Education facing further setback

The country's quality of education has always left much to be desired but some initiatives made lately certainly showed the promise of bringing about positive changes--- even if those were small ones. That the University of Dhaka (DU) ranked 554th in the Quackquarelli Symonds (QS) World University rankings of 2025 is the best example of this. With limited budget for research, as exemplified by the Tk200 million allocation for DU's research in the current fiscal year, this is no mean achievement. Had other universities made similar progress, the higher education could indeed make quite a difference in the country's education canvas. Yet a few public and private universities improved their ranking somewhat.

Apart from this progress in the tertiary education, the reforms in education with a radically systemic change at the primary and secondary levels also had the potential of catapulting the system out of its outdated format. However, there was the uncertainty of realising the potential because of not putting in place the required facilities including the development of the main architects ---teachers that is. With the indefinite closure of educational institutions, school children will suffer overwhelming learning setback for the second time in four years. During the Covid-19, the learning reversal was incalculable for the young learners. They are yet to recover from the earlier learning setback.

Session jam at the primary, secondary and higher secondary levels of education could be avoided by means of stop-gap measures but at a huge cost to the learners' acquisition of the required knowledge in their respective classes. The higher education in public universities was once simply notorious in terms of creating logjam of sessions. But some proactive programmes adopted by many of the universities concerned helped them overcome the problem before the pandemic. Then Covid-19 pushed the completion of syllabi and examinations back by at least a year for some of the universities. Universities like the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, however, was successful in maintaining the academic years.

With the uncertainty prevailing on the education front, maintenance of the updated academic year may not be possible. Right now some of the examinations of the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) are yet to be complete. Their immediate senior batch is waiting for completing their admission process or starting classes in their respective disciplines at the universities, medical colleges or other highest seats of learning. It will be an uphill task for the educational institutions at all levels to avoid lesson losses and the consequent session jams at the tertiary level if the classes cannot be started soon.

The United Nations expressed its concern that the epidemic would end up creating a lost generation the world over. It is not because of only loss of education but also because of the psychological trauma children were supposed to go through as a result of staying confined to the four walls for a prolonged period. That it happened is perhaps grimly highlighted by the fact that the incidence of suicides among students from teenagers to university students and their unemployed seniors suddenly has alarmingly been on the rise.

There is the risk of education losing its way in the labyrinth of chaos and anarchy now prevailing in the country thanks to political shortsightedness. Infrastructure damaged or destroyed can be restored or rebuilt but the loss a generation is likely to suffer cannot be compensated. That protesting students are unaware of this self-harm is not the case. It is the hyper-reaction meted out to them that has triggered the explosion of their suppressed anger. They now seek remedy to the social ills vitiating society at large. This emotional crisis has to be treated carefully and with the sagacity it demands. Or else, the nation may have to pay a price beyond its affordability.

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