The figures are depressing, coming as they do from believable statistics. 40-odd percent of working age citizens aren’t at work or training. 45-plus percent of them are desperate to leave the country to find gainful employment in other countries, willing to trust their luck with capricious agencies and middle-men ignoring all warnings by the government.
One of the root causes lies in what Bertrand Russel enunciated so brutally. “Man is born ignorant but not stupid, education makes them stupid.” Some of the best minds this country has produced didn’t study in posh schools, they had a system that allowed room for free thought and required education to be applied. Mindless tinkering with the education system has led to a pass whereby trumpeted secondary and higher secondary education churns out products, close to 80% of whom can’t pass university admission tests.
Past President Abdul Hamid had exhorted that education be free from commercialism and focused on research. The current Head of State Mohammad Shahbuddin has pleaded for a curriculum that matches work requirements from businesses and institutions. No one listened to Hamid. What happens to President Shahbuddin’s pleas remains to be seen.
Good mothers produce good kids. Good teachers produce good citizens -- provided the system allows for it. AK Azad, former chief of the Bangladesh Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry said the obvious when he said 80% of graduates aren’t fit for business requirements in human resources. He was putting it lightly. The abysmal quality of teachers, bureaucrats, and other specialists are so gross in Bangladesh today, so as to leave furrows in the foreheads of everyone.
Member of Parliament Abdul Latif decried the inability of existing lawmakers to actually design laws, comfortably falling back on bureaucracy to do what they’re supposed to. He was without doubt pointing to the education and ability of lawmakers to formulate laws for the people they represent. The better educated don’t want to enter politics. With values going for a toss, careers in the government -- in specific disciplines -- are seen as far better options.
Whereas developed societies are increasingly focusing on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as the new education frontier, Bangladesh is playing hide and seek with modules of the 1980s and falling flat by tinkering with them.
Good teachers produce good citizens -- provided the system allows for it
One of the faculty of Columbia University, where the anti-Israel and pro-Israel student demonstrations came face to face, supported the actions. As she said, this was precisely the objective of education -- to be presented with the facts and come to their own conclusions and expressions thereof.
Sri Lanka has a very high standard of literacy and yet made a mess of their economy. Countrymen there put it down to corruption and nepotism. Pakistan has for some time publicly declared they wish they could be like Bangladesh, envious of the country’s progress and indices. But for all the impressive infrastructural development, Bangladesh is fast facing daunting challenges connected with deficits and fiscal prudence. None of the country’s higher education institutions make it to any list of the best. Yet, this was where a host of countries sent their students to study medicine and other subjects.
And this is where we have the embarrassment of certificates issued against a price for physicians and others -- all of them fake. Small groups are being apprehended, which is commendable. Unfortunately nothing is being done to penalize those that bought these certificates or cheated at medical examinations through question paper leakages. These are doctors, educationists, and even bureaucrats, who do not have the wherewithal of knowledge to pursue their professions. Darker still is the infamy of dabbling with people’s health.
Numbers may matter when it comes to grades achieved. They cannot be the be-all and end-all. In an unstructured country, the invasion of foreign recruits to run business and health do little to advance the country. Agriculture continues to be the backbone of the country, but unless skills and recognition are there, farming will head the same way the education sector has gone. Down the drain.
Mahmudur Rahman is a writer, columnist, broadcaster, and communications specialist.