Education merchandised
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Maswood Alam Khan
NOW I regret why I had refused to favour a client who did come to me with a high expectation when I was Manager of Agrani Bank, Banani Branch many years back. She was an elderly lady, very shy and introvert. She was hesitant to broach her proposition. I tried my best to create an air of assurance so that she could feel easy. At last she started her litany of what a school in Banani was like. Politely I said, "Madam, I don't have any school-going child", thinking she came to advertise about her school. Taken aback, she said: "I've not come for enrolling students. I need bank loan to run my school that I have established a few months back". I got a little vexed and explained: "Banks give loans for trading or manufacturing merchandizes. Education, madam, is not merchandize, for your information". She felt, I could well see, insulted, and got blushed and left. In retrospect, I realize I was grossly wrong 20 years back in deeming education not merchandise.
Education has for long been deemed one's birthright. If we look at nature we find an animal or a bird earning knowledge from the nature the way since perhaps the primordial period we, the humans, or our primordial ancestors too did educate ourselves taking lessons from the nature.
But humans have been compelled to pay for gathering knowledge about the nature and its hidden mysteries. Education has been made a business enterprise, to the surprise of humans who were used to garnering knowledge for free. Paying tuition fees for earning knowledge from formal schools, a new concept, sounded like paying toll for breathing oxygen from the nature. Education is now very expensive. Education loan for students and working capital loan for school operators are two popular products almost all the banks in Bangladesh are now selling.
Our successive governments have been sincerely trying to introduce free education at primary and secondary levels, no doubt. But due to lack of good governance, the quality of education in public schools is fast deteriorating. Of course, there are private institutions too where the quality of education is way inferior to public ones.
In general, public colleges and universities cost less than private ones in the tertiary levels of education, but with politics vitiating the academic atmosphere of public institutions in Bangladesh guardians are interested to send their wards to local private institutions and the wealthy parents are sending their children overseas for both undergrad and graduate studies. Tuition costs in private universities at home and abroad have been rising faster than inflation and are projected to skyrocket in coming years.
From the commercial point of view, one now finds basically no difference between potatoes bought from the shops and degrees earned from the educational institutions -- because both are merchandises. Money power is now the prime controller for dispensing and earning education. Even if one is self-educated, s/he cannot find a gainful employment unless a certificate from a reputed institution attesting his/her education is presented. Rabindranath Tagore who did not get a formal education from any formal institution would perhaps have remained unemployed had he been alive today. Tagore once said: "The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence".
In this age of consumerism and information technology when people are crazily chasing schools to store mountains of information, when people don't have time to gaze at the full moon on an autumn night, when people have almost forgotten how to handwrite a letter and when the classroom of a school looks more like a laboratory, one would be deemed nutty if he or she ever attempts to say that education as our birthright should be made available for free for all. No person would dare say that the real education can be attained through conversing with the nature, not simply from the narrow confine of a classroom.
The very concept of education seems to have been changed with infusion of commercialism into both teaching and learning. No more can we find teachers like those in the past whose only mission was to dispense knowledge to pupils; teaching to them was more a religion than a profession to make money. There were in our country teachers who used to plead parents for sending their wards to schools. Some teachers even would give from their personal fund financial helps to the poor students who were brilliant.
Given the business potential of education student loan from banks in Bangladesh has of late been quite popular for defraying high tuition fees of the private universities. Education loan is also sought to meet huge expenses required for a student's prosecuting higher education abroad, especially in colleges and universities in England, America and Australia. Some are availing of such student loans in the name of education with a view to settling abroad or seeking overseas employments.
The way a company takes bank loan to invest for future gains a student too takes loan to invest in his pursuit of education for gains in future. It's an investment decision! Students before taking an education loan make sure that the loan is invested for earning a degree which promises a promising career.
Those who are already employed in different corporate bodies with attractive pay and perks are mainly the target group of the banks for such education loans which are offered, in special cases, without asking for any personal guarantee or cash security. The loan amount ranges from Taka 50,000 to Taka 750,000 or a maximum of four times of the applicant's monthly income, whichever is lower. The interest rate of education loan is as high as 16 to 18 per cent and the loan is repayable in variable periods of 12, 24, 36 or 48 months. Education loan to those who are not well-employed requires enough security.
A student, for example, having a loan of Taka 100,000, at 16.50 per cent interest rate per annum, repayable within a period of 48 months, has to pay back a monthly installment of Taka 2,861. He has to pay a monthly installment of Taka 9,099 if the repayment period is fixed at 12 months. But, Taka 100,000 may soon be ballooned to Taka 500,000 as a result of deferring loan repayments which is very likely in case of young graduates who usually don't look minutely at the fine print in the loan sanction letter issued by a banker. The loan may ultimately become a dangerous liability once it is turned over to a collection agency.
But a meritorious student who is eligible to get admission in a reputed university, local or overseas, will never get an education loan only on the basis of his or her merit. It's not that the banks are enemies of our meritorious students. There is no rule that a bank cannot give loan to a meritorious student without any security. But experience suggests many meritorious entrepreneurs did fleece banks leaving their loan liabilities unadjusted. So, giving loans without security is no more in vogue in the banking industry. It's due to the bad culture of the borrowers; it's our culture of 'not paying a loan back to the lender'.
In the developed world it is often the government that chips in to help the meritorious. In Canada, for example, students have to take loans from the government and if a borrower student shows stupendous and impeccable academic credentials the government waives the loan and in some cases a private organization adjusts the entire loan on behalf of the meritorious student. Such an incentive, if introduced in Bangladeshi, for the poor but meritorious students would go a long way for the talented who are our national treasures.
We are draining taxpayers' money by giving subsidies to all the public educational institutions from where very few productive graduates are entering the job market. What is most needed in Bangladesh, to my humble opinion, is not churning out reams of education certificates from the universities. Instead of offering subsidies to all and sundry, the government should identify the institutions wherefrom young boys and girls can earn technical know-how salable at home and abroad. Those schools, colleges and universities, especially the vocational ones, should be patronized by the government wherefrom graduation courses on nursing, engineering, mechanics and other attractive vocational courses like plumbing, masonry etc., are offered. Graduates from such institutions would be our future hard currency earners. While offering education loans, our banks should also keep an eye to this aspect of our future wage earners.
E-mail : maswood@hotmail.com
NOW I regret why I had refused to favour a client who did come to me with a high expectation when I was Manager of Agrani Bank, Banani Branch many years back. She was an elderly lady, very shy and introvert. She was hesitant to broach her proposition. I tried my best to create an air of assurance so that she could feel easy. At last she started her litany of what a school in Banani was like. Politely I said, "Madam, I don't have any school-going child", thinking she came to advertise about her school. Taken aback, she said: "I've not come for enrolling students. I need bank loan to run my school that I have established a few months back". I got a little vexed and explained: "Banks give loans for trading or manufacturing merchandizes. Education, madam, is not merchandize, for your information". She felt, I could well see, insulted, and got blushed and left. In retrospect, I realize I was grossly wrong 20 years back in deeming education not merchandise.
Education has for long been deemed one's birthright. If we look at nature we find an animal or a bird earning knowledge from the nature the way since perhaps the primordial period we, the humans, or our primordial ancestors too did educate ourselves taking lessons from the nature.
But humans have been compelled to pay for gathering knowledge about the nature and its hidden mysteries. Education has been made a business enterprise, to the surprise of humans who were used to garnering knowledge for free. Paying tuition fees for earning knowledge from formal schools, a new concept, sounded like paying toll for breathing oxygen from the nature. Education is now very expensive. Education loan for students and working capital loan for school operators are two popular products almost all the banks in Bangladesh are now selling.
Our successive governments have been sincerely trying to introduce free education at primary and secondary levels, no doubt. But due to lack of good governance, the quality of education in public schools is fast deteriorating. Of course, there are private institutions too where the quality of education is way inferior to public ones.
In general, public colleges and universities cost less than private ones in the tertiary levels of education, but with politics vitiating the academic atmosphere of public institutions in Bangladesh guardians are interested to send their wards to local private institutions and the wealthy parents are sending their children overseas for both undergrad and graduate studies. Tuition costs in private universities at home and abroad have been rising faster than inflation and are projected to skyrocket in coming years.
From the commercial point of view, one now finds basically no difference between potatoes bought from the shops and degrees earned from the educational institutions -- because both are merchandises. Money power is now the prime controller for dispensing and earning education. Even if one is self-educated, s/he cannot find a gainful employment unless a certificate from a reputed institution attesting his/her education is presented. Rabindranath Tagore who did not get a formal education from any formal institution would perhaps have remained unemployed had he been alive today. Tagore once said: "The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence".
In this age of consumerism and information technology when people are crazily chasing schools to store mountains of information, when people don't have time to gaze at the full moon on an autumn night, when people have almost forgotten how to handwrite a letter and when the classroom of a school looks more like a laboratory, one would be deemed nutty if he or she ever attempts to say that education as our birthright should be made available for free for all. No person would dare say that the real education can be attained through conversing with the nature, not simply from the narrow confine of a classroom.
The very concept of education seems to have been changed with infusion of commercialism into both teaching and learning. No more can we find teachers like those in the past whose only mission was to dispense knowledge to pupils; teaching to them was more a religion than a profession to make money. There were in our country teachers who used to plead parents for sending their wards to schools. Some teachers even would give from their personal fund financial helps to the poor students who were brilliant.
Given the business potential of education student loan from banks in Bangladesh has of late been quite popular for defraying high tuition fees of the private universities. Education loan is also sought to meet huge expenses required for a student's prosecuting higher education abroad, especially in colleges and universities in England, America and Australia. Some are availing of such student loans in the name of education with a view to settling abroad or seeking overseas employments.
The way a company takes bank loan to invest for future gains a student too takes loan to invest in his pursuit of education for gains in future. It's an investment decision! Students before taking an education loan make sure that the loan is invested for earning a degree which promises a promising career.
Those who are already employed in different corporate bodies with attractive pay and perks are mainly the target group of the banks for such education loans which are offered, in special cases, without asking for any personal guarantee or cash security. The loan amount ranges from Taka 50,000 to Taka 750,000 or a maximum of four times of the applicant's monthly income, whichever is lower. The interest rate of education loan is as high as 16 to 18 per cent and the loan is repayable in variable periods of 12, 24, 36 or 48 months. Education loan to those who are not well-employed requires enough security.
A student, for example, having a loan of Taka 100,000, at 16.50 per cent interest rate per annum, repayable within a period of 48 months, has to pay back a monthly installment of Taka 2,861. He has to pay a monthly installment of Taka 9,099 if the repayment period is fixed at 12 months. But, Taka 100,000 may soon be ballooned to Taka 500,000 as a result of deferring loan repayments which is very likely in case of young graduates who usually don't look minutely at the fine print in the loan sanction letter issued by a banker. The loan may ultimately become a dangerous liability once it is turned over to a collection agency.
But a meritorious student who is eligible to get admission in a reputed university, local or overseas, will never get an education loan only on the basis of his or her merit. It's not that the banks are enemies of our meritorious students. There is no rule that a bank cannot give loan to a meritorious student without any security. But experience suggests many meritorious entrepreneurs did fleece banks leaving their loan liabilities unadjusted. So, giving loans without security is no more in vogue in the banking industry. It's due to the bad culture of the borrowers; it's our culture of 'not paying a loan back to the lender'.
In the developed world it is often the government that chips in to help the meritorious. In Canada, for example, students have to take loans from the government and if a borrower student shows stupendous and impeccable academic credentials the government waives the loan and in some cases a private organization adjusts the entire loan on behalf of the meritorious student. Such an incentive, if introduced in Bangladeshi, for the poor but meritorious students would go a long way for the talented who are our national treasures.
We are draining taxpayers' money by giving subsidies to all the public educational institutions from where very few productive graduates are entering the job market. What is most needed in Bangladesh, to my humble opinion, is not churning out reams of education certificates from the universities. Instead of offering subsidies to all and sundry, the government should identify the institutions wherefrom young boys and girls can earn technical know-how salable at home and abroad. Those schools, colleges and universities, especially the vocational ones, should be patronized by the government wherefrom graduation courses on nursing, engineering, mechanics and other attractive vocational courses like plumbing, masonry etc., are offered. Graduates from such institutions would be our future hard currency earners. While offering education loans, our banks should also keep an eye to this aspect of our future wage earners.
E-mail : maswood@hotmail.com