Visual education in primary schools: A great initiative indeed

While we strive to find an effective learning method for children in primary schools, the government has introduced an interesting way which is known as the visual education.

The term visual is related to vision or sight, which means when we use our eyes to catch information from surroundings is called visual education. The visual learning method uses different tools to visualise information such as images, paintings, graphs, charts, illustrations and video content.

Our children are more sensitive to visuals over verbal content. They want to learn with fun and by playing. But the learning system of our country is not equipped with visual content. As a result, from a very early age, children have to learn with verbal content which makes them bored and they tend to run away from it.

To make the learning system more effective, our government has introduced a new method in every government primary school in the country. Under this project, all government primary schools got a new and colourful look which proved to be beneficial than the traditional learning system.

The school walls have been decorated with colourful drawings especially green and red which are the symbol of our nationality.

The wall of the schools is also painted with Bengali and English letter, the formula of mathematics, basic hygiene measure, study routine, remarkable life-changing quotes, national days of Bangladesh and graphics to motivate them.  

By seeing these drawings, children can easily learn a few basic things by themselves, which they would have learned in the classroom through verbal communication in a traditional learning system. The graphics also teach the children to maintain personal hygiene and keep the environment clean.

Research suggests that visual learning is more effective than verbal education. Using images can make learning more fun and interesting for children. The visualisation creates more sensitisation in our brain which makes visual learning more effective.

It is really surprising that according to Visual Teaching Alliance "our brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text and 90 percent of the information comes to the brain is visual. More than 60 percent of the population is visual learners". There are several benefits of visual learning over traditional learning method.

Store information for longer

Images are the simplest and most effective way of learning information which is quickly stored in the long term memory. According to Dr Lynell Burmark, an education consultant, our short term memory processes words and can only retain about seven bits of information. Whereas, images are directly processed by our long-term memory, where they get indelibly etched. That means visual education is a powerful tool to make learning effective and out-come based.

A simple method of learning

By looking at the visual information we can learn many complex things more simply. When we learn something easily it will last in our memory for a long time.

Act as an emotional stimulators

Images make emotional stimulation in the human brain which is necessary for the long-lasting memories.

Make communication simple and quicker

Information written as bullet point is easier to process. But the same information in the form an image or graphic is processed even more quickly. As per the Visual Teaching Alliance-

• The Human brain is capable of getting the sense of a visual scene in less than 1/10th of a second.
• At least forty percent of nerve fibres are linked to the retina which is related to vision.
• The human eye can register 36,000 visual messages every hour.

Thus, visual education makes communication simpler and quicker.

Aid better comprehension

Visual learners can easily conceptualise any complex thing within a short time using their cognitive capabilities. By extending "human bandwidth" visual education produces better comprehension. 

Increase interest in learning

Images, engaging videos and infographics etc help to grow interest in an uninteresting topic. Thus, visual learning motivates the student to do better.

Make the learning sustainable

When our learning lasts longer in our memory it will be sustainable and this can only possible by visual learning.

So it is needless to say that, visual learning method is more effective than verbal learning. To ensure primary education for all, it is necessary to keep the children glued to schools and continue their study.

Wall painting in government primary school will ensure our kids learning with fun. It is well known that the best way of learning is to learn with fun.

Our HPM Sheikh Hasina made it true and real for our children to build 'Sonar Bangladesh'. Thank you HPM Sheikh Hasina for taking such a wise decision for our country.

The author is a student of Islamic University, Bangladesh. Email: [email protected]