Editorial
Let the government do its part
for Ekushey Granthamela
As Ekushey Granthamela kicks off this year, growing in its reach and popularity as one of the most potent symbols of Bengali culture, literature and tradition, perhaps pragmatism and forward-looking ideas are also in order.
The Bangla Academy which is the custodian of this annual book fair deserves immense praise for not only transforming the month-long event into a showcase for literary work produced in Bangladesh, but also helping characterise the fair into a joyous occasion attended by all and sundry rather than a forbidding event that only draws academics and writers. Of course, the momentum for this change has largely been engineered by the students and teachers of Dhaka University, as well as by the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Bangladeshis who attend the mela every year with their children and their loved ones, if only for an evening out, strolling through the tranquil environs of the DU campus.
It is on account of this growing popularity of the Ekushey Granthamela, however, that the authorities must pay serious heed to some of the longstanding issues that the Academy has tried to draw their attention to in vain. Firstly, it is high time for the government to grant the Academy autonomy in terms of its day-to-day operations - a demand that has gone neglected for almost a decade now. It is only through autonomy that the academy will remain beyond the self-serving meddling of political parties in power. This will not only enhance the academy’s universal acceptability beyond partisan political lines, it will also allow it to concentrate on its role as the pivotal force that will nurture art and literature in the country.
The Bangla Academy has also pointed out in the past that as the Ekushey Granthamela grows in popularity, attracting larger and larger crowds, the academy compound that houses the fair has been less and less capable to accommodate them in terms of infra-structure. In order for the mela to go from strength to strength, it is now time to allow the academy to break with tradition and expand the mela into areas outside the academy compound.
Lastly, as the price of paper rises with every passing year, large sections of society, especially students and middle or low income families are being priced out of the reading market because of the high prices of books. Of all things that the government does need to generate revenue from, books should be the last. If we are to build a society around the values that the martyrs of Amar Ekushey sacrificed their lives for, reading will have to be at the heart of our development. In this respect, the government should actively consider not only reducing the tax on paper, but also instituting a programme whereby the literary classics are available at subsidised rates so that their reach extends into rural Bangladesh. In this respect, the government also needs to play a significant role in funding translation projects through the Bangla Academy, whereby globally recognised standard textbooks in science, business and culture are translated by competent individuals, not party loyalists, in order for these professions to gain a footing in the global arena. The Ekushey Granthamela has become the success that it is now despite successive governments of the past, and largely through the public’s recognition of its universal appeal. The government must now do its part for this phenomenon for it to expand into one of the biggest annual events in contemporary Bangladeshi tradition.
Human Rights Watch is spot on
We are extremely pleased that Human Rights Watch, an international human rights organisation, has come down hard on the United States and influential European countries for tolerating autocrats and autocratic regimes that pose as democratic ones, as reported in New Age on Saturday. ‘By allowing autocrats to pose as democrats, without demanding they uphold the civil and political rights that make democracy meaningful, the United States, the European Union and other influential democracies risk undermining human rights world wide,’ the rights watchdog warned in a statement on releasing its World Report 2008. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of the organisation, claimed that it is now too easy to get away with sustaining a ‘sham democracy.’ According to him, it is because ‘too many Western governments insist on elections and leave it at that. They don’t press governments on the key human rights issues that make democracy function — a free press, peaceful assembly, and a functioning civil society that can really challenge power.’
The statements of the rights organisation and its executive director reflect many of the points that we have repeatedly made, especially in the last year since the proclamation of emergency in our country. Therefore, although the rights watchdog did not specifically mention Bangladesh, we firmly believe that what it has said is relevant to the Bangladesh context as well. While we have continuously urged this regime to ensure rule of law and uphold human rights, which we believe to be essential pre-requisites of a democratic dispensation, the present military-controlled interim government and its backers within the international community have paid scant regard to them. Instead, they have pushed aside and at times trampled over due process and human rights, in the case of the international community it has primarily turned a blind eye to such violations, in its haste to remould the polity in line with its wishes. The international community in particular, which in this country constitutes the representatives of our international ‘development partners,’ have trumpeted this government’s electoral roadmap, indicating that as long as elections are held by the end of this year, everything that happens between now and that time is acceptable to them.
This we find extremely troubling, for a real democracy can never be advanced by an undemocratic government that shows such blatant disregard for the rule of law and fundamental human rights. Hence, instead of giving carte blanche to the present regime just because it has promised to hold elections, the international community should put pressure on it to withdraw the state of emergency and to ensure and uphold fundamental human rights.
Staring at an uncertain future
The government is yet to disburse the stipend money for July-December 2007 among more than 14 lakh female students in more than 19,000 secondary schools. For most the report is a damning indictment of the education sector; however, for those lakhs of students and their guardians it has the ring of an uncertain future. For want of stipend money, many guardians, especially in the cyclone Sidr-hit areas, may have to withdraw their daughters from
school, writes Sonia Kristy
EDUCATION for all is one of the primary responsibilities of the state and the most important human development indicator. A person denied of basic education will remain illiterate and hence ignorant about his/her rights and, therefore, will not have the courage to fight for those rights and fail to become a part of a self-conscious, independent human force. Although women constitute half of the population, their potential, especially in developing countries like ours, remains severely unutilised and unrealised. However in Bangladesh, gender parity in school enrolment has been an exception. Girls not only outnumber boys in this arena but our rate of enrolment and success is considered a developmental milestone in the SAARC region. The gross enrolment rate at the primary level (grades 1-5) is close to 100 per cent, a rise from 46 per cent in 1991 (the net enrolment rate is 85 per cent), of which 47 per cent is female. Female enrolment at the secondary level (grades 6-10) has also increased quite considerably, almost doubling between 1990 and 1997 to nearly three million girls representing 48 per cent of total enrolment (Bangladesh Education Sector Review, Volume III Annexes, World Bank, June 1999).
Despite the increase in girls’ access to basic education, however, only two-thirds of all girls enrolled at the primary level finish grade five and are eligible for secondary schools and of them not all enter secondary schools. The low completion rate at the primary level is a major reason for the relatively low gross enrolment rate for girls in secondary school. Income constraints also restrict access to secondary schools for girls from poor households since costs are higher than at the primary level. Besides, access is restricted in remote and poorer areas, which are underserved because they are less likely to attract good quality public teachers as well as offer little incentive to private providers. Finally, social norms relating to early marriage and increasing vulnerability as well as lack of security for adolescent girls are strong parental incentives for non-enrolment of girls into secondary schools, or if enrolled, the non-completion of secondary schools.
Even with such constraints and obstacles we have achieved wonderful results that such a high proportion of girls would be enrolled at the secondary and higher secondary levels where women’s education is by and large ignored, if not actively discouraged. The reason, to a large extent, has been the government’s female stipend projects for secondary and higher secondary education. Under the Secondary Education Sector Development Project and the Female Secondary Stipend Project (Phase II), the female students of about 19,383 secondary schools and madrassahs in 355 upazilas are given stipend in two instalments every financial year – one from January to June and the other from July to December. The minimum criteria for a girl student to become eligible for getting the stipend are 75 per cent class attendance, at least 45 per cent marks in all the examinations and the state of being unmarried. A female student of Class VI receives Tk 25 a month and a student of Class X receives Tk 60, in addition to an additional sum to buy books and pay fees of the public examinations. As the recipients do not pay any tuition fees, the government pays a small sum to the teachers against the number of stipend beneficiaries in the respective institutions. From news reports it is learnt that the government spends more than Tk 180 crore a year on about 24 lakh students in rural areas under three female secondary stipend projects and one higher secondary stipend project — Female Secondary School Assistance Project, Female Secondary Stipend Project, Female Secondary Education Stipend Project, and (under a component of the) Secondary Education Sector Development Project.
Besides contributing to the larger reform efforts of the government in the education sector, with the objectives of improving the quality of education, sustaining improved gender equity, addressing regional and rural/urban inequities in access, etc. these stipend programmes, which also includes the payment of girl’s tuition fees, is seen as a mechanism for improving gender equity and increasing access of girls to secondary education. The specific objectives with respect to the provision of stipends to girls in secondary school are increasing girls’ enrolment in secondary schools and retaining them in secondary education; assisting them in passing the SSC examinations to enhance their employment opportunities and delaying early marriage. Besides these immediate objectives, there are a number of long-term goals:
a. Enhance and retain female students in the secondary stage and thereby promote female education;
b. Reduce population growth by motivating the stipend clientele group to refrain from marriage till completion of the SSC examination or until the attainment of 18 years;
c. Increase involvement of women in socio economic development activities;
d. Increase women’s self-employment for poverty alleviation;
e. Assist in improving the status of women in society (Female secondary school stipend programme in Bangladesh: A critical assessment, by Simeen Mahmud, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies).
It should be noted that a large number of parents send their daughters to school presuming that they would benefit from the stipend of their daughters and often treat it as an additional income, which is, of course, the basic incentive for girls attending schools. Therefore, when these students fail to receive the stipend money on time, not only their education gets hampered, their family members also get affected. This year, the month of January has already ended yet about 14 lakh female students are to receive their July-December 2007 stipend money. Similar was the case regarding the January-June 2007 instalments which were finally disbursed in late October last year. According to M Abdur Razzaq, director of phase II of the female stipend project, ‘A section of education ministry officials made unusual delay in issuing administrative orders for a quick disposal of the stipend files and hence the logjam was created,’ (New Age, January 27).
It has also been reported that the female SSC candidates under the secondary school stipend project receive an additional amount of Tk 1,000 for filling in the public exam forms and fulfilling other necessary formalities. Due to cyclone Sidr, the last date of filling up the SSC form was extended to December 10, 2007. About two lakh female students from these rural upazilas are to take the SSC exams this year and they are yet receive the promised money. The difficulties and hardship these students, most of whom come from marginalised families, faced while arranging such an hefty amount, which the government was supposed to provide, are very much understandable and raises serious doubt about the very sincerity of the incumbent government and its ability to deliver.
While these officials, who have been entrusted with the duty of facilitating smooth distribution of stipend money to lakhs of female students of thousands of higher secondary schools throughout about 355 rural upazilas, the military-controlled Fakhruddin Ahmed-led interim government has failed to demonstrate adequate enthusiasm and sincerity in resolving myriads of crisis plaguing our education sector. The government’s lack of commitment, incompetence of the officials’ concerned, bureaucratic ineptitude and lack of proper monitoring by the relevant ministry have all contributed to making our education sector as well this stipend project rather vulnerable.
There seems to be a serious lack of monitoring and review of the stipend projects which is of utmost importance to make the sustainable and successful in the true sense of the term. These projects have helped countless of girls to attain education and in the process become self-employed and lead a dignified life. These projects have helped our nation to attain the coveted gender parity in school enrolment and become hopeful of attaining women’s emancipation and empowerment — a long-cherished dream of every democratic nation. Let not any bureaucratic lethargy, incompetence of the officials concerned or the policymakers’ indifference hinder the process in any way.
NEW DAY REFLECTIONS
Shujon
A friend of mine once told me that blasphemy on a Sunday morning clears out the post-weekend blues. So, here goes.
I love America!
Before you start throwing rocks and calling for my head, hear me out. I love America; not the America of “shock and awe,” where my awe at the justifications of collateral damage and loss of lives has replaced the shock of WMD deceit. Not the America of “war on drugs,” “war on terror” (isn’t war itself terror?), “war on [fill in the blank],” where the casualties are reason and due process. Not the America of renditions, waterboarding (a form of torture through forced suffocation and inhalation of water) and extra-judicial prisoners (outside of the protection of law and due process), where fear has lubricated the thrust of injustice into America’s soul. No, this is an imperfect picture of America. This is a fading picture of America which I believe will be soon painted over by a picture of an America truer to itself.
By an America which has the humility to admit and thus transcend past mistakes, where the “spirit of liberty” will overflow the dam of self-righteous indignation. By an America where, at the end of the world war in 1944, an American institution, Judge Learned Hand uttered the following words to a group of new citizens: “The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; …. that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.” As I write and read these words, I am again excited about America’s future (and, by extension, the world’s future). In my lifetime, I have never truly wanted to vote for any candidate who has run for President in America. Since I could vote in America, I have only voted for the lesser of two evils, usually someone whom I found to be slightly more palatable than the other. Except for now. I find myself doing the Obama shuffle, singing the words “O-B-A-M-A, Obama, ba-ba-ba-ba Obama” to the tune of the Kinks’ Lola. I find myself again infused with optimism, a growing sense that we are participating in history.
As I write and read Judge Learned Hand’s immortal words, I am again seduced by the promise that is America. It is a promise that holds no regard for an ideal society, the Great Society or any vestige of a utopia which does not take into account the fallibility of human rulers. It is a promise that is born out of skepticism and the need to question and check authority and its untrammeled grip on ones who are powerless, the ones who are too weak to protest the injustices committed in the name of justice. It is a promise of restraint on authority, not by steel chains or violent revolution, but by the simple right to voice one’s contrary opinion.
As I write and read Judge Learned Hand’s liberty prose, I am reminded that I too am not sure that I am right. I am not too sure that a government does not have the right to make war on its perceived enemies when it perceives such enemies attacking it. I am not too sure that a government has to provide full legal rights and due process to enemy combatants, or that it should shy away from using torture when such methods can lead to information which will save lives. I am not too sure that a government can not suspend the legal rights of certain defendants, when it perceives such defendants to be too corrupt or too powerful to receive justice under the full protection of the law. I am not too sure that government should not step in to stave off an infection of corruption that could continue to spread and send a country into septic shock, even at the cost of limiting certain fundamental rights of its citizens.
I am sure, however, of the need for skepticism in approaching life and its problems. I am sure of being unsure, of having “no confidence in principles that come to us in the trappings of the eternal.” (Judge Learned Hand). I am sure that “the path towards the Good Life is to assure unimpeded utterances to every opinion, to be fearful of all orthodoxies and to face all the discords of the Tower of Babel.” (Judge Learned Hand).
MAIN PAGE | TOP
|
|
