English Department admission test result for Dhaka University (DU)
There was a huge storm in the teacup after the Dhaka University (DU) admission test result had published where only two students did qualify for the English Department. Newspapers and a section of the society were highly critical of the academic standard of the students who scored GPA 5. They also came heavily upon the education board, education ministry and the whole government for this failure. The main targets were the ministry and Minister Nurul Islam Nahid allegedly for directing the examiners for lenient marking/grading the scripts. Interestingly if you go months back, you will find that the same quarter highly appreciated the AL government and the Minister for bringing revolution to the education system. This includes free distribution of textbooks throughout the country prior to the new academic terms.
I am not sure if the DU admission test result should be the only parameter of the entire education system. What’s about the admission test results of other universities? Again, what was the DU admission test status of the last five years? Even if this deterioration has occurred, did it happen overnight? The way the critics delivered their opinions, it appeared that high percentage of passing the HSC was the only cause. If we really need to look at the overall standard of the education system of the country, we should pick some core subjects and should rate against an internationally accepted scale. I am sure we don’t do this. Around the world many universities do such tests, but our universities are very eager to keep the admission test (a good amount of fees are collected), never worried about helping the system tested or improved.
English has been always a difficult subject for many students in Bangladesh. During our era we saw many students were brilliant in other subjects, but stuck to English. I am not sure if the situation has changed, but I have found one girl scored 8.3 in IELTS who just passed her HSC from Dhaka Holy Cross College this year but studied in Bangla medium throughout her schooling. I thought it was just the aptitude and attitude towards English and a good teacher could make the difference. What I understand if one excels in his/her own language, he/she would have less problem in learning any other language.
We have no alternative but to learn English properly if we would like to be on the top of our job. According to Professor Zafar Iqbal, English is no more a language, it is a technology. The big Professor is right as you can’t go further without proper knowledge of English as a language. So English learning is vital for our research and development.
Some suggested that reduction in the passing rate with hard marking should solve the problem. I totally failed to understand how the lower passing rate would fix the problem. I believe the education system of Bangladesh has its problems at the root level with the absence of quality and appropriately trained teachers. Before making judgments, one must look at the quality of the teachers in Australia, USA, UK, Canada and many other leading countries. When you pay or invest in a teacher less than a petty bureaucrat, you should not expect much better return. When your defense budget gets more buckets of GDP than education, you should not be surprised with such an outcome.
