This year, the government has launched a new education curriculum for the first, second, sixth and seventh grades of primary and secondary levels in Bangladesh. The government has announced the implementation of this curriculum in the third, fourth, eighth and ninth classes from next year and then in the fifth and tenth classes in 2025, in the eleventh class in 2026 and in the twelfth class in 2027.
As a result, there will be several changes in the conventional education system, innovation will come in the curriculum and evaluation system. It is seen that there are various discussions and criticisms in various fields.
According to the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, the new curriculum is being introduced to teach students about skills, creativity, knowledge and new perspectives instead of relying on rote learning in an entertaining environment.
But the discussion on this issue does not stop. The Rumor Scanner team has seen the widespread spread of misinformation on the internet since last November Especially towards the end of November, several videos went viral on the internet claiming to be scenes of teacher training under the new education curriculum. Following requests for verification through Rumor Scanner’s Facebook group, we began investigating the videos.
According to Facebook’s monitoring tool and manual search, the Rumor Scanner team found that a related video became the most viral from late November to the first week of December. Titled Tilling Tilling Cycle solai, the video showed a group of men and women training in a classroom by reciting a rhyme titled Tiling tiling cycle solai.
By the time we published the fact-check video on the morning of December 04, this discussed video had been watched by about ten million people on Facebook. To a large number of these people, the video created confusion as a scene of teacher training under the new education curriculum.
We investigated this and found that the video is not from Bangladesh. On November 17, Ratan Lal Saha, a teacher in Assam, India, first published this video titled Tiling tiling cycle solai, related to teacher training, on his Facebook page. The video was recently circulated on the Internet claiming to be a training scene for Bangladesh’s new education curriculum.
After the release of the factcheck video from Rumor Scanner’s Facebook page, about 1.3 million people have watched it so far through re-posts from various accounts including this page.
After publishing this factcheck, the Rumor Scanner team received several more video verification requests on the matter. We investigated two of these videos separately, both from a program in Comilla, and certainly had nothing to do with the new education curriculum.
In the first video, a group of men and women took part in frog dance training.
When we started investigating the matter, a single post containing the video had been viewed by nearly 3.1 million people. We have been able to confirm the identity of the person playing the role of trainer in the video. He is the head teacher of Montali Government Primary School of Cumilla’s Nangalkot Upazila.
We spoke to him about this and after relevant inquiries confirmed that on November 28, primary school teachers were trained in a frog dance in a cub scout training at Comilla Primary Teachers Training Institute (PTI). This is the scene of that training.
While investigating this matter, Another video that has gone viral shows a group of men and women dancing in wild costumes chanting the phrase Jhinga Lala Hoo.
With just one post, this video has been viewed nearly 1 million times, shared nearly 10,000 times.
As we have verified, this is the scene of the Cub Scouts at the Comilla Primary Teachers Training Institute (PTI), during the same training program last November.
Rumor scanner team has been able to identify a person named Abdur Rahim Swapan in this viral video. Mr. Swapan sent us several pictures of the day’s program to confirm that it was not a training event under the new curriculum.
Through our regular social media monitoring, another video is seen going viral. There was a scene in this video where some men and women are posing as ducks by chanting the duck call phrase Pack pack. It was claimed that this is also the scene of the training of teachers for the new education curriculum of Bangladesh.
We verified that in early 2022, teachers were trained in this learning strategy, modeled after the Maths Olympiad in primary schools to teach students the core math textbooks easily and happily. But it is no longer offered and the new education curriculum does not mention this topic.
The Rumor Scanner team confirmed the matter after talking to a teacher who was the instructor of the said training in Badalgachi, Naogaon. Moreover, the class IV ‘Anande Ganit Sikhi-Content Delivery Book’ mentions (on page 83) about this learning strategy of Pack pack. But it is not part of the textbook There is no mention of this topic in class IV math book either. Interestingly, the implementation of the new education curriculum in this class will begin next year. So its training in 2022 is inevitable.
Not only the Bengali-centric video on the new education curriculum has been circulated for the purpose of confusion, but a video of men and women dancing in circles while reciting a Hindi rhyme has been circulated, claiming that it is a teacher training scene for the Bangladesh government’s new education curriculum.
We have investigated this video for a long time, trying to reach the original source of the video. This video has been circulating in India and Pakistan for the past few years. We spoke to several fact-checkers in India and Pakistan about this. A fact checker in Pakistan told us they are sure this is not a Pakistani scene
The video first started circulating in February 2019, from some Facebook pages based in Hyderabad, India. The rhyme that the subjects in the video are reciting ‘Mummi ki Roti Gol Gol’ is a popular nursery rhyme in India, but is not included in textbooks, a fact checker in India told Rumor Scanner. Although we cannot confirm the source of the video, it is confirmed that it is not a Bangladeshi video
We have seen videos from different countries and old events about the new education curriculum reach millions of people on Facebook in a short span of time. As a result of this misinformation reaching such a large number of people, the wrong message has been sent to the parents and all concerned about the country’s education system, as well as the education related administration and the government have also had to find themselves in an embarrassing situation.
Realizing the importance of this matter, we have also published factcheck videos on social media (Facebook, YouTube, X, TikTok) in addition to publishing factcheck on the website. We thought, through this, it is possible to convey the right information to more people.
As of the time this report was published, the videos had reached nearly 2.2 million people from Rumor Scanner’s own page and related accounts. Analyzing data from social media monitoring tools, we estimate that these videos reached at least 2 million more people.
This work also met with immediate recognition. Rumor Scanner was awarded the ‘Positive Influencer Award’ last December 09 for its role in countering rumors spread on the internet about the new curriculum.
On that day, at the conference titled Building Smart Bangladesh and Global Citizen Formation Suitable for the Fourth Industrial Revolution through the Implementation of the New Education Curriculum held in Dhaka organized by Leadswin Limited – 2023. Five members of the Rumor Scanner team handed over an honorarium and a crest by the Professor Md. Moshiuzzaman, a member of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB), and Professor Dr. Mohammad Tariq Ahsan from the Education and Research Institute of Dhaka University.
The Eduman project, developed by technology firm Leadswin Limited, is undertaking efforts to digitalize the education system across the nation.
The Rumor Scanner team believes that countering the spread of misinformation about the new education curriculum and its recognition has created room for accountability in continuing this work. The Rumor Scanner team will work to fulfill that responsibility. We believe that with the concerted efforts and sincerity of all, it is possible to prevent the spread of misinformation about the field of education.
Fact Checks published so far on the New Education Curriculum
1. Tiling tiling cycling Training Video is not from the Bangladesh Education Curriculum, but a indian scene
2. The Frog Rhyme Dance Training Video is not from the Education Curriculum, but a Cub Scout training
3. Jhinga Lala hoo Dance Training Video is not from the Education Curriculum, but a Cub Scout training
4. Not the new education curriculum, but the teacher training video titled Pack Pack is from 2022
5. Video of teachers dancing in a circle and reciting Hindi rhyme not linked to Bangladesh’s new education curriculum training
