The explanation that the government offered after backtracking on its decision to recruit music and physical education teachers in primary schools appears not only incredible but also laughable. Neither has it explained anything credible, nor has it been perceived well by the wider section of people, including millions of school-goers and their parents.
In late August, the government announced its decision to recruit music and physical education teachers in primary schools across the country so that children in their formative years could excel not only in the textbooks they read but also develop creative faculties and their physiques.
In its right mind, the government must have known from the very beginning that in a resource-strapped country like ours, it is not feasible or practical to recruit all the teachers for all schools in one go.
Nearly 20 million pupils -- give or take -- attend over 65,000 primary schools and other primary-level educational institutions. So, one teacher each for music and physical education for all these schools means we are talking about recruiting at least 130,000 teachers, if not more.
That has never been in the government’s plan. Rather, it envisaged -- and very rightly so -- a phased recruitment: To start with around 2,500 teachers each for music and physical education. The idea was to deploy their services initially in clusters of schools within a certain radius. If initiated, the move could have come full circle within several years without straining the government’s budget in one instance.
But on November 2, barely two months after the decision to recruit music and physical education teachers, the transitional government of Prof Yunus eschewed the decision. The explanation it offered was lame, to say the least.
It cited budget constraints. That is not something it suddenly discovered. The government knew from the very beginning that the move would require allocating funds. One must give some credit to this government for acting so naïve, as if it thought no fresh investment would be required to recruit teachers.
It is a pity that the government, in its pursuit to appease a section of rightist mullahs hell-bent on thwarting the recruitment move, even invoked the soft sentiment of “discrimination.” As if eating its own words, the government started saying that employing only 5,000 music and physical education teachers would create discrimination for schools that would not receive teachers in the first phase. Our memory should be fresh enough to recall how “discrimination” became a buzzword in the days leading up to last year’s Monsoon Revolution.
To say the least, the government’s use of this “discrimination” sentiment to justify rescinding the recruitment is a poor choice and quite laughable. Isn’t it better to have something than nothing? Wasn’t it the initial plan to recruit teachers in phases, eventually providing the targeted benefits to all primary schools across Bangladesh? Then why invoke “discrimination” so cheaply and meaninglessly?
Between the two decisions -- the recruitment announcement in late August and its cancellation in early November -- something happened that people of this country witnessed, as did the government. Several Islamic outfits and rightist mullahs stormed Dhaka’s streets warning the government against recruiting teachers to give students musical lessons. They threatened dire consequences if the government did not revoke its decision and demanded recruitment of religious teachers instead. They consider music something not permitted in Islamic tenets.
On the surface, it is anyone’s guess now that the government clearly gave in to these so-called Islamists’ pressure. But for the sake of face-saving, it would not admit that. That is why it is coming up with all these lame excuses about budget limitations and discrimination.
We must now seriously ask why a government -- apolitical in nature, having no constituencies to appease for any future power aspirations -- took the decision in the first place and then revoked it. For context, there were no immediate compulsions for the government to take its August decision. This was not something conceived by the current administration; it simply tried to implement an initiative from 2020. The move to recruit music and physical education teachers was taken back then, but as the necessary rules and policy directions had not been formulated, the transitional government thought it could carry the process forward.
In hindsight, it now looks like it would have been better not to nudge the idea at all. Because the abrupt cancellation only gives strength to a force that the overwhelming moderate Muslim majority -- and the public in general -- find distasteful. People of this country are historically known for progressive thinking and accommodative, inclusive, open-minded attitudes. Pitting religion against music, arts, or any other creative human faculty is not something general people in Bangladesh appreciate.
If the whole idea is part of someone’s or some institution’s meticulous design to solidify ultra-conservative forces and give wind to the wings of radicals to gain extra mileage with a national election around the corner, then it is a recipe for disaster. It will backfire.
The rightists and religion-based politicians must choose between two options: Basking in the short-term gain of pressuring the government into submission, or reading the public pulse and winning the hearts of voters. If they continue to choose the first, people will not respect them -- they will fear them. The choice is theirs.
While Bangladesh made significant improvements in reducing dropout rates over the last decade -- falling from 39.8% in 2010 to 13.15% in 2023 -- a recent government assessment revealed a reversal in 2024. After 13 years of decline, the dropout rate has surged again. Bangladesh’s primary school dropout rate now stands at 16.25%.
Isn’t it a wake-up call for our policy planners to urgently revisit the entire education ecosystem? Something has clearly not worked right. We must learn from others how children in developed economies start learning essential life skills, good behaviour, arts and culture, and values of history and heritage early in their academic lives, on top of reading routines. Bangladesh cannot propel itself by being any different.
As far as the peace-loving, pro-democratic general masses of this country are concerned, the majority practice their religious rites in private life but do not like seeing public ruckus based on varied and nuanced interpretations of belief systems.
Appeasing the rightists at the cost of our liberal future will earn us nothing. Education is our only bet for a bright future. If we cannot instill a progressive outlook in our young minds, we cannot expect a better breed of future generations to carry Bangladesh forward.
Reaz Ahmad is Editor, Dhaka Tribune.
