When students fall victim to ceaseless experiments

Of late the country's standard of education at the secondary and higher secondary levels has come under scathing criticism from different quarters. The admission test at the University of Dhaka has added fuel to the fire. And there are some who do not quite realise what they say in their overenthusiasm over such delicate issues. Teachers had no reason to take some injudicious comments undermining their ability to teach as well as the quality of GPA (grade point average)-5 holders gracefully. Offended teachers protested by arranging a human chain on the city's street.
Amid the sound and fury of the controversy, what however goes amiss is the most important issues of all. It goes almost unnoticed that the young learners are falling victim to a system that is undergoing too many experiments. Students are used more often than not as guinea pigs on the pulpit of experiments with education. Text books are changed, syllabi recast, formats of questions reshaped but the dependence on private coaching and guide books becomes overbearing. The primary purpose of making education exciting and inspirational remains illusive. Students are subjected to a 24-hour drill with little breathing space for them.
Is this education? If learners do not love what they learn, the exercise is a total waste. Education has become a product and it has been commercialised at its worst. When this happens, the learners like the central figure in the "Tota Kahini" by Rabindranath Tagore one day drops dead on account of mishandling.
What is appalling is the fact that the authorities mostly take decisions in the face of unwanted developments. When sudden and short-term measures are adopted as a deterrent to tide over particular problems, it exposes the short-sightedness of those who are in charge. For example, the introduction of what is called structured questions and popularly known as creative questions was prompted by adoption of unfair means by a section of examinees and preparation of answers to a set of more or less predictable questions. In the initial years, its impact was rather unwelcome. Similarly, the introduction of grade point average had its toll in the first few years.
In matters of education, there is no place for stop-gap solution. If the endeavour is expended to addressing crises of unforeseen nature all the time, it has to be realised that there is a gigantic systemic weakness. A comprehensive system should take care of adverse conditions long before they could make a dent into it.
Even the University of Dhaka failed to give a good account of its resolution over the controversy of admission test. Why did it introduce the elective English part, mandatory for admission to the English Department, without prior information in the first place? The majority students were not even aware of it. Now that only two students qualified for admission to the department, it has lowered the criteria for admission.
Even more serious is the issue of doing away with the provision for allowing candidates a second chance to sit for the admission test. This too has come as an afterthought. That the system of education up to the higher secondary level has been anything but ideal is no fault of the students of the country. It is the men in charge who should be held accountable. Maintaining standard at a sustainable level cannot be the responsibility of the learners alone, particularly when they achieve the highest grade.
Ideally all such high achievers should have qualified for admission. But because seats are limited, those scoring higher marks in admission test should get the opportunity to study at the highest seats of learning. So the need is to strike a balance between the standards of education at the higher secondary level and the university level.