Nobody could depict the dismal picture of a teacher’s life more vividly than the celebrated litterateur Syed Mujtoba Ali. In his famous story ‘Padotika’ he compared the salary of a teacher to the maintenance cost of one leg of a British saheb’s pet dog! The story flashed back in my mind as I read the news item which reported that the education ministry had planned to introduce spoken English exams for the SSC and HSC candidates from 2009. In the same breath, I thought of the teachers who can barely manage to keep their body and soul together and al the incompetence that stem from their economic condition.
   As an idea, the introduction of spoken English examination for the SSS and HSC students appears quite thought-provoking. But I wonder whether our policy decision makers are aware of the standard of English teachers in most of the schools in rural Bangladesh. From my own experience as the chairman of the managing committee of the high school in my village I have noted that most of the English teachers themselves do not possess the minimum command over English language. As far as spoken English is concerned, a few English teachers have the ability to communicate in English. The utterly poor standard of English in village schools has made its unmistakable manifestation through the results of their SSC candidates; those who did not succeed in the SSC examination in recent years invariably failed in English.
   The point I am trying to make here is that the cause for the sub- or low- standard of English of our students lies more with the teachers than with the students. Until and unless you can improve the standard of English teachers to a bare minimum, all other efforts at improving skills of English language for the students are sure to go in vain. Unfortunately, because of our collective indifference to education, teaching as a profession in general has failed to attract the brighter people. Those who are not familiar with the ground reality will never appreciate how strikingly true the modern Bengali proverb ‘jar nai kono gati, shei kore ponditi’ (one having found no better alternative takes to teaching) is, particularly in the rural Bangladesh.
   I would rather suggest the concerned authorities to create an enabling situation where competent English teachers can be recruited, if need be, with higher remuneration package. Otherwise, all other efforts will remain superficial, keeping the ailment inside uncured.
   M Saleheen
   On e-mail

Food prices are increasing fast – some are up by even 40 per cent. In developed countries where 12 to 15 per cent (max) of the income is spent on food, another 4 to 5 per cent extra expenditure has little effect. But in a country like ours where 70 to 80 per cent of the income is exhausted for the bare minimum, the future looks very grim unless an immediate policy reversal takes effect. Good news is traditional agricultural infrastructure is very much in place and multi-national food giant like Unilever and Nestle have not swallowed up the market yet. But that cannot be the reason to sit idle and do nothing.
   While the West advocated large-scale farming solutions and massive industrialisation of the traditional agricultural process, the wielding of too much power by the big multi-national companies through their big brothers like the World Bank, FAO in the name of guaranteeing a reliable supply of affordable food for all has proved to be a big failure. On the other hand, traditional farming through small farmers has shown very successful result in big populous countries like India and China.
   Traditionally, we have been growing rice, jute, tea, mustard seed, sugar, tobacco, fish and live-stock for ages. Due to natural calamities through heavy rain and flooding every year, our lands are blessed with renewable fertility. If we simply copy our neighbour (West Bengal) how they developed their irrigation system which ensures three crops on most part of the country, I think we have nothing to fear. What I fear is TV programmes promoting growing strawberries for which we have no need.
   What the government must plan this time is heavy subsidy for our small farmers and ensure very cheap loan and supply of fertiliser in time without listening to anyone.
   Sheikh Monirul Islam Opee
   Abu Dhabi

We the residents at Gulshan 1 [Road # 29] have tried many times to tell the authorities how five business houses are creating immense security problems for the entire neighbourhood. I don’t know who gave these business houses permission to operate in a residential neighbourhood. There’s a garment factory belonging to Palmal Group just in front of the house that I live in. On the right, there are two manpower offices. On my southeast, a private university has settled in. And behind mine, there’s another manpower office.
   The garment factory has about 20 vehicles of different sizes. These vehicles occupy all the roads coming to my residence all day and all night. Most of the time our own cars don’t have passage to enter our own building. When we tell them about their unruly parking of their cars, they, the drivers of the garment factory, become aggressive and act rowdy. The parking space of this garment factory is occupied with a Hammar and a Mercedes Benz SUV.
   A crowd of 15 to 20 officials of this garment factory is always on the road, either smoking or chatting. Mobile tea and cigarette sellers come here to sell their commodities to these officials.
   An army of 50 to 60 people are perennially present on the road because of the three manpower-recruiting centres.
   Quite often the university authority organises open-air concerts that continue till midnight. When they do this, it becomes impossible for us to stay in the house. These concerts create problems for not only the families living in our building, but everyone in the neighbourhood. When we request them to stop their drums and music, they say they had taken permission from the police station to stage the concert. We went to the police station and the law enforcers said no one had taken any permission from them and the police are not the authority to allow those concerts, the community is.
   We went to the city corporation and submitted an application. Still no one did anything about it. We have also spoken to the Gulshan Society, but with no result. We appeal to the authority, if anyone is at all engaged, to help us. At the same time, we appeal to the government to take all sorts of business houses away from the residential areas of Dhaka.
   Residents of Gulshan Road 29
   On e-mail