have bought tickets of riding varied, half-baked, ineffectual, non-functional and above all unsuited ideas and experiments mostly imported from overseas sources. What is the most alarming thing concerning education is the fact that all these imported concepts have just been copied and then put right into practice disregarding the ground realities of Bangladesh.Commitments in education are yet to be fulfilled
Ever since
our great war of liberation 47 years back, the commitments pertaining to education and its policy in Bangladesh especially the most binding ones are yet to be translated
into reality
Sakib Hasan
Ever since our great war of liberation 47 years back, the commitments pertaining to education and its policy in Bangladesh especially the most binding ones are yet to be translated into reality. Whenever and at whichever areas we look at through a trail of forty seven years, we end up with an experience mostly like the one of a roller coaster. During the time span right from 1971 down the present point of time, we, the direct stake-holders of education, have bought tickets of riding varied, half-baked, ineffectual, non-functional and above all unsuited ideas and experiments mostly imported from overseas sources. What is the most alarming thing concerning education is the fact that all these imported concepts have just been copied and then put right into practice disregarding the ground realities of Bangladesh.
The concept of education in the independent Bangladesh was crystallised upon the base of the great 11-point demands formulated by the then Students Action Committee (SAC) back in 1969. This is just the beginning when the avant-gardes of a nascent state visualized education in a changing perspective. Apart from 6-point demands of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, 11-points of the students of the then East-Pakistan put special emphasis on the education-related matters prominent of which include free education for all up to class viii, subsidised foods and tuition fees in colleges and universities, scholarships and stipends for talented poor students, promotion of female education etc. In a word, the then student leaders strongly advocated in favour of a people-friendly education the underlying message of which is to create a level playing field for all in a service-oriented approach and mode.
Mass-oriented education is evidently a brain child of the then student leaders who sprang up to protest the notorious report of the Sharif commission of 1962 which called the concept of compulsory free primary education a utopian idea and unmistakably favoured the privatisation and treatment of education from the point of view of an industry. After the revolutionary changeover in 1971, the colony of East Pakistan transformed into sovereign Bangladesh.
In independent Bangladesh, the first education commission was formed in 1972 headed by eminent educationist and scientist Dr. Kudrat-I-Khuda. This commission submitted its recommendations in 1974. The dreams of the student leaders of 1969 mass upsurge found reflection on a much wider scale in the recommendations put forward by Khuda commission. The salient features of this much talked of commission include among others giving education a completely secular flavour, emphasising on the work-relevant technical and vocational education, extending the duration of primary education up to class viii., introducing four-year time-frame for secondary education. The commission tried its utmost to combine the socio-economic and political conditions of Bangladesh and the fact and realities of the contemporary international educational scenarios. Still it forms the conceptual basis of system of education in Bangladesh.
This is the first ever education commission most suitable for an independent country like Bangladesh. The most outstanding feature of this commissions recommendations is that they were geared up to address and reflect the motivating spirit and the basic principles of the 1972-constitution of Bangladesh. Quite a number of recommendations of this commission have already been translated into practice. However, all the recommendations and suggestions of the commission are yet to come true. Still then, it is Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who made a revolutionary stride towards people-friendly education when he declared compulsory free primary education for all and nationalised primary education.
Till 1975, the government approaches towards education was quite a non-profit-oriented one aiming mainly at creating equal opportunities for all irrespective of caste, creed and financial class standing. After the dramatic changeover in 1975, approaches towards education by successive post-1975 governments began to deviate from the pro-people concept focused clearly in our constitutions article15 as the motivating spirit in education. The production-oriented education policy was launched by the then BNP government through its much-vaunted 19-points program. In fact, it was more of a political slogan than a tangible shift towards qualitative development of education. All through the BNP regime, doing away with the chronic virus of cheating in the examination halls is unquestionably the most commendable job ever done by the regime. At the same time, during BNP rule students politics have been seriously polluted with the widespread use of the firearms in the campuses.
During the 9-year autocratic rule of Ershad, the remarkable landmark is freeing the educational institutions from the vicious clutches of party politics. However, cheating in the examination halls became rampant practices and the regime failed totally in taking effective measures to stop the cheating. Consumerisation of education began to take effect slowly and gradually during the rule of Ershad. Immediately before the ending days of Ershads rule, coaching centres come to play a dominant role in the system of education. Profit-oriented motives took the institutional shape in the arena of education.
Quite naturally, to be in tune with the revolutionary scientific and technological developments, education needs to be customised and acclimatised itself with the changing perspectives incorporating within the system new ideas and innovations produced as a natural outcome of these explosive developments. Unfortunately, the imported concepts and experiments in most cases have been put into practices mostly in rather raw forms and formats. For example, what application format is suitable in the USA, UK and Russia may not be always appropriate in the context of Bangladesh. As such, the raw and unrefined applications of most of the educational formats have backfired. We will have to take the message and the essence and make a new one for us only after reworking upon them. In our quest for quality education, time and again we made wrong decisions going straight for raw application.
In addition to commercialisation, the phenomenon of privatisation added a new dimension to our education system. In early 1990s, private universities began to take space in the field of higher education. No doubt, it was obviously the demand of time but the quality of education imparted by a bulk of the private universities running within the shockingly limited space has come under questions and controversy time and again.
Actually, the privatisation process of education was not a restricted process rather privatisation occurs in all strata of education right from the pre-school down to the tertiary level. We support the process of privatisation process as a parallel to government-sponsored education providing it has to be strictly controlled and monitored by a responsible regulatory body with the sublime aim at promoting healthy competition essentially needed for quality education. To our utter shock, we see practically that approval and affiliation are given even to those private universities not having the least minimum infrastructural facilities.
Absence of such controlling institution is always keenly felt right from the initiation of private educational institutions in independent Bangladesh. As a result, a huge number of private educational institutions have just turned into profit-mongering business concerns. Piles of complaints have been heaped up against these private institutions concerning their innumerable irregularities prominent of which include clearly abnormally high tuition fees and unreasonably over marking trend while checking scripts.
These irregularities, though prominent mainly in private educational institutions, are not absent at all in public institutions even though on a tolerable level and in different forms and formats. As a cumulative effect of all these factors of irregularities, our education system is back-paddling keeping us miles apart in achieving the desired global standard.
Introduction of objective type of questions (MCQ) is another serious woe for our education. The system is good no doubt but the way we are setting the questions and the manner we are taking the examinations is obviously faulty. In the existing system, students are getting high marks not proportionate to their knowledge level. It is time to stop this self-destructive trend emphasising duly on the development of potentialities.
The final damage done to our education is unquestionably question papers leakage culture developed and practiced rampantly over the last some years. It has almost absolutely destroyed some good points of reputation so far achieved in the sphere of our education.
Since independence, quite a number of educational commissions have been formed from time to time during different regimes to address the needs and urges of time. Kudrat-E-Khuda commission was followed by Dr. MA Mazid commission, Professor Shamsul Huq commission, Prof. Moniruzzaman commission, Prof. Kabir Chowdhury Commission etc. To build a secular and non-communal Bangladesh, the present government has been pursuing the recommendations of Prof. Kabir Chowdhury Commission. Of course, each of these Commissions does have some positive and people-friendly features. However, none of them perhaps sketches a time-winning all-encompassing vision concerning education as visualized by both the overwhelming majority and the student leaders and also envisioned in our constitution.
As soon as education became a purchasable consumer commodity instead of being a philanthropic service to build an able nation encompassing people of all strata of life, the culture of corruption just got institutionalised. For formulating a people-friendly global standard new millennium education policy, still there are scopes for further researches by the patriotic and committed scholars of the country. I the context of Bangladesh, I always believe that proper implementation is more important than mere formulation.
The writer is Assistant Professor of English, Bogra Cantonment Public School College, E-mail:[email protected]
