Curricular and Pedagogical Transformation
Profile of Professor M. Tariq Ahsan, PhD
Profile Web: http://www.du.ac.bd/faculty/faculty_details/IER/909
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NYMZExIAAAA
Mohammad
Tariq Ahsan has been working at the Institute of Education and Research (IER)
of the University of Dhaka since 2001. Tariq completed his PhD on teacher
preparation for inclusion in education from Monash University, Australia in
2015 under the Australian Government’s prestigious Australian Leadership Awards
(ALAs) proogramme. He did a Master’s from the Flinders University of South
Australia in 2004-05 under the Australian Development Scholarship (ADS)
programme. He has another Master’s on Education and a Bachelor of Education
(Honours) degree with high achievement and merit position from the IER,
University of Dhaka. Tariq served as the Chairman of the Department of Special
Education and Inclusion at IER, University of Dhaka in 2006-2007. Though Dr.
Ahsan’s academic career is based in Bangladesh, he put his footsteps regionally
and internationally in the areas of Educational Change and Pedagogical Reform towards
transformative skills, Digital Transformation in Education, Equity and
Inclusion in education, and Teacher preparation for futuristic education
through his research, teaching, policy reform initiatives, advocacy and
networking. Dr. Ahsan’s diversified career journey represents some unique and
solid contribution in the following areas
Curricular and Pedagogical Transformation
Dr.
M. Tariq Ahsan was engaged in the National Curriculum development process in
various ways. He intensively worked on this issue, being a member of four
important and holding the position of the Lead Advisor of the whole
transformation process with support from UNICEF. This transformation process
reformed the traditional teacher-centred pedagogical approaches to the
experiential learning-based learner-centred pedagogical approaches from
pre-primary to Grade XII. Tariq’s such leadership contributions assisted country’s
whole educational system transformation and made a centrally controlled system
to a community-focused contextual system that opened multiple options for
learning and expression of learning as per learner’s abilities, strengths and
needs. Hence, the assessment process was transformed to formative approaches
for measuring transformative competencies replacing the paper-pencil test
focused summative assessment process. Besides, he played an important role in
digital transformation of education system in Bangladesh by introducing Digital
Technology subject considering the context of high-tech/low-tech/no-tech
situation of educational institutions in Bangladesh. Dr. Ahsan conducted a
series of policy research through which, development partners designed their
country programme for educational collaboration with the Government of
Bangladesh. Dr. Ahsan, being the team lead of a UNDP study on exploring
the student perspective of Micro-credentials in Tertiary Education in
Bangladesh provided evidence-based recommendations for transforming the
tertiary education in Bangladesh. Based on this study, UNDP designed their work
plans for contributing to Tertiary education curriculum in Bangladesh. He also
conducted a study for Online Pedagogy of Selected Platforms in Bangladesh who
are providing digital education in 2020 for a Japanese investor. For JICA, Dr.
Ahsan conducted a Study on the Bangladesh Higher Education Sub-sector to
explore potential JICA Projects. Based on this study JICA designed their
tertiary education transformation investment projects in Bangladesh. All
the above roles raised a huge amount of national and development partner/donor
funding in Bangladesh. In addition to national roles, Dr. Ahsan was involved in
developing several curriculums for teacher education at different layers of
education. Such initiatives include:
- Bachelor of Education
Programme Curriculum of Bangabandhu University of Digital Technology,
Dhaka, Bangladesh.
- Bachelor of Speech Therapy
Course. Bangladesh Health Professionals’ Institute, CRP, Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Curriculum development of
Bachelor and Masters programme on Special and Inclusive Education, PISER,
Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP).
- Curriculum Development of
Bachelor (Hons.) and Masters Programme on Education, IER, University of
Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Curriculum Development of
DPEd. Programme. NAPE, MoPME, Govt. of Bangladesh
- Curriculum Development on
Inclusive Education Training, AIEC, DPE, MoPME.
- Curriculum Development on
Inclusive Education, SEND programme, PEDP 4, MoPME.