ACCORDING to a report published by a local daily the University Grants Commission in its latest report has raised questions about the quality of university graduates while recent studies have also brought to the fore the poor state of education quality at all level. Eight out of 10 students who took admission test for Bachelor’s course in Dhaka University in the past three years failed to score the pass mark. The university names all the admission seekers who could score 40 out of 120 in the results but enrols students from the lists to meet the number of seats.
Three-fourths of Class V students do not master Bangla and two-thirds do not master English to the required level of skills.Two-thirds of Class VIII students do not master mathematics and well over a half do not master Bangla and English to the level required. The UGC chairman said that the quality of graduates from both public and private universities was still questionable.
A Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education learning assessment of students for Class VIII, carried out in July 2012, has revealed that the percentage of Class IX students who have mastered the level competencies of Class VIII in Bangla, English, and Mathematics are 44, 44, and 35. The Directorate of Primary Education’s National Students Assessment of 2011 said that only 25 percent of Class V students mastered Bangla and only 33 per cent of the students mastered Mathematics competencies.
The reasons for the poor performance of students are well-known. A reliance on memorization and rote learning as opposed to techniques which favour analysis and application, teachers who are not qualified and not highly motivated due to poor financial remuneration and social status, physical infrastructure facilities which are at best highly inadequate or non existent, a system of administration which heavily relies on bribes and political patronage instead of appointing people on merit – all of these things plague education at all levels – especially the primary and secondary levels.
Policies can be applied which can remove patronage as a requirement for getting jobs in public schools and universities. More funds can be spent on improving infrastructural facilities and remuneration for teachers so that they have more motivation. Funds can also be spent on training teachers so that they can keep in touch with current teaching techniques.
However, all of these will work only when our social and moral characteristics, in other words our political culture, improve. A nation can only improve when the people decide to change the nation themselves. Waiting for manna from heaven like attitudes would do no good to the nation in any aspect – be that education or something else. At the top of all, we must keep education free from politics. It is time to wake up and take the challenge.
