“Sarat knows Bangla” was Rabindranath Tagore’s brief, succinct referral advocating Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s qualification as a teacher at Dhaka University. Sarat Chandra, the brilliant story-teller, wasn’t the first to-be-icon to tread the hallowed corridors and the then tin-roofed classrooms of the institution.
He and others, before and after him, produced a stream of academic glitterati that set the foundations of excellence the university achieved. Just as awe-inspiring were the many that graduated and dispersed in mainstream society imparting, or using, their learnings in creating a better social fabric. They were the ones to whom heads bowed in respect and awe. Time, history, events and attitudes have crisscrossed, ringing changes leaving behind an aura of mysticism and romance.
Centuries are significant, whether in cricket or life. There’s that human urge to stop and take stock (take fresh guard in the gentleman’s game). Some of the best writers, politicians, bureaucrats, and so on were products of a good education, institutional or otherwise. Belying arguments in favour of institutionalized education were stand-out examples such as Tagore or Kazi Nazrul Islam, who never accessed higher education.
There were others to the contrary, brilliant minds such as JC Deb and Munier Chowdhury. With the passage of time, as discourse delved deeper, time-trusted theories of education and morality were forced under the microscope. Concepts considered as “done things” were rudely shattered as details emerged of the lives of Tagore or Oscar Wilde and their hobnobbing with emotions expressed through physical acts and thoughts that were anything but “done things.”
As the world came to grips with such points of view, there was further veering off into more pernicious directions of slander. Different points of view clashed with slanderous views under the umbrella of freedom of speech. The balance has never been truly achieved, leaving deep divisions even as teachings and philosophies of scions are encouraged to be studied.
Profound statements can be double-edged. Nelson Mandela’s “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’ or Malala Yusufzai’s “one book, one pen can change the world” both lean towards education. Both also steer clear of using the words “for the better.” That change can be both positive and negative wasn’t lost on them. That some, if not most, of the world’s notoriety was the outcome of brilliant and educated minds is historically chronicled.
The poignant letter left behind by an Auschwitz survivor said as much. The horrors perpetrated by educated minds continue to haunt us. Serial killers are profiled as having brilliant, if sick, minds. Perhaps the most missed-out factor of education is that, while it opens up the mind and broadens views, it also gives rise to new controversy.
Questions are made of perceptions once viewed as “correct.”
1973 was when the Qudrat-e-Khuda Commission was entrusted by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to define an education system suited to post-independent Bangladesh. Framed for the then times and realities much of the recommendations were never implemented. The system was tweaked as per convenience. Forty-eight years later, with only stop-gap improvements, a revamp is of dire necessity.
A bat in blinkers can make out the discord between what is taught and what needs to be learnED. Institutions are churning out under-graduates and graduates that find their learnings good enough for certificates but out-of-sync with the practical world. It isn’t helped by the system failures through which teachers are recruited with either false degrees. Just as unpalatable is the increasing number of cases where teachers have passed off others’ work as original research. The recent revelations questioning the PhD degrees of three Ideal College teachers, including its principal, are notable low points.
There was embarrassment in the public sector when it was discovered that a few secretaries had falsely obtained their freedom-fighter certificates to gain an extra two-years of service tenure. These persons also availed of during and post retirement the allowances declared for freedom fighters. That this practice was resorted to by those educated from the finest institutions of the country adds to the overall shame of it all.
The pointer is that degrees don’t necessarily create character. Had that been so, it wouldn’t have required the prime minister or president to keep reminding institutions to encourage and increase the budget for research. Think these exhortations against a proposed Tk7,000 crore plan to upgrade facilities in Dhaka University, tear-down historically significant structures, cut down century-old trees, and spend little or nothing on research.
Mahmudur Rahman is a writer, columnist, broadcaster, and communications specialist.
