Education in the country calls for prioritization. There is little question that of all the sectors which are in a less than healthy state, education fares the worst. Be it in school, college or university, the young in Bangladesh are up against a wall they find increasingly hard to scale.
One will have a better picture of the situation through observing the long wait students qualifying at the Higher Secondary Education (HSC) examinations have been going through for admission to the public universities. There is the uniform admissions committee, the joint convener of which informs us that the admissions process is a complex task.
Juxtapose that statement with the grievances of students who have lost as many as eighteen months since their appearance at the HSC exams, the announcement of the results, their qualifying for admission to universities or university-affiliated colleges and then waiting helplessly because many of these institutions have simply not completed the admission formalities.
One certainly understands the many ways in which the coronavirus pandemic has left education in Bangladesh badly wounded. But one cannot fathom the languid and indifferent manner in which the public universities have gone about clearing the admission decks.
When a student qualifies for admission to the Home Economics College at the end of September 2022 for the 2021-22 academic session and then must wait for months to take her seat at the college, the damage being done to education can easily be imagined.
Of course, as Professor Biswajit Chanda at the University Grants Commission would have one know, the UGC's instructions regarding admissions have been clear: the public universities would have to complete the admission process within two to three months of the announcement of the HSC examination results. That edict has been ignored. And nine months have gone by since the HSC examination results were made public.
The consequences are disconcerting. There are reports of the young waiting to begin classes at the universities and their affiliated colleges, not knowing when they will be given the clearance to resume education, at the higher levels. Frustration is nibbling away at their patience and indeed their self-confidence. Those young whose families are well-off, in that economic sense, have been making their way to private universities.
But think of the majority of students whose families struggle for a living and yet would have them acquire good education. Most of these young come from our rural regions. Must those responsible for the admission procedures to universities take away such a large chunk of time from the lives of these struggling young?
These students, whose academic achievements at school and college are remarkable, cannot afford to pay their way through education at the private universities. Besides, for them as for those who will come after them, the nation's public universities offer the best hope of career advancement in life.
It makes sense to refer to a World Bank report from 2019, noting that 35 per cent of students at our public universities come from a background of poverty. It is then hugely unfair that for no fault of theirs these young must idle away their time at home, waiting for that call to begin classes at the public universities.
Professor Md Mashiur Rahman, Vice Chancellor of National University, echoes the feelings of many when he suggests that the uniform admission test committee should take the initiative to complete the admission process at the universities in a brief period of time from next year.
National University has meanwhile done what other universities have not been able to do: in the current academic year, it carried the admission process through to a successful culmination in June, ensuring that classes commenced in July.
All of this raises the question: if National University can do it, why must other universities fall behind?
Which takes one back to the overwhelming question of education requiring to be placed at the top of the government's policy agenda. Time was when ubiquitous session jams at the public universities placed students in jeopardy through making it hard for them to appear at public service examinations.
As they waited for their honours and masters courses to draw to an end in the prescribed four years, they realized that it was an impossible dream. Instances are there aplenty of the young emerging with masters qualifications six and even eight years after admission to the universities.
That left a good number of lives in disarray. The consequences were many and unfortunate. In the first place, it was the families of these young who suffered, for the simple reason that where they looked forward to their children coming by good jobs once they finished their university education, they now were condemned to a continuation of their poverty-driven state.
In the second place, many among these young went beyond the age limit for competitive public service examinations, compelled to veer off into professions at variance with their university education.
Such sad stories ought not to be repeated. It is not only unfair but plainly unethical to compel students who have qualified for university admission to remain grounded at home only because those manning the universities have not done the work they were supposed to do.
In a society where families yet struggle to have food on the table, where the hopes of parents are centered on their children acquiring university education and then proceeding into jobs that will stabilize the family economy as well as ensure the future of the younger children at home, we cannot ignore these compulsions.
A proper, credible and purposeful education policy is a clear and present need today. The formulation of such a policy must first of all do away with outdated patterns of classroom lectures and examinations at all levels of the education pyramid. Comprehensive syllabi bringing a student into contact with the demands of post-modern education --- history, mathematics, science, climate change, global politics --- are a paramount need.
At our universities, both public and private, the goal should be without ambiguity --- to equip our young not only to meet the world on their own terms but, more importantly, to get their results in good time and engage themselves in employment which not only assures them places in government but also has them go for innovative projects and therefore self-employment across the upazilas and districts of Bangladesh.
When education is chaotic, society is badly hobbled. When education has the young come by certificates but does not guarantee them a role in nation-building, it is the state which pays a price in the councils of the world.
ahsan.syedbadrul@gmail.com