Exploiting best resources through education

A few days back I was watching television at home. Suddenly, on one channel I found our cable provider started to telecast local advertisements. I was going to change the channel, but it drew my attention when they started to telecast advertisements for coaching centres, and private tutoring homes; this telecast continued for about 10-15 minutes.  Readers, you can easily imagine many advertisements can be televised in 10-15 minutes. Again, these coaching centres are only for a certain portion of Dhaka city, and therefore, we simply do not know the total number of these coaching centres and private tutoring homes in Dhaka city.
If we think very sensibly, we must admit that even though there is huge population in our country, but these people can be the biggest resources of our country.  Are we able to utilise this resources for the development of our country? Without doubt, we cannot utilise our population without giving them true light of education. Can we boldly express that we are giving all our students the true education?
Not only in Dhaka city, these coaching centres are now spread all over the country and all students need to go there, if they want to secure a god result in SSC or HSC exam or want to get admitted in a reputed university. I believe all educated people in our country would admit that good education becomes very challenging as it requires much money to obtain and we just let these centres continue activities in our country.
For example, one student received a bachelor degree from National University, Bangladesh and another student received a bachelor degree from North South University (NSU). There is no doubt that an NSU student would enjoy better chance of getting a good job than one who received degree from National University. We never know what talents are hidden in those students who received degree from National University or from Bangladesh Open University. Also we do not know how to evaluate them. This is common that all students will not be able to study in the same institution, but we are making education very difficult in our country as a limited number of the schools and colleges ensure good education, and therefore, students go to many different private homes, teachers and coaching centres.
Question is which system we can introduce to change this scenario; this is certain that if we are not able to change the situation, we cannot guarantee proper participation from all people. With the present system in our education, we merely ensure participation of limited people in the development process of the country, but this has to be changed in anyway.
There is no problem if students go to coaching centres, but it makes us worried when we see that education institutions do not play any role other than only doing the administrative role in providing the degree to the students. Students go to schools and colleges, but no classes are taken properly there. If the situation is like this, why do we need to keep these institutions? Most agonizing concern is when we hear from the students that they need to go to the coaching centres, otherwise they will not get good marks in the exams. We know that our education minister has been trying very hard to minimize these private tutoring homes, but have we seen any significant change in this regard? Most probably not.
Every problem has a solution and this problem can also be solved. All we need is to have positive mind and need to bring changes. All these students who are deprived of receiving good education need to have timely education so that they can also participate in development process of our country. We should not forget that the biggest resource of our country is our people and by any means we need to make sure that we can make the best use of them.
We need to change our education system drastically and need to make sure that this education is not for a certain percentage of people; this education should be for all. I was checking with my nephew, who is now studying HSC 1st year. He has one teacher for each subject and sometimes he needs more than one teacher for certain subjects. And he also mentions that this is common for all students and students must do this in order to obtain better education. Why do students need to go to schools and colleges if they  require coaching centres, or private tutors for every subject?
My nephew is studying is Rajshahi where the situation is like this. If we talk about Dhaka city, the situation is more serious. Parents in Dhaka city need to count huge money for their each and every child. And those who cannot afford, their sons and daughters usually lag behind. When you see that you are not getting good result and good education because of money, this may have negative impacts.
The writer is adjunct faculty at School of Business in Independent University, Bangladesh,
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