Boats plied
in the Mothijheel commercial area for days during the great
deluge of 1988. But similar
nightmares are possible in
the height of
the current rainy
season as years of neglect with the drainage
conditions of
the city could take its toll
Putting education on a right track
Md Amin Ibrahim
A shining example of this trend is India. India has built up a very good base in science and technology education and many of its institutions dealing with science and technology education are in the public sector. This means that successive Indian governments have been very pragmatically pumping substantial public resources into these forms of education to create the right sort of human resources to drive the economy to a higher level. Indias educational systems are now producing in abundance world class information technology (IT) experts in different fields, engineers, biotechnologists, agri scientists, pharmacists, etc. The educational base of India is so strong that it could establish itself as a global information technology (IT) power and remarkably boosted its foreign exchange earnings from this source alone in a short period of time.
Pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms and steel producing industries of completely Indian origin having an existence not only in India, but worldwide, are flourishing. These are fed by the streams of well educated young men and women who pass out regularly from the many international standard educational institutions in India offering appropriate education linked to the above industries.
The Indian educational system may not be a complete role model for Bangladesh. There are better educational systems in the world the Japanese one, the Korean one and others. But the point is that even by emulating somewhat these foreign educational systems, Bangladesh can break out of its present stagnancy in education which is hardly helping the country to move forward.
Whether redundant types of education are being favored over the forms of education that help the creation of human resources is posing increasingly as a serious question in the context of Bangladesh. Clearly, the country requires not the creation of parasitical elements in the name of education but useful manpower to feed the growingly diverse needs of its economy.
Therefore, one is dismayed to read reports to the effect that religious institutions are growing in number and official allocations for them are also increasing while the increase in number and assistance are relatively lower for educational institutions that have a direct relationship to creating human resources .
Investors in educationmeaning both the government and the private sector -- ought to also branch out of investments in traditional or general education . It is highly preferable that they should look to other areas where profitability would be more or less assured and where new educational capacities would create human resources in different fields in support of entrepreneurial activities. For instances, fashion institutes are needed to bolster the countrys export oriented ready-made-garments (RMG) sector. A few of them have been set up but more are needed. Institutions to impart education and training on leather technology are in very short supply. But these institutions can help to produce skilled manpower for rapid expansion of the leather industries sector having greater export dimension.
Specialised educational organisations to teach agriculture science that can create manpower in support of the growing export oriented agro industries could be another worthwhile field of investment. The private sector can similarly invest in polytechnics, engineering universities and colleges with assured rates of return on their investments. There is a big demand for engineering and vocational education and compared to the demand facilities for providing such education in the country are in short supply.
Investments made in this area will not only meet demand but help in the creation of a growing technologically able workforce to increasingly supply the needs of various sectors of the economy. There should be more investments in information technology (IT) education centres considering the huge potential demand in this sphere.
However, in all of these areas and more, the investors must be guided by the principle of providing truly quality education. Bangladeshi students presently go abroad in large number in quest of quality education. If they have access to similar education at home which also would be obviously cheaper for being based in their own country, then their fascination for foreign destinations will very likely decline. In that case, the country would be making a huge saving that is now drained in paying the charges and living expenses for its student population abroad.
Governments regulations usually create more impediments to investments than encouraging the same. But the ground for effective regulation of bodies imparting education privately has also arisen because of the less than the expected degree of quality maintained by many of these bodies. Therefore, useful regulation of the private educational institutions has also become essential to ensure quality education. This regulation, at present, is very weak. There is, thus, an urgent need to strengthen regulatory activities in this sphere. But the same must be guided prudentially in order to prevent dislocation. The best strategy should be to create enough pressure on the errant educational institutions to undertake activities on a time-bound basis to make up for their deficiencies.
A rather skewed system of education at primary and secondary levels is noted in the country that impact differently on the pupils and create varying degrees of competence. The three prevailing different streams of education at these levels include generally the Bengali medium schools, the English medium schools and the madrashas.
Most of the Bengali medium schools are considered as not well run by many guardians who are too keen to provide the best or high quality education to their children. This leads to the scramble among them to put their children in English medium schools. But most of these schools are also not up to the mark this truth is not realised by far too many guardians. Then, there is the madrasha education. This system of education puts emphasis on religious studies to the relative exclusion of the physical sciences and other subjects that help in the creation of human resources. Besides, the quality of teaching at the madrasha level is also considered as rather poor. Furthermore, the three systems of education also tend to create students of different capabilities and conflicting outlook.
Thus, it is necessary to bring about a synthesis in the three separate systems of education as well as to improve the quality of education in each system. Any reformative actions in the sphere of education ought to address this need of synthesis and quality at the primary and secondary levels of education.
The English medium schools tend to produce elitist behaviour among pupils. They are often found unfamiliar with conditions in their own country but more knowledgeable about other countries. The Bengali medium schools with their relative lack of neglect of the English language and poor quality of teaching are not helping the creation of human resources of the sort that the country requires. The madrasha systems output is mainly the creation of prayer leaders that hardly fit into any objective of creating resourceful persons to undertake diverse forms of economic activities. Thus, the deficiencies of the three systems of education point to the need of bridging the deficiency in each system and to achieve some sort of harmony among them. More than harmony, the greatest benefit can possibly come from unifying or integrating the three separate systems into one and bringing all the student population under it.
The writer is a researcher on developmental issues
