President's concern over education

President Abdul Hamid has criticised a section of university teachers for turning the country's highest seats of learning into business establishments. The head of the state's frustration, expressed at Monday's Dhaka University convocation, is similar to criticism that education is being made a commodity without quality.

This crisis is not a Bangladesh-specific one, although the country has seen mushrooming of low-quality institutes in the process of horizontal expansion of education. Even a country like Britain had to launch crackdown on poor quality institutions in the last decade in order to ensure that education did not become a commercial venture and there could be no compromise on its quality. However, are our policymakers going to bring discipline with focus on high quality teaching and research in the education sector?

S Mahmud

Mohammadpur, Dhaka