Days before the election, promises abound. The education sector has also received its quota of electoral promises. But one recent report reveals a significant lack of new thinking and structural imagination in preparing students for a world changed beyond recognition. The electoral pledges, summarised in the report, includes BNP’s commitment to allocate five percent of GDP to education, promote research and knowledge-centric education with a focus on the mother tongue, and emphasise learning a third language for the expanding job market; Jamaat-e-Islami’s proposal for interest-free loans for meritorious students, scholarships to study abroad, and merger of three prominent women’s colleges to form a national women’s university; and NCP’s promise to prioritise STEM, vocation, and skill development projects. Ironically, we still need to reiterate the constitutional right to education as an electoral slogan, despite nearly 55 years of independence.
Election slogans like “equal education across streams,” “skills for the future,” “research-based higher education,” or “technical training for employment” lack credibility due to the failure of successive governments to establish education within a rights-based framework. While our constitution mentions a “uniform, mass-orientated and universal system of education” and free, compulsory schooling, education remains a “principle of state policy.” In other words, the state is morally obligated but not legally accountable. The election manifestos do not address the deep structure that is responsible for social inequality.
Bangladesh, by default, has designed inequality in education through its multiple streams. Children are sorted into public, private, madrasa, English medium, or vocational groups mostly based on their socioeconomic conditions. From the very first years of schooling, they are exposed to different curricula, teacher quality, costs, and cultural capital. By the time they reach university, the concept of “equal opportunity” has already become a myth. The subheadings of “Education” in the electoral manifestos casually mention “uniformed standards,” “foundational subjects,” and “equal dignity.” They stop short of spelling out how learning outcomes will be equalised when teacher deployment, funding, assessment, and institutional incentives remain radically unequal. Equity needs to be engineered in education so that the minimum learning standard in language, numeracy, science, and civic reasoning is attained. Reforming national pedagogy and assessment procedures is the only way to implement these changes.
The pandemic has altered many of our long-held ideas and practices. A national policy today must not overlook the damage done by the pandemic. We saw the controversial “auto-pass,” shortened syllabi, diluted examinations, and prolonged institutional closures as pragmatic emergency responses. But their impacts are visible almost everywhere. Those who obtained higher CGPA without demonstrating their competence are the ones who are at the forefront of student movements. We have led an entire generation to believe that examinations are negotiable and learning is elastic. When combined with our reliance on coaching centres, rote-driven curricula, and AI-prepared responses, we see a culture that demands or expects grades and certificates without mastering the required knowledge or acquiring the necessary skills. None of the political manifestos have mentioned any national learning recovery diagnostics. There is no roadmap for restoring assessment integrity. Above all, there is no serious conversation about rebuilding trust among students, institutions and employers.
The manifestos are equally silent on the issues of healing and reconciliation that were required following the harassment and withdrawal of teachers under political consideration. The talk about skills shies away from the epistemic damage already done. We need visionary leaders to acknowledge that a workforce shaped by auto-pass cannot deliver a demographic dividend. The credential inflation that we have seen will yield a generation ill-prepared for either work or citizenship, unless there are serious reskilling and upskilling projects. The demographic window is here, but we need to earn it through early-grade literacy, secondary education with real competencies, tertiary pathways aligned with labour markets, and certification systems trusted by employers.
Currently, the expansion of education has resulted in a large number of “educated” young individuals being rejected by the “quality control” departments of the job market. Their frustration is our frustration. The electoral promises of jobs, stipends, loans, and allowances for graduates may offer short-term relief, but they do not show the intent to correct the system that generates unemployability.
The gap between promises and preparedness is the most visible in higher education. The popular pursuit of universities in every district has resulted in their proliferation by administrative decree. This “universitisation” has produced campuses with teachers without pedigree, researchers without orientation, laboratories without equipment, and degrees without depth. There is no labour market mapping to discern which areas of specialisation and skills our students need for career mobility. The crisis of the seven colleges, along with the churn of National University affiliations, serves as a prime example of making superficial changes without addressing the underlying problems. What we require from the new government is not the declaration of more buildings, but institutional clarity. We require universities to distinguish between research-intensive postgraduate institutions, teaching-focused undergraduate universities, and applied and vocational graduate institutes connected to regional labour markets.
The bedrock of the education system is the teacher. We cannot expect the promises of “world-class” universities to materialise with underpaid, overburdened, and under-supported teachers. We should prioritise a teacher’s workforce strategy. The curriculum and assessment reforms mentioned earlier can only happen if there is transparent teacher recruitment, training, pay, accountability, and autonomy.
The key factor in all these developments is the availability of funds. The pledge of higher budget allocations is encouraging. We need to question the incoming government about the source of funding, its spending strategy, and the trade-offs involved. Inarguably, the most damaging aspect of Bangladesh’s education governance is the absence of continuity. Policies are discarded, curricula rewritten, and institutions restructured to align with changes in the political make-up. These changes are not based on evidence. Students become the ultimate victims of such drastic changes. Future preparedness requires cross-party agreements on what will not change abruptly. Education needs insulation from short-term political cycles, not their amplification. We as a nation need to agree on foundational curricula, assessment standards, teacher recruitment systems, and institutional classifications.
The interim government’s reform agenda conveniently sidelined education for one and a half years. But for a government riding on the desires of students, it should have ensured that a system is in place that prepares our students for the future. And the government that will swear in must be willing to invest in an ecosystem that addresses the underlying problems of our education sector. Our students do not need empty slogans. They need consistency. They need institutions that know their purpose, where teachers are supported and trusted, and curricula are aligned with the real world.
Dr Shamsad Mortuza is professor of English at Dhaka University.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries, and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.
