The sorry state of our nation's education system has time and again proven itself to be a stumbling block in our overall march towards progress. With a multitude of issues plaguing the system such as rampant leaking of question papers to the meaninglessness of the GPA-5 in the national board exams, the list can be overwhelming.
To that end, the recent controversy surrounding communally insensitive questions in the Bangla First Paper exams under the Technical Education Board is yet another damning indictment of just how far in the past our education system seems to be stuck in, highlighting how the quality of the question papers in itself is also a problem.
An anonymous government official reportedly confirmed that the question-making process followed an outdated model and that there is resistance in introducing any semblance of modernity to it.
This is, simply put, unacceptable.
For a nation's education system to be anything less than forward-thinking stunts the growth of our children, the future leaders of Bangladesh. By relying on ancient models of question-making -- ones which contain the kind of communalism that we have long-since shed -- we are essentially dragging back a lot of the progress we have made.
Needless to say, the government needs to empower relevant administrative bodies -- such as the Bangladesh Examination Development Unit -- to ensure that the practice of preparing question papers is not only modernized but is free of any semblance of prejudice.
After years of struggling with a mediocre education system where the number of graduates is at an all-time high and the number of skilled workers is at an all-time low, now is the time that comprehensive changes were made to our education system at every level so that it falls in line with the vision of a prosperous future.
