Education in Bangladesh: Strengthening the education transmission cycle
Education
needs to be stored and transmitted to younger
generation and there are many media now to
support this transmission
Dr. Sharif Nurul Ahkam
Education had always been a uniting force. In ancient times, when new people settled in a different land, either because they were driven away from their own land or they came in as conquerors, the educated people in the group communicated with the other educated group and violence was avoided or reduced. The era of conquerors is hopefully gone forever. But education always remains young. Education is, to paraphrase Confucius, to know what we know, to let people around us learn what we know, to learn what others know, and to learn what we dont yet know. Through education and learning, we replace false beliefs with verifiable theory. This process of replacement leads to better life for all, secure life for all, prosperity for all, and peaceful life around us.
Education needs to be stored and transmitted to younger generation and there are many media now to support this transmission. Electronic and virtual libraries increased our capacity to store information. Transmission takes place in brick and mortar educational institutions. However, the brick and mortar buildings are now interconnected with the world and the transmission can take place in many other effective forms. We have learned and still learning about the process of using technology to educate the younger generation. The software became so much more powerful that we can replace false beliefs with greater conviction. We can seek to learn what we dont yet know.
Benefits of Extra Education
The benefits of extra education has been clearly established through research. People without basic qualifications face significantly higher and growing risk of unemployment and poverty. Without basic qualification, people rarely have an alternative opportunity of a successful and meaningful career and as an adult. They do not fit in with their peers and they drift into poverty and often become part of a parallel society cut off from educated people with careers, vocations and businesses. In a study of the OECD countries, those with secondary and tertiary education, the earnings differential between workers can range from about 20% to 119%, and evidence suggests that it will keep growing (Schleicher 2006).
Higher education contributed to the nations gross domestic output in several ways. An additional year of education boosts productivity and raise output by 3%-6% over time (LaRocque 2007). A report by Asian Development Bank (2011) point out three principal ways higher education contributes to the GDP are as follows:
Preparation of Primary and Secondary teachers
Training high level technical and administrative personnel for the government, business and industry
Fosters innovation and creative thinking needed for an economically competitive society and knowledge economy
Demand for Higher Education
Clearly many people are aware of the benefits of higher education. In Bangladesh, higher education was available only in a limited number of public universities that existed. They could not accommodate all new graduates coming out of secondary level. Population growth continued and so did the number of graduates, but not the capacity of public universities to support the increasing number of graduates. Many highly qualified and intellectually sound students were unable to get admitted in public universities. Those parents who could afford sent their children to neighboring countries for higher education. All on a sudden, people started noticing that parents are sending their kids to neighboring countries resulting in a significant outflow of foreign currency. People started seeking an alternative to absorb the huge demand for new graduates for higher studies. Government noticed it too and the Private Universities Act was passed.
The demand for higher education was further supported by few other factors. A movement for Education for All had widespread support. Flocking of the apparel industry to Bangladesh, growth of several industries, and development of fisheries, resulted in the growth of a middle class with enough wealth that they were able to afford private education for their children. Unfortunately there was a side effect. While education is always valued among the elite, educated class, and bureaucrats, a whole group of people still do not see the benefits of education. Now, there are a total of 95 private universities in Bangladesh and there are some more to come.There are 37 public universities. At this point, that is too many for the number of students adequately prepared for higher education. Complicating the picture is the value of the certificate rather than education, accorded by the parents. As Bangladesh sprinted to become a lower middle income country, many marginal and above marginal land owners suddenly started feeling wealthy as land value soared around Dhaka. These people could now send their children to earn a degree (certificate) where they did not feel the necessity of earning a university degree before. It was a luxury then, but it became fashionable now. It gives them a sense of dignity and class. Besides, marriage age young people are more marriageable if they have a degree even if it is not from a particularly good institution. Even if the student does not earn a degree, especially if the person is a young woman, she elevates her chances of getting a desirable groom when the parents can say that she is pursuing a Bachelors degree in spite of the fact that she was not doing well.
Higher Education in Bangladesh
As it became difficult for the government to provide higher education to the higher education seekers, private universities had to shoulder the responsibility. However, they faced many challenges in an avenue they were not familiar with. There was the need for facilities and structure and sufficient finances were hard to come by. Aside from that, they also faced the following issues:
How to build the curriculum: Private universities adopted the antiquated curriculum of public universities and as a result the opportunity to introduce fresh concepts were lost.
How to find teachers: Since the best students went to public universities, it was natural to draw teachers from the government funded public universities. Unfortunately, the result is no infusion of new ideas, new methods, creativity and new discipline. Pedagogic skills are poor. Ability to create knowledge is limited. Interest in scholarly activities is severely constrained.
Educational institutions train core labor (or future workers, students of your universities) to contribute unique things to the new world. Higher education prepares the most intelligent for the bigger challenges in the economy. They provide the leaders to run government, domestic, and multinational business enterprises. The better a country is in training them, the stronger is the human capital base of the country. The better the universities train the minds, the more benefits will accrue to the future generations. The culture of modesty impedes their growth as leaders. Asians have great minds in waiting. Universities need to do their part to cater to these great minds so that young people can reach their full potential. Graduates must be able to see through the noise and clutter, display their creative and innovative mind, and provide effective leadership.
Clearly, in the future pool of workers, a wide variation will exist. There will be young people less endowed with intelligence, but better endowed with physical properties. There will be people who will have neither and the states will always have to take care of this small group. Those people who are not so lucky with intelligence endowment must be given adequate training to build skills for which there is good demand. Vocational schools will provide useful service for them.
The UGC should take some definitive steps so that the members of the Boards of Trustees of private universities do not equate faculty member hours to that of factory floor. However demeaning the idea is, it is also very dangerous for the future of the country and quality of higher education.
The government should also consider granting scholarship to the top outstanding students who will have the option to choose where s/he will get her education, be it a public universities or a well-recognized quality private university of the students choice. How much will it really cost to grant full scholarship to two thousand HSC graduates each year? Besides can you really measure the benefit in terms of money?
Let me summarize the main ideas of this article. First, we need to build true centers of intellectual activity in the country. These centers will strive to attract the brightest professors in the disciplines they would want to lead. Therefore, it will be desirable to see some visiting scholars from other countries. This is likely to have a profound impact on the intellectual development of future academic leaders of the country creating an incubator of unity and knowledge fostering understanding and pursuit of knowledge.
The writer specialises on the education sector
