To say that our education system has been in dire need of an overhaul for a long time would be an understatement. While we are far from the days of rampant question paper leakage, there are still numerous faults within the existing educational framework which keep the system from being in line with Bangladesh's immediate national goals.
A good case in point would be that there still continues to be issues with the content of textbooks, with the most recent instance seeing a total of 26 corrections being made to 13 textbooks for both the sixth and seventh grades.
While designing curricula and textbooks is a continuous process that evolves over time, the past few years have seen far too much confusion surrounding the content in textbooks, including a fair share of controversial content.
This should not be a problem for our education system at this point.
Regardless of what's being printed on our textbooks, rote learning is still the de facto method being taught in our schools which paves the way to cottage industries such as coaching centres picking up the slack and charging students exorbitant fees on top of their school tuition.
And those who somehow manage to survive the brunt of the education system come out with little to no useful skills that they can apply in their adult lives, thanks to the poor quality of teaching and assessment.
Smart Bangladesh is the new manifesto upon which the government has decided to build our nation's future, but such a future will need smarter people to help shape it. But our education system, as it stands, will not help to that end.
Sweeping reforms are the order of the day.