Quality of education in question

The jubilation over unprecedented high achievement by students at the secondary and higher secondary levels has dissipated rather ungracefully. At the entry point of higher education, even the more equal among candidates -- so far as performance in the secondary and higher secondary examinations are concerned, received the rudest shock of their lives. They could not manage to score the minimum pass mark in the admission test of the country's premier seat of learning, the University of Dhaka (DU). Naturally, the standard of education has been placed under the scanner.

When educationists, scholars, academics and even common people have pointed accusing fingers at the quality, better say lack of quality, of education at the secondary and higher secondary levels, not everyone is ready to take the criticism lying down. The education minister of the country has suddenly become a great defender of the education system at these levels and the results achieved by students. He has gone so far as to claim that the selection process through admission test at Dhaka University (DU) is defective. Moreover he is of the opinion that the setting of question papers was done with an ulterior motive. The motive is to malign the country's education and create a bad image of it abroad with the result that students from Bangladesh will lose the opportunity of studying in foreign universities in the future. In response to the minister's unwarranted outburst, the vice-chancellor of DU has caustically remarked to the effect that to question the admission test of DU is to make the entire education system controversial. Teachers responsible for setting question papers for the English portion clarified that the questions were very simple and easy and meant for higher secondary standard.

As the premier public university of the country, the DU too is struggling to maintain a minimum standard of education. Of the huge army of students scoring the highest grade in the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examinations for some years now, the percentage of pass in the admission test at the DU hovers between 15 per cent and 20 per cent. This is unacceptable. The results in admission tests at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and medical colleges are no better. Admission tests at other public universities, depending on the standard, produce more or less comparable results. According to the government's declared policy, the emphasis now is more on quantity than on quality. If this is candidly admitted, what emerges clearly is a transition period.

The policymakers and political leadership should take a long view of the impact of this policy. Surely the country needs quantity but not at the wholesale expense of quality. The education minister himself has blamed coaching centres which prepare candidates for university and medical college admission. The answer to the decline of education in schools and colleges has to be sought here. Education at school and college levels has become solely dependent on coaching too. Why? Unless teaching standard in class rooms falls, this cannot be the case. In a situation like this blame and counter-blame won't do. Today the need is to improve the traditional classroom lessons and say 'no' to random commercialisation of education. University students need no such coaching. That is the system and the same should hold good for secondary and higher secondary classes.