the assignment is that the essay is developed by
2
following the MSc Education module instruction with guided literature, studies and official
documents of Bangladesh government.
Leadership Vision and Values in Education
The concept of leadership: Leadership is a composite term, used in discussion in many
organisations, as a key successive indicator. This term has been defined by many researchers
mostly as a socially interactive process or a process of influence (Bush, 2010) to a group of
people to reach a targeted objective (Northouse, 2016). Similarly, it is a holistic process for
involving leaders and followers to interact in different social perspectives (Cammock, 2001
cited in Salahuddin, 2011). In light of the above, leadership is an integrated process by which
a person convinces the followers to carry out the task to achieve specific mission vision and
goal by motivating, guiding and leading them within a social context.
Educational leadership: Educational leadership is vital phenomenon for developing the
system and improving pedagogy to ensure its outcomes. The terms ‘educational leadership’ is
a process to make policy and change organisations activities for achieving the goals. In fact,
often educational leaders are not only involved in policy making but also managed the
activity to achieve the goals (Bush, 2008). Consequently, educational leadership is the ability
to inspire and motivate a group of people including students and teachers towards a common
goal where a leader has an opportunity to formulate and change the policy including plan and,
strategies.
Vision: Vision is an important issue of leadership, training, and development in education. A
vision is a mental procedure of an ideal and a guiding philosophy which provides people with
meaning and purpose. Leaders and visionaries have a deep understanding of their goals,
values, and mission in life, and that this understanding is the basis for everything they do
(Northouse, 2016). The characteristics of a vision – a picture, a change, values, a map, and a
challenge – is illustrated forward to articulate and implement of a vision in the studies of
Nanus (1992), and Zaccaro and Banks (2001) (cited in Northhouse, 2016). He briefly
describes that- (i) A vision builds a picture of future that creates faith on followers to act with
more exciting, affirming and inspiring than previous which is treated as leader’s credibility to
lead others effectively; (ii) Change inspires to move an organisation or a system forward
positively and helps to strengthen followers to meet a new goal; (iii) Values of leader or
3
organisation make an important role to advocate a positive change, set new ideals for
building human dignity; (iv) A vision provides a map to conceive the goals with values of an
organisation to direct the followers are on track to perform; (v) Visions challenge people to
commit themselves to move self-interest to work for greater perspective. So that vision gives
direction to the people to achieve the goals and also challenges for people to commit
themselves to a greater common good.
Values: In curriculum, values are a central issue of both the theory of education and the
practical activities of schools. Values are considered as “good” (e.g. beauty, truth, love,
honesty, loyalty) within the preference of individual or social (Halstead and Monica, 1996).
Though “in diverse communities, values and interests differ” (Murphy, 2016, p. 40), “the
ideas, beliefs, and modes of action that peoples find desirable” (Northouse, 2015, p. 151) in
everywhere. As found above, values are considering as being both emotional obligations and
thought of ideas about worth.
The linking vision to values: Values underpin in vision because one of the most important
characteristics of vision is values. Vision is the ‘what' the picture of the future we seek to
create and while values are the ‘how' we act to achieve our vision (Mirvis, Googins and
Kinnicutt, 2010). Generally, the term values are used to refer to principles, fundamental
convictions, ideals, standards or life stances for guiding our behaviour, decision-making,
beliefs or action with a close connection to individual integrity and identity, are in vision.
Leadership Barriers in Education
Leadership barriers derive to fail to achieve the goal of an educational organisation. Mostly it
would be happened due to leader's ignorance and incredibility on the process and functions as
prescribed. Sometimes leaders are standing on refusing help and not asking the right things
and inability to face the power dynamics of leadership (Kirland and Sutch, 2009). They
address two orders of leadership barriers: (i) external barriers are the challenges to adoption
of new practices that come about due to the environment in which the innovation is
introduced, such as a lack of access to resources; a lack of time; a lack of effective training;
or technical problems; and (ii) Internal barriers which are based more on the perceptions and
attitudes of the people involved.
4
Policies are often the biggest barriers to change the things and add something new to a system
(Krueger, 2014). Differently, he presents three barriers to pressing difficulties which are
education leaders generally face: (i) Community resistance; (ii) Lack of access; and (iii)
Policies. He also argues that without the involvement of all education stakeholders (e.g.
parents, students, teachers, and administrators), initiatives will never reach its full potential.
The Concept and Theory of Curriculum
A curriculum is a course of study in an educational institution, consisting of essential
principles and features. According to NCTB (2004), the curriculum is the heart of an
education system, which focuses on plan and implementation strategies including activities
and instructions. Somehow, the curriculum is a plan for learning and it is composed all the
experiences children have under the guidance of the teacher as (Caswell & Campbell, 1935;
Taba, 1962 cited in DPE, 2014). A misconception about curriculum, it is often used wrongly
as synonymous with a syllabus, which is, in fact, the term for curriculum content. Removing
the misunderstanding, keep in mind the key elements of the curriculum, as guided by the
influential theorist, Ralph W. Tyler (1902-1994). He outlined four key elements of a
curriculum as: objectives or purposes; content or subject matter; methods or procedures;
assessment or evaluation (cited in Kelly, 2004). Concisely, curriculum provides a direction to
plan all the organised activities of a school along with its purposes, objectives, and
instructions.
In this regard, the theory of curriculum is important because it could guide teaching,
curriculum development, policy formulation, administration, and research. Curriculum theory
is an integrated cluster of sets of analyses, interpretations, and understandings of curriculum
phenomena (McCutcheon, n.d.). He added that curriculum theory must be drawn from a
variety of disciplines, such as psychology and sociology, as well as concentrating on
curriculum studies to build relationships between schools and societies with incorporating
values and ideals.
The Vision for Primary Level Curriculum of Bangladesh
National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) of Bangladesh is responsible for
developing primary level curriculum. In 2011-12 NCTB revised the existing competency-
based primary level curriculum incorporation with social, national and global needs as
5
instructed by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2010, which is carrying out from 2013
(NCTB, n.d.). By following the constitution of the country the NEP 2010 stated that “Primary
education will be universal, compulsory, free and of uniform quality for all” (MoE, 2010, p.
12). In light of the direction, Third Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP3)
settled its goal to provide the “quality education for all our children” (DPE, 2015, p. iii). The
NEP 2010 also stated that “Curriculum is the heart of education, so it should represent the
national ideals and values, aims and objectives, and contemporary needs. On the other, it also
needs to be prepared by taking into account the age, merit, and receptive ability of the
learners” (MoE, 2010, p. 69).
Values Underpin in the Vision of Primary Level Curriculum
More values are reflected in the curriculum of primary level of Bangladesh, underpinned the
vision as defined in the previous section. The NEP 2010 stated some of the values in its
primary education section’s, for example: moral and spiritual values like idea of justice, sense
of duty, discipline and etiquettes, non-communalism, human rights, curiosity, friendliness
and perseverance, and to encourage them to acquire scientific, cultural and human values and
to shun superstitions; the spirit of national liberation movement and patriotism (MoE, 2010).
By following the NEP direction PEDP3 is being approached through the specific objective:
“to establish an efficient, inclusive and equitable primary education system delivering
effective and relevant child-friendly learning to all Bangladesh’s children from pre-primary
through Grade-five primary” (DPE, 2015, p. iii). Alongside, curriculum values also addressed
in its 13 objectives in line with the aim, identified as vision. In this regard, the speech of the
NCTB Chairperson in the preface of the textbooks is: “Topics and themes have been selected
in a way that would not only help students address the needs of real-life situations but would
also inculcate humanistic values in them as well as broaden their mental horizon” (Haque,
2013, p. 324), able to justify values are linked with the vision.
The Process of Curriculum Design and Development
The NCTB is responsible to review the existing curriculum; revise and renew curriculum;
revise Textbooks and teachers guide; develop teaching aids and formative and summative
assessment tools; and conduct curriculum dissemination training and training on assessment
with following the instruction of the NEP 2010 and the guideline of the PEDP3 (DPE, 2015).
A competency-based curriculum is designed for Bangladesh primary education with its one
6
large aim described in the previous section. To achieve the goal, 13 objectives and 29
terminal competencies are fixed in the primary level curriculum. Subject-wise (11 subjects)
competencies are disseminated in class and subject wise attainable objectives which are
narrow down in lesson-wise learning outcomes (NCTB, n.d.).
As part of the design and development of curriculum, curriculum reform committees are
formed with the assimilation of different stakeholder's specialist group including teachers,
teacher trainers, and teacher educators. During development of curriculum, different
committees are responsible to address NEP’s aim and objectives, national and international
priorities, review the regional countries curriculum to formulate the aim, and objectives and
competencies. Many workshops, seminar, and symposium are arranged in large scale to
validate the things for incorporating with it (Sedere, 2011). The national committee,
Specialist committee, and subject committees are controlling the total issues including
monitoring the regular tri-out of existing curriculum and instructional materials and needs
assessment initiatives (NCTB, 2004).
The Concept and Key Components of Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership theory is a prominent representative of the new theories that
have occupied centre stage in leadership research in the last two decades (Dvir et al., 2002).
This leadership involves an exceptional form of influence that moves followers to accomplish
more as like charismatic and visionary leadership (Northouse, 2016). Concisely,
transformational leadership is a process that changes and transforms people, concerns with
emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals. The vision is a focal point for
transformational leadership. It is common for transformational leaders to create a vision and
followers are attracted to that type of leaders because it makes sense to them (Northouse,
2016).
Transformational leadership has been shown to have a positive relationship with performance
as found from the above definition. Dvir et al. (2002) are building a conceptual framework
for transformational leadership with encompassing three main domains of follower
development: motivation, morality, and empowerment. Bennis and Nanus (1985) identified
7
four common strategies – vision, social architects, trust, and creative deployment of self –
used by leaders in transforming organisations (cited in Northouse, 2016). Based on an
awareness of their own competence, effective leaders were able to immerse themselves in
their tasks and the overarching goals of their organisations (Northouse, 2016). According to
Bass (1985), he describes briefly the four auxiliary indicators of an effective transformational
leader, as (i) Idealised influence of leaders allows them to provide a clear vision for
followers, act as strong role models with have the high standards of ethical and moral conduct
which is respected and trusted indeed; (ii) With Inspirational motivation, Leaders
communicate high expectations, inspire followers to commit to the vision and enhance team
spirit through collegiate decision making; (iii) Intellectual stimulation of leaders helps
followers see the big picture and how they connect to the leader, organisation and the goal
where they encourage followers to reflect on beliefs and values and how these translate into
action; and (iv) Individualised consideration derives leaders to coach and mentor staff and
delegate to promote growth.
Leadership Practice in Bangladesh Primary Education
Bangladesh Primary Education is sponsored and leaded by the Ministry of Primary and Mass
Education (MoPME) with controlling the Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) and other
Institutions involved in activities of primary education, like NCTB, National Academy for
Primary Education (NAPE), Bureau of Non-Formal Education (BNFE) and Local
Government Engineering Department (LGED). As an executive organisation DPE has the
mandate to implement the PEDP3 at school level with a coordination and contribution of its
divisional, district and Upazila level offices, institutions and centres (DPE, 2015). The
Organisational Development and Capacity Building Guidebook (ODCBG) of DPE is a
“strategic, substantive, systemic, functional and developmental framework and process as a
guide in leading and managing organisation and institutional change, reforms and
transformation for quality improvement in primary education” (DPE, 2017, p. 10). The
programme document PEDP3 and the report of the ODCBG describe roles and
responsibilities of all staff from DPE to school teachers whereas the ODCBG distinguishes
their leader, managerial, executive and supervisory roles to perform for ensuring primary
education to succeed (DPE, 2015: DPE, 2017). The report also mentioned that “ professional
training and development provided for teachers, officers and staff at various levels are
rationalised based on frameworks that reflect the developmental trends in professional
8
development, change leadership, effective management, and current strategies on pedagogy,
andragogy, curriculum and instruction development, as well as communication and
information technology” (DPE, 2017, p.11).
Education Setting of the DPE Link with Transformational Leadership
The strategic objective of the DPE is to expand universal inclusive primary education for
ensuring quality education with a focus on School Level Improvement Plan (SLIP). The main
function of the organisation is to prepare and implement the primary education policy and
curriculum and conduct primary education-related research and training programme (DPE,
2015). The DPE is responsible to promote and articulate the purpose-vision-mission of
primary education to all stakeholders, and lead and provide administrative directions and
management of resources. The organisation also dedicates to inspire and motivate staff at all
levels as well as encourage all stakeholders at different levels to take an active part in school
operations (DPE, 2017). The Director-General of DPE exercises the defined roles, functions,
responsibilities and accountabilities with the help of the Director, Deputy Director, Assistant
Director, Education Officer and Research Officer who are acted as agents for change and
innovation. Such designated leaders are responsible for implementing the leadership
visionary roles as described above which are the responsibilities of the DPE through training,
workshop, seminar, symposium, and during the school, office, institution or centre visit and
inspection, which show the linking with the transformational leadership.
Barriers to Implement Primary Level Curriculum
As a developing country, Bangladesh faces particular challenges in educating its citizens for
sustainable development among-with most crucial problems, such as extreme population
density, poverty and illiteracy, political unsteadiness, corruption, fragile ecology and limited
natural resources (Howes, 2006; cited in Haque, 2013). The large educational system of the
country is highly centralised with decision-making and management concentrated (Manzoor
and Rahman, 2016). They argued, the curriculum is a burden in weak continuity and
articulation through grades. Moreover, “primary schools too often consist of teachers with
old-fashioned pedagogy, a lack of academic guidance and supervision, and a rigid
curriculum” (DPE 2015, p. 56). Besides, at various levels of the DPE system indicators show
lack of clarity of roles and functions, inadequate experience and expertise in primary
9
education, lack of training and middle level management with inadequate capacity for
attaining the demands of the PEDP3 (DPE, 2017).
Recommendations
Several barriers are found in Bangladesh primary level curriculum implementation and in
leadership functions as stated in previous section. To remove the barriers and reduce the
shortcomings researchers and experts suggested for achieving the curriculum vision and
values. The NEP 2010 suggested that the efficiency of NTCB must be improved with
professionally skilled and trained personnel and for upgrading the curriculum and textbooks,
highly experienced, efficient and retired specialists will be appointed as advisors (MoE,
2010). The NCTB has to select Team Leaders from NCTB staff for each of the subjects and
bring in experienced primary educators and subject experts to work with the NCTB Team
Leaders (Sedere, 2011, p. 9).
Conclusion
As a course of study curriculum, has become a dynamic process to ensure the positive change
of the citizen to form a better society. Leadership or educational leadership or
transformational leadership is important to develop and implement the curriculum
successfully along with vision and values. The NCTB is responsible for developing
curriculum, instructional materials and publishing textbooks with following the NEP
instructions and DPE guidelines, where expected vision and values are addressed. Mainly,
DPE is responsible for executing and implementing the primary education programme with
emphasis on the curriculum at schools to support and contribute to its institutions and offices,
and school-based SMC, PTA and SLIP committees. But with the PEDP3 vision and values,
DPE has made lofty aspirations and dream with daunting challenges of a centralised system
which reduces effectiveness and responsiveness to demands of quality service delivery at the
school level (DPE, 2017).
As a central-led education system leadership practice in Bangladesh primary education are
following top to bottom cascade leadership model and it is typically related to
transformational leadership. In fact, in the education system or procedures of curriculum
implementation, no leadership type is officially declared in Bangladesh. So, transformational
leadership, enhanced by training, can augment the development of human resources and their
10
performance in a variety of organisational contexts Dvir et al., 2002). In end, remind in
external and internal orders of educational leadership barriers, policy should be reformed and
developed multi-professional development packages to build excellent staffs to ensure the
quality of primary education in success.
11
References
Bass, B. M., and Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational Leadership (2nd ed.). Mahwah:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bottery, M. (2004) The Challenges of Educational Leadership: Values in a Globalized Age.
PCP.
Bush, T. (2008) Theories of Educational Leadership and Management. 4th Ed. London: Sage.
Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) (2014) Resource Book for URC Officers’
Professional Development Training.Dhaka.
Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) (2015) Revised Program Document of Third
Primary Education Development Program (PEDP3). Dhaka.
Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) (2017) DPE Organizational Development and
Capacity Building Guidebook (ODCBG) Edited and Updated. Dhaka.
Dvir, T. et al. (2002) Impact of Transformational Leadership on Follower Development and
Performance: A Field Experiment. Academy of Management Journal2002. Vol. 45 No. 4. pp.
735-744.
Halstead, J. M. and Monica, J. T. (ed.) (1996) Values in Education and Education in Values.
Falmer Press. Bristol.
Haque, F. (2013) Educational for Sustainable Development: An Evaluation of the New
Curriculum of the Formal Primary Education in Bangladesh. European Scientific
Journal/Special. edn. vol 1. ISSN: 1857-7881.
Kelly, A. V. (2004) A Curriculum Theory and Practice. 5th edn. SAGE publication. London.
Kirkland, K. and Sutch, D. (2009) Overcoming the barriers to educational innovation: A
literature review. [Online] Available:
https://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/FUTL61/FUTL61.pdf [accessed: 17 April 2018].
Krueger, N. (2014) Standards Leadership. [Online] available:
https://www.iste.org/explore/ArticleDetail?articleid=98 [Accessed: 17 April 2018].
Manzoor, M. and Rahman, M. M. (2016) SDG4/Education 2030 and 7th Five-Year Plan of
Bangladesh:Aligning National and Global Objectives Strategies and Indicators. Bangladesh
Educational Journal. [Online] Available: http://bdplatform4sdgs.net/wp-
content/uploads/2016/08/SDG-Education-2030-and-7-Five-Year-Plan-of-Bangladesh.pdf.
[Accessed 11 May 2018].
McCutcheon, G. ( n.d.) What in the World is Curriculum Theory?. [Online] Available: (site
address needed) [Accessed: 17 April 2018].
Ministry of Education (MoE) (2010) National Education Policy 2010. Dhaka.[Online]
Available: https://reliefweb.int/report/bangladesh/national-education-policy-2010-enbn.
[Acessed 05 April 2018].
12
Mirvis, P., Googins, B. and Kinnicutt, S. (2010) Vision, mission, values: Guideposts to
sustainability Philip. Organizational Dynamics (2010) 39, 316—324. [Online] Available:
file:///C:/Users/COMPAQ/Downloads/Vision_mission_values.pdf. [Accessed 19 April 2018].
Murphy, D. (2016) Leadership in a democratic society. In: O’Brien, J. (eds.) School
Leadership. 3rd Ed. London: Dunedin. pp. 37-44.
National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) (2004) Report on Primary Level
Curriculum for 2002-2003. Dhaka.
National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) (n.d.) [Online] Available:
https//www.nctb.gov.bd [Accessed: 17 April 2018].
Northouse, P. (2015) Introduction to Leadership Concepts and Practice. London: Sage, pp.
149-162.
Northouse, P. G. (2016) Introduction to Leadership: Concepts and Practice. Sage Publication.
Salahuddin, A. N. M. (2011) Perceptions of Effective Leadership in Bangladesh Secondary
Schools: Moving Towards Distributed Leadership?. Masters level thesis. College of
Education. The University of Canterbury Christchurch. New Zealand.
Sedere, U. M. (2011) Guidelines for Curriculum Review and Development of National
Curriculum and Textbook Board – Bangladesh. Institute of Educational Development, BRAC
University, Dhaka. [Online] Available: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED533200.pdf.
[Accessed 21 April 2018].
13
