Highest court on the land severely rebuked the coaching culture. Several other appeals about private lesson providers are shelved for the first week of February to be settled.
There has been a lot of criticism about the ongoing coaching practices in Bangladesh. More precisely, private lesson provided by school / college teachers and coaching centers for entrance exams of tertiary education institutions are at the forefront of this criticism.However, no serious effort has been made to distinguish between corporatization of private lesson provider and those who took up the job to meet the basic needs.
Among others, arguments put forward against private lesson providing services include out of classroom teaching by serving teachers, influencing the results, question paper leak, falling quality of students.
Government responds to these allegations by shutting down coaching centers prior to key public examinations. In addition, it is seriously considering to impose some kind of restrictions on teachers who provide private lesson to students of their respective institutions.
Point the government is missing here is that the whole private lesson service cannot be blamed for the corrupt acts of the few.
The High Court in its recent verdict called the "private lesson providing business" is an immoral act.
Maybe the defendant lawyer did not manage to convince the court that in a materialistic society teachers also do have aspirations and dreams. They also want a secure future for their children. In a country like ours, teaching is not a rewarding career. To make a decent living out of the monthly salary is far from reality. A teacher's only source of making some bucks is this private lesson service.
Government can regulate or formulate policies regarding this service. Instead it heaped blame on private lesson providing services for decay of values in whole education system.
This faulty perception needs to be changed. Back in April last year, I wrote a piece titled"Stop This Publicity Stunt" underscoring hollow stance of Anti-Corruption Commission on private lesson services.
In that piece I argued that in our country coaching services are also available for O/A level students. However, we have not heard of any question paper leak in O/A level exams. Did the government try to find out the reason?
The question paper scam marred our public examination system because some corrupt public servants and coaching centers pander to the demand of leaked questions. Rather than putting the professional integrity and commitment under scanner the government put the whole private lesson service industry under scanner.
Apart from teachers, unemployed people, petty employees also contribute to this industry to supplement their income. Is that a crime? In an age when cadre-based political parties are flourishing and levying unofficial duties on businesses by drawing monthly extortion or charging commission on public projects or receiving monthly payments from the parties, how can a non-partisan youth or petty employee meet his basic needs or fill the shortfall in earnings needed for decent living?
There is no left or right international fraternity organizations that will send aid for him through diplomatic channels or charitable organizations.
To our dismay, we also noticed that how all the government machinery including the court stepped forward to farther accelerate the process of tribalism at the tertiary education institutions instead of making them a center of excellence. Meanwhile, our neighbors surpassed us by securing positions in Asia's top 100 universities. And 47 years after independence, we reinvented their utility in the society by dubbing them "[political]leader maker". By the way, hardly any of these leaders' son and daughter have studied at these desi universities or gone through local education system.
I found it rude and indecent when a minister said that primary school teachers should not send their children to kindergartens. None has the authority to clip the wing of aspirations of a primary school teacher.
At the same time, it is not just to make private lesson service a villain when there has been lack of quality jobs, drop in corporate salary, rising inflation and an army of job seekers.
What are the practices in other countries?
In Singapore, which is ranked 4th in CPI 2018 by Transparency International , private lesson providers enjoy a respectable life and many earn millions of dollars. The service is a well recognized industry. In South Korea, the private lesson centers are known as club( i.e. Math Club, English Club etc) and are full of books on respective subjects. South Korean students spend hours in these centers to read books and take services of private tutors.The clubs do not display name of the teachers. BBC made a magnificent documentary title "School Swap: Korea Style" on South Korean education system. Despite being less corrupt countries, both Singapore and South Korea have a thriving private lesson providing industry. The presence of such an industry did not pollute the whole education system. So the point is when corruption is prevalent in every aspect of society, private lesson industry cannot stay unscathed and remain a distant island.
I would request the court, and at the same time to the government, to read the Straits Times report on Singapore's super tutors and watch BBC documentary on South Korean school before the February hearing.
This will help them to clear their perception about private lesson providing services.Misdeeds of few cannot be categorized as common practices of a whole industry. This industry also helps to blossom the true potential of an educator and to fine tune acquired knowledge of a person who is on the verge of moving toward the next stage of his own field. A more constructive role from the part of policy makers and judiciary will be to formulate do's and don'ts and regulate the industry.
There has been a lot of criticism about the ongoing coaching practices in Bangladesh. More precisely, private lesson provided by school / college teachers and coaching centers for entrance exams of tertiary education institutions are at the forefront of this criticism.However, no serious effort has been made to distinguish between corporatization of private lesson provider and those who took up the job to meet the basic needs.
Among others, arguments put forward against private lesson providing services include out of classroom teaching by serving teachers, influencing the results, question paper leak, falling quality of students.
Government responds to these allegations by shutting down coaching centers prior to key public examinations. In addition, it is seriously considering to impose some kind of restrictions on teachers who provide private lesson to students of their respective institutions.
Point the government is missing here is that the whole private lesson service cannot be blamed for the corrupt acts of the few.
The High Court in its recent verdict called the "private lesson providing business" is an immoral act.
Maybe the defendant lawyer did not manage to convince the court that in a materialistic society teachers also do have aspirations and dreams. They also want a secure future for their children. In a country like ours, teaching is not a rewarding career. To make a decent living out of the monthly salary is far from reality. A teacher's only source of making some bucks is this private lesson service.
Government can regulate or formulate policies regarding this service. Instead it heaped blame on private lesson providing services for decay of values in whole education system.
This faulty perception needs to be changed. Back in April last year, I wrote a piece titled"Stop This Publicity Stunt" underscoring hollow stance of Anti-Corruption Commission on private lesson services.
In that piece I argued that in our country coaching services are also available for O/A level students. However, we have not heard of any question paper leak in O/A level exams. Did the government try to find out the reason?
The question paper scam marred our public examination system because some corrupt public servants and coaching centers pander to the demand of leaked questions. Rather than putting the professional integrity and commitment under scanner the government put the whole private lesson service industry under scanner.
Apart from teachers, unemployed people, petty employees also contribute to this industry to supplement their income. Is that a crime? In an age when cadre-based political parties are flourishing and levying unofficial duties on businesses by drawing monthly extortion or charging commission on public projects or receiving monthly payments from the parties, how can a non-partisan youth or petty employee meet his basic needs or fill the shortfall in earnings needed for decent living?
There is no left or right international fraternity organizations that will send aid for him through diplomatic channels or charitable organizations.
To our dismay, we also noticed that how all the government machinery including the court stepped forward to farther accelerate the process of tribalism at the tertiary education institutions instead of making them a center of excellence. Meanwhile, our neighbors surpassed us by securing positions in Asia's top 100 universities. And 47 years after independence, we reinvented their utility in the society by dubbing them "[political]leader maker". By the way, hardly any of these leaders' son and daughter have studied at these desi universities or gone through local education system.
I found it rude and indecent when a minister said that primary school teachers should not send their children to kindergartens. None has the authority to clip the wing of aspirations of a primary school teacher.
At the same time, it is not just to make private lesson service a villain when there has been lack of quality jobs, drop in corporate salary, rising inflation and an army of job seekers.
What are the practices in other countries?
In Singapore, which is ranked 4th in CPI 2018 by Transparency International , private lesson providers enjoy a respectable life and many earn millions of dollars. The service is a well recognized industry. In South Korea, the private lesson centers are known as club( i.e. Math Club, English Club etc) and are full of books on respective subjects. South Korean students spend hours in these centers to read books and take services of private tutors.The clubs do not display name of the teachers. BBC made a magnificent documentary title "School Swap: Korea Style" on South Korean education system. Despite being less corrupt countries, both Singapore and South Korea have a thriving private lesson providing industry. The presence of such an industry did not pollute the whole education system. So the point is when corruption is prevalent in every aspect of society, private lesson industry cannot stay unscathed and remain a distant island.
I would request the court, and at the same time to the government, to read the Straits Times report on Singapore's super tutors and watch BBC documentary on South Korean school before the February hearing.
This will help them to clear their perception about private lesson providing services.Misdeeds of few cannot be categorized as common practices of a whole industry. This industry also helps to blossom the true potential of an educator and to fine tune acquired knowledge of a person who is on the verge of moving toward the next stage of his own field. A more constructive role from the part of policy makers and judiciary will be to formulate do's and don'ts and regulate the industry.
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