In Chattogram, our Education Advisor recently said, “It will not take much time to change the country when education touches all. Education makes humans modest and gentle. A student who gets education from his family will never show pride; rather, he will be modest. So, there should not be any business with education. Education is a proper channel of becoming real human beings that all must remember.’’
I appreciate the nice words of our advisor, and side by side, I want to draw his kind attention to the fact that our education assumed a business shape many years back; it is not a new phenomenon.
It has not become in one or two days to come to this stage and not by the sweet will of a single individual. Instead, it has become commercial because of the global stance on education, the idea of the worldwide village, industrialisation, and crumbling moral values. Â
When we look at the country’s private universities, we see they are crowded with BBA and MBA courses that avoid humanistic subjects such as Literature, Geography, History, Religious Education, Philosophy and pure Science.
Yes, private universities teach English, but mainly it deals with language, not literature, indicating once again business. Here we know two streams work—language and literature. Here, language is taught commercially to cater to the needs of expanding businesses of local and multinational companies, where people with communication skills are needed.
Students study this language day and night as they failed to develop a real base of English in school and college life. On the contrary, very few students study English literature, and Bengali literature is absent here.
If students do not read ‘The Dover Beach ‘of Mathew Arnold, how will they learn that the moral degradation of society takes place? Arnold shows that people are now as confused as the two opposing armies fighting at night, which means ignorantly and without thinking of its cruel consequences. Ignorant armies kill people, destroying this beautiful world.
If they do not read ‘A Passage to India’, how will they learn what the British did during their rule of this sub-continent? If they do not read ‘ Kritodasher Hashi’, how can they understand the behaviour of the kings and queens, the behaviour of the people in power, and how they become jealous of ordinary people’s pure love and contentment?
How will they enrich their connections with the past if they do not read history? Literature teaches and develops the critical thinking skills of the learners. It makes them humane and enables them to be critical analysts. Commercial subjects do not develop these aspects of humans; they teach how to make business hoodwink the people.
Private and public universities produce machine-like human beings because of the fattening of the commercial aspects of education. Our universities are producing BCS cadres, which means no creative people, scientists, or educationists!
Education is a big business that global entities do in the guise of social work and educating the children of third-world countries. ‘Language business’—a big business indeed! The touch of this business has spread every vein and sub-vein of our country, like many other developing countries.
We can see this business at the micro level as well. In schools and colleges, teachers teach English; they teach English in Bengali, which is far from the real language development of the learners and even the teachers themselves. Teaching this Bangladeshi English means changing the voice and narration and explaining these in Bengali; they earn a considerable amount.
It is another distorted form of English business! Education business! After passing the intermediate level, students studying English for twelve years as a compulsory subject cannot express anything of own ( with a rare exception) either in speaking or writing. Reading and listening skills are foreign to them. But big business is going on in this subject!
Thousands of teachers, teachers of other subjects, and students of different subjects teach English. Why? A big business lies here. But the victims (students and guardians) can never fathom how much harm they are incurring by teaching Bengali-dominated English by these teachers!
As business is concerned with this subject, all are hankering after it. When you call them for any social work or noble purpose, they answer, ‘We have coaching and private students. ’ How much money will you give? Etc. It means they are engaged in business; they have no other concern!
BBA and MBA – to attract customers and allure them. Do they teach how to be enraptured? Just getting ready to have a job. Where is humanity, where is literature, where is mental food, where is morality?
All are busy with business, all are busy with materialistic benefits and deals. If private universities could have blended both humanistic and commercial subjects, it would have been an idealistic situation that is truly necessary today. We are producing doctors, why just for business?
These doctors (maybe not all) do not know how to talk to or deal with the patients and their relatives joining them. We are producing engineers, why just for business? They also don’t get any humanistic or moral education and do not develop any patriotic feelings. They resort to illegal ways and means to make a fortune in their service life. Before getting a job, they try to go abroad and live there permanently. That is their ultimate dream. Here also means business!
Suppose you interview five hundred guardians about their plans with their children. In that case, all will mention professions such as doctors, engineers, army officers, and BCS officers. Very few will say agriculturists, and no one will tell their son or daughter they will be a teacher.
Interestingly, all these guardians are searching for good teachers to give good education to their children so that they can be successful businessmen in future! This paradoxical or reverse situation prevails in society. What’s the reason behind it?.
All professions have direct or indirect business, social status, and different facilities, but teachers do not have them. So, no one opts for it. Whereas teachers build a society, if they are good and well-motivated, they can contribute to positive change in society.
Our students don’t read original textbooks; they read notes and guidebooks that flood the market. Means business! Students, teachers, coaching centres all follow these guidebooks and boards; question setters don’t go beyond them. They copy questions from guidebooks and some particular guidebooks.
Teachers in the school use these guidebooks because they get money from the companies, students buy these books even though they seriously and harmfully restrict the students’ creativity. Still, these books are very popular among the teachers, students, guardians, coaching centres, and board question setters.
Nobody prepares any questions by themselves; they follow just the guidebooks. It means no practice of creativity, rather all business! NCTB does not need to print books; students do not use these; they get everything from guidebooks. Still, NCTB remains busy with publishing books because it is a business!
Private and subject teachers further try to squeeze the syllabus to become more popular and attract more students and guardians. Why? They can make students pass very easily , get very good grades without developing any conceptual idea or learning anything in detail.
That means they can make students pass and get grades commercially! They teach students how to pass without touching the text, without learning anything, or without understanding anything; just their shortest and simplest notes and suggestions are enough. And these teachers are famous, well-known, and moneyed men, which means big business!
The advisor also said that our education should be joyful, with no competition, as competitive education never creates ideal human beings. It sounds very lovely and soothing that there should not be any competition in education, and students will learn joyfully. It should have been said that there should be happy and sound competition in education, not unhealthy competition.
It should be joyful, but there must be tolerance and hard labour. Gaining knowledge by employing individual labour is enjoyable. Aimless singing and dancing were introduced in the previous curriculum without trying to learn anything, which doomed students’ careers and relegated them to several years ago. Their loss would take several more years to make up for.
The newspapers published all these messages, protests, and criticisms, but the authorities turned a deaf ear to them. Why? Business. No student liked that new curriculum, no teacher could implement it, and no guardians accepted it. However, all these did not matter to NCTB. Why? It is a matter of big business!
Businesses of various forms and types have tentacled education! The entire education system is a business! Education produces businesspeople of different types and forms. It rarely produces human beings, patriotic citizens. Big business has engulfed the entire education system! How could we ignore it? That’s a big question now!
About the Author
Masum Billah works as a President of the English Teachers' Association of Bangladesh (ETAB), Dhaka, Bangladesh. He previously worked as an Education Specialist at BRAC, an international NGO in Bangladesh.