Our education ministry is often praised as one of the better performing and less corrupted ministries of the current government. It is true, if someone judges the ministry’s achievements in terms of the number of student passing the SSC and HSC, the number of GPA 5 achievers, and the number of public and private universities and medical colleges established since 2009. However, this superficial success is actually destroying not only our education system, but also all the other ministries.
These so-called successes of the education ministry were achieved through some disgraceful, corrupted, immoral, and heartbreaking ways – ways which demand an immediate halt. The most dangerous one, something that is frequently happening these days, is the leaking of exam question papers before the exams. It is now crystal clear that the question papers will be available in the open market for sale. To get the questions before the exam, you just need to keep your eyes and ears open, contact the right person, or open a Facebook account. This is now happening for nearly all sorts of examinations, especially during the tenure of the current education minister.
How much control does our current education ministry have on the education system? Frankly speaking, I am in serious doubt. Those involved in the process of making questions and those delivering them to the exam hall might be more corrupt than any other government sector. After such mass leaking of exam papers, our minister was still arguing that these were all rumours. The government had yet to punish those responsible. The media was not launching any investigative report, an important part in unveiling the facts.
In various occasions, the minister had claimed that he had successfully decreased students’ tendencies to copy answers in public exams, a feat praised by members of our civil society and the media. But the reality is, there is no need to copy answers if a student has already seen the question paper before the exam. By observing the extent of public exam papers being leaked, it seems that elements in our administration are glad to take on the responsibility of leaking the question papers secretly, so that students give up their copying tendencies rather than improve their level of education by studying. In return, the ministry receives the praise from civil society members and the media for successfully lowering copying tendencies.
The second terrifying thing is the extremely high pass rates in the public exam, with marks given generously out of ill political motivations. This is completely destroying the motivation of the good students who are always striving for better results. After each public exams (PSC, JSC, SSC, and HSC), all teachers who are responsible in scrutinising exam papers are asked by the ministry to give maximum marks without following proper evaluation methods. It is also instructed that if someone writes something in his answer script, irrespective of the exam question’s content, marks should be doled out just by counting the number of pages the answer comprises without considering its quality and level of correctness.
More than 90% of students passing with countless numbers of GPA 5s and golden GPA 5s, are simply the result of the question papers being leaked and the intentionally generous marking. Students who were expecting to get a maximum of GPA 4 have been seen to have gotten golden GPA 5s, simply due to the ministry or education board’s instruction for excessive marking. After getting such improbably good results, students’ and their parents’ expectations skyrocket. These students face the harshness of reality once they sit for the university admission tests, where most of them are unable to even secure a passing mark.
These victimised students lose all hope and start to deteriorate mentally after realising their uncertain futures. In some cases, these students opt out by committing suicide. However, the lucky students who’ve already secured unexpectedly good results in their SSCs and HSCs due to the above mentioned faulty education system, are again blessed by the leak of admission test question papers or a defective admission process. On the other hand, students whose parents have either plenty of corrupted money or political connections are able to buy their way into getting their children admitted at the ever increasing number of private universities, medical colleges, or even sometimes at educational institutions abroad.
Those who are actually good students somehow get admitted to public higher education institutions, and get good results after years of hard work, once again face another harsh reality. These hardworking students, mostly coming from lower-middle or even lower-class families, are barely able to secure any jobs in either the public or private sector, seeing how the job market in our country is already in service to people who have ample amounts of black money, political affiliations, or are blessed by nepotism.
Now, someone might argue that the job market is not in control of the education ministry. Yes, it is true if you look to the matter from the surface. Dig a little deeper, and the faulty education system is again the centre of everything, which is continuously pouring sub-standard graduates into the job market and ultimately in every sector of the government. These sub-standard graduates are backed by dirty money or have a powerful “uncle” with some kind of political affiliation.
I know it is really difficult to convince the administration how important the education ministry is, and how much agony it has caused for the ordinary people. In many sectors, the effect of corruption is short-term and quickly rectifiable, but in the education sector, the current system of corruption and its ultimate damage is long-lasting, and is already starting to destroy not only the economy, but also good governance.