Whither our educational domain?

Redundancy is now a norm in our academic domain. Students earn academic certificates through hard work and devotion which entitle certain privileges in career progression. Thus, when students have Golden A in Secondary and Higher Secondary Certificate Examinations or a reasonable Cumulative Grade Point Average [CGPA], they are entitled to admission into the higher education streams with these two certificates as we were privileged with admission in any university in Bangladesh or in abroad in the 1960s. Now achievements or distinctions do not carry an absolute weight in the admission process; students submit applications to appear in admission tests at various academic institutions; where previous educational achievements carry less than half of the weight. It is an uncertain episode and ordeal in a student's career and many students missed the chance of studying in their field of choice. There are umpteen examples of such redundancy.

When you finish your graduation and post-graduation and ask for an entry job as a lecturer in a non-government college and school with MPO affiliation; you have to enlist in a panel of eligible candidates through a competitive examination conducted by the Non-government Teachers Registration and Certification Agency; a unit of the Ministry of Education. Finally, for cadre and non-cadre services jobs conducted by the Public Service Commission, candidates need to cross a circular loop that costs them at least a minimum of an average period of two years. Students need to sit for the subject's examination that they read at least for a period of five years.

A student of economics needs to sit for a written examination on economic issues or theories that they learned in their undergraduate and graduate courses. A funny observation is that the Public Service Commission arranged to scrutinize these scripts by a second examiner, a rule that we had during university education. What we observe in the whole spectrum is the lack of faith in the candidate's achievement in their previous academic achievement and thus resort to further screening processes that amount to redundancy.

The selection of candidates for various jobs during the sixties and seventies was based on viva-voce examinations and candidates were preliminarily selected for interview on the basis of academic standing. Students with poor or average academic standing could not apply for those jobs. Nowadays, candidates with a below certain CGPA cannot apply for certain types of jobs or admission to a certain academic program in reputed public or private universities. However, it is now an inevitable process as there are thousands of students or candidates with excellent academic standing for admission to the tertiary level of education and in the job market. The quality of education at every stage is being compromised with the sheer quantity of distinguished academic grades. Unfortunately, only a few per cent of students, often below 5 per cent could pass the entry test.

Again, the total number of available jobs is just a miniature fraction. This episode transpires that many educational institutions from the very bottom to the top level failed to perform the job in a proper way. In many instances, the output is far below the average, and students enrolled in tertiary education lack basic knowledge in communication and critical thinking. Indeed students deserve a better grade when they think critically about a specific issue and are comfortable elaborating on any social or international issues. There is now a wide gap between what the students learn and the knowledge requirement in the next phase. Students with excellent results failed to understand the intricacy in discharging their duties in a professional manner in their field of choice.

Students now expect that they would get in the question papers they read in their classes or worked on their home assignments. Nowadays, it was a bigger box that we have to go beyond, but nowadays it is a smaller box and students hesitate to ponder or go beyond it. Most of the students are fond of answering questions they have practiced in their homes. Students are more interested in memorizing answers to structured short or broad questions. This is obvious form the huge percentage of students at the SSC and HSC levels who earned Golden A. The performance of the students in many instances in tertiary education is frustrating as many students cannot write correctly or understand basic mathematics.

This lacuna is encapsulated in a trio: a coaching centre, private tutoring, and the guidebook. A few decades of discordant exposure to this trio brought the efficacy of the entire education system into a fiasco. Education at the secondary and higher secondary level is now very expensive and many guardians are not in a position to pay for children's education.

The exorbitant rate of coaching fees, bindings on the guidebook, and the helplessness of students to their class teacher are costing the poor parents enormous time and pain in a race where at the end of the tunnel they would see that their wards are not at all educated. They are just a bubble with no content that they can trade in their future career progression. The education ministry could not reach a conclusive decision during the decade that could salvage a nation from the burden of wastage. Unfortunately, the terminal decision on the trio is the final nail in the coffin. The legitimacy of the coaching centers with the reservation that the teacher from the school cannot teach their own students appears to be a farce on implementation issue. On the question of guidebooks, the pertinent question is why the students need a guidebook.

The textbook should be comprehensive enough for students so that students can learn from the textbooks. Unfortunately, textbooks are written in a perfunctory manner and with frequent revision. Each of the chapters of the textbook should be enriched with reference books so that students traverse various sources in developing reflective skills. Instead, students and their unfortunate guardians commute to coaching centers to equip them with notes for junky golden A. Will the Ministry of Education can give a second thought to this trio: coaching center, private tutoring, and the guidebook?

The writer is a former Member, Directing Staff, Development and Economics Division, Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center at Savar, Dhaka. He can be contacted at mirobaidurr7@ gmail.com