Our expectation from the present Government was high. We reached this juncture after years of turmoil. The outcome, with an overwhelming majority, accorded the people as well as the government with a unique opportunity to sort out many outstanding issues and put the nation on the track to economic prosperity and sustainable development. Although the incumbent regime suffered some initial setbacks, it appears that it has forgotten at what cost and in what circumstances the people of Bangladesh chose them to govern the state and run the government.
   There is some talk about the trial of war criminals, although there has been hardly any tangible progress on that front. But what about reverting to the original constitution of 1972 and banning religion based politics in Bangladesh? What about reining in the madrassahs? What about uniform infrastructural development for the well-being of the whole nation?
   I believe we are bypassing many important issues and merely passing time, exactly what we have been doing all this time since 1971. If the government does not have a clear idea on how the fungus like growth of madrassahs can be controlled and how the nation can get rid of the wastage of parallel education systems, the government can at least learn from others. Turkey and Singapore have done well with this problematic issue and there is no harm if we learn from them. We have not heard anything from the newly formed education commission so far although there was quite a lot of hype at the time of its formation as if it would work wonders. Why do we not convert ‘madrassahs’ to ‘school & madrassah’? Why do we not attach madrassah education as an option for some schools? We have humanities, science and commerce groups in the Secondary School Certificate and the Higher Secondary Certificate Examinations. Why don’t we add one more group called madrassah with selected course materials and remove degrees like Dakhil and Fazil? Creation of a separate madrassah education board with generous budgetary allocation of substantial financial resources will neither solve the issue not will it help bring madrassahs into the social mainstream. On the contrary, those provisions will further complicate the issue and we will leave more difficult problems for our future generations.
   It is also a constitutional obligation of the state to ensure a uniform education system for the masses. It is also one of those things that none of the previous governments seem to have done anything about. It is also the contention of many an analyst that we are continuing with three streams of education creating three classes of people for them to eventually clash with each other.
   We, the common people, can suggest many solutions but it is the government that should take decisions. After all these are political issues and warrant bold and firm political decisions.
   MH Khan
   Via email