Editorial
A concerted approach for better
traffic management
Dhaka’s streets have witnessed an addition of 61 cars per day this year till July. According to a report in New Age on Saturday, many prospective clients bought, or at least booked, new cars exhausting car stocks of the auto dealers. Such a rush was not unusual, the report pointed out, as there was widespread anticipation that taxes would rise sharply after the implementation of the new budget in the current fiscal year.
That Dhaka’s roads are virtually bursting at the seams is quite plain from the perpetual traffic jams in the city’s streets during the entire work-week and even during the weekends. The fact that Dhaka’s streets are overcrowded is also evident from the request of relevant authorities, according to the report, to levy higher taxes on cars in order to discourage their purchase and, presumably, thereby keep the traffic situation from spiraling out of control. Even transport experts explained that in order to prevent the number of vehicle increasing, there is no other way but to build an effective mass transit system.
The story illustrates that the government has not approached this matter in a concerted manner and ensuring that there is enough infrastructure to satisfactorily support so many vehicles, particularly private cars since there is a bar on the number of taxis and CNG-run auto-rickshaws.
This trend of so many cars hitting Dhaka’s streets everyday can also be interpreted as an indication of rising disparity in a country where almost half the people are still in poverty, a fifth suffer from hunger, at least two-fifths are beyond the reach of electricity and more than a half of the population are still effectively illiterate. That there are no bars, or even prohibitive measures for the affluent sections to avail of luxury as they please, taxing valuable resources of the government—for instance putting an extra pressure on foreign reserves by way of imported vehicles and fuel—that would have been better expended if they were mobilised towards redistribution of wealth through pro-people initiatives.
Successive governments, despite their rhetoric, have let loose unbridled consumerism in the name of free market economy, which they refused to regulate effectively, especially the crucial sectors, citing the edict of laissez faire in the open market. This has led to a distinct polarisation of the society with a bulk of the resources being devoted to the service of the rich few as a major portion of the population become poorer. The rise of radical disparity is bound to prove disastrous for the government in the long term and should be addressed immediately with due sincerity. In the short term, however, the government should seriously consider ways and means to keep the number vehicles at a manageable level and building the necessary infrastructure towards that end.
As life-span extends so
must egalitarianism
In the midst of the 21st century’s unmitigated chaos and conflict and massive tragedies which include many man-made ones, a cheering piece of news has arrived to brighten the temper and tempo of the troubled present-day world. A Danish group of researchers have come out with the findings that more than half the babies born in the rich countries now can hope to live to be 100 years old if the present life expectancy trends continue. What is more, these senior citizens will be in good health, precluding any inordinate pressure on a country’s – here we are talking of rich countries – healthcare and social service. The agency report published in Saturday’s New Age also says quoting from the research findings that if older people work part-time, then most people will be required to work for fewer hours and this ‘shortened working weeks over extended working lives might further contribute to increase in life expectancy and health.’
Such projections are not only welcome but also inspiring. Let us hope the future decades work out that way. In this sick world what to speak of longevity, survival of the human species itself looks problematic when one contemplates the constant warmongering, nuclear confrontations, the vertical and horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons, the random pollution and destruction of the world’s life supporting resources and the reluctance of the leading world powers to do more and spend more for holistic wellbeing of the entire human race. There would be a greater cause for celebration if the findings applied to the entire planet. Even at best, the glass is half empty. Only half the population of the rich countries will attain to that blissful mark of a centenarian. What about the other half, within those rich countries in question? Not only are the benefits of health and improved living conditions uneven and have bifurcated the population; what is more, there is a lurking worry that the favoured half might have gained at the cost of the other half. The one-way globalisation of the present time has made the world more greedy, more consumerist and more unequal. Profit maximisation is the new-found cult. When profit maximisation is the driving force, exploitation is inevitable. One group inflates its income and profit by exploiting another. Just as it is important to extend life-expectancy it is also important to make life in the world more harmonious. This is not so and economic polarisation is unfolding within most rich countries, not counting a few prove-the-rule types of exceptions like Denmark. And it should also be remembered that in the developed world whatever gains in the betterment of citizens’ lives have been made are due to internalising a few socialist elements like heavy public spending and the principle of progressive taxation. As for the poor countries, their life expectancy has slightly improved but
they continue to be at the far end of the trickle down scheme of economic distribution. The issue is not only one of healthcare but also egalitarianism.
Education and employment
need to be balanced
A nation can save a lot of money, time and resources, and solve a myriad of economic and social problems if it establishes a firm belief in society that the kind of education which can be solidly applied to a working career is much more important than paper certificates being churned out by educational institutions, writes Maswood Alam Khan
Our government has undertaken a laudable initiative to frame a new education policy and the committee on formulating the policy has already submitted the draft to the ministry of education. People from different strata of our society have already submitted their opinions and suggestions on the proposed education roadmap.
The government is poised on the edge of a historical threshold to introduce an education policy that will determine how our boys and girls would be moulded, how the students would view our history, how they would honour the present leaders not for their power in hand but for their love for the posterity and how our country would ultimately fare in future. A little lack of neutrality in the policy or an unhealthy bias in it towards an ideology will play a big havoc with our progeny.
In the proposed draft education policy, we find quite a number of encouraging features like elevation of free education up to Grade-8, incorporation of compulsory core subjects, emphasis on information and communication technology, technical and vocational curricula, making the bachelor degree a four-year course, abolishing the pass degree course etc.
But, it is unclear whether the new education policy framers did take serious cognisance of the tensions prevalent in the skilled people of our country and the employment opportunities in both the local and overseas job markets in view of the fact that a degree from a college is nowadays more like an inputting raw material in an industry than an ornament to qualify social dignity. A degree, for instance, on nursing based on internationally acceptable standard may be much more valuable an academic asset than a doctor of philosophy degree in economics from a local university.
With patterns and demands of the labour market changing dramatically, the mismatch of supply and demand of graduates is responsible for our escalating unemployment problems and the concomitant social unrest.
Given the present and the potential educational infrastructures, the financial capability of the students and their guardians and the availability of quality teachers, my humble opinion is more in favour of academic and vocational institutions dispensing diploma on courses (especially technical courses) to students with work experience than of colleges and universities catering courses for students without any work experience.
Diplomas involving practical and hands-on experience as well as classroom learning, encouraging students to develop work-relevant skills in a creative and enjoyable way, would be more rewarding than the degrees on long courses now being conferred by universities. That way, employers would derive more benefit from younger recruits having a practical understanding of a work environment, who would be backed by in-house training and outsourced educational degrees in addition to basic skills in science, math, English and ICT the employees gathered as students in their schools and colleges.
If, in retrospection, we look at ourselves who had finished formal education decades back, we would realise how our education has helped apply the knowledge we had earned in the academic institutions and how we could be more benefited.
With my long experience in banks, I have found that any student who got his HSC degree with a good score like GPA-5 can work at any level from down to top, if he or she is given in-house training, outsourced education and a ladder to climb unhindered where holder of a Master’s degree in Botany or a PhD degree in Bangla literature does not stand in his or her way to ascend to the upper echelons of the bank’s hierarchy, where Botany or Bangla literature does not play a pivotal role in professional achievements.
The most daunting task students along with their parents face in our country is to get admission into a good school or a college or a university at three levels of academic career: primary, secondary and higher. Once graduated from a university, the young men and women face another overwhelming adventure when they look for jobs.
Those very few who get their jobs befitting their expertise gathered in their academic pursuits are lucky to apply their earned knowledge and enjoy their jobs. Those who find jobs not commensurate with their academic degrees are somewhat happy at least to find a means of regular income. And those who do not find jobs at all in spite of their educational qualifications, and helplessly see their qualifying age for government jobs pass by, are just like walking time bombs ticking away in the streets.
According to my humble opinion, we may solve both the problems––finding an academic institution for learning and later finding a job in an organisation to work in––looking at how human resources are recruited, retained and trained by armed forces of our country and following their style in recruiting people in all our public and private organisations.
The crux of the solution I dare suggest could be: employ a boy when he (or she) is in his (or her) prime, aged 18, and has just got his Higher Secondary Certificate.
We know a student who got a GPA-5 in HSC exam is equipped with the most basic and functional knowledge and such a student would excel anywhere. He may be trained and educated either in an academic institution as a student or in any organisation as an employee, call it a bank or a business house or a government office.
The difference is while being educated in an academic institution the student has to spend his five precious years in a university having no certainty whether his learning in a specific area would ultimately help him find a job to his intellectual satisfaction while an employer like a bank recruits the same student educated in a discipline like Geology (redundant to a bank), who needs to be trained afresh in banking. This amounts to a sheer wastage of money and time on the part of the nation and also on that of both the employers and the employees.
Once a student realises that his scores in different term exams in the university are not good or his academic achievement portends a bleak prospect or his political affiliation a burden in the future, he as a student becomes desperate and looks for other outlets like indulging in politics or vying with businesspeople participating in tenders.
If the student was absorbed in the job market when he had passed his HSC exam he would have been too busy to think about politics or tender business.
Only a few extraordinarily brilliant students, not more than 2 percent, need higher education compulsorily who are confident that they would qualify to be a teacher in a university or a scientist in a laboratory or a specialist in an international organisation.
A serious student is also too busy to think about politics or tender business.
Financial organisations, law enforcement agencies, civil bureaucracy and business houses ultimately absorb the rest 98 percent ‘not so brilliant’ students, after their completion of higher education in a university, no matter what discipline they had pursued. As an end result, a student of literature works in a bank, a student of Botany serves as a policeman, and an engineer chooses his career as a diplomat.
On the other hand, the employers would be immensely benefited if they themselves could train young recruits, who are easily mouldable, either in their own training institutions or in an outsourced academic institution according to the needs of the respective organisations. Thus, a bank could send their new recruits for their learning finance and banking and the ministry of foreign affairs could send their recruits for their learning foreign language and diplomacy to proper institutions at home or abroad.
New military recruits who are teens get their training vis-à-vis academic degrees, as good as any degree from any university, especially tailored to suit the needs of the armed forces and those trained officers are in no way less efficient or less educated or less smart than the bureaucrats who got their Master’s degree in sociology or bankers with an MBA degree.
One such recruit who enters the armed forces with an HSC certificate in hand can also climb the career ladder to be a three-star general the way a bureaucrat with a Master’s degree can also climb the ladder up to be a secretary in a ministry.
The difference is one general in the armed forces offers his service for a longer period as he begins his career when he is in his prime and one secretary in civil bureaucracy offers his service for a shorter time as he begins his career when he is past his prime.
It has been universally recognised that equipping young people with functional and core skills to gain hands-on-the-job experience and versatile qualifications is vital not only for the organisation concerned but also for the long-term success of a national economy.
A wrong notion about education prevalent in our society is bleeding our economy dry. In our country, education is deemed more as an ornament than as a functional tool and in a developed country education is viewed and deployed more as a raw material for the development of science, commerce and art than as a feather in your cap.
Every parent in our country earnestly wishes that his son or daughter must have a Master’s degree. As a consequential impact of such a social belief––more appropriately a social taboo––an uneducated proprietor of a business house or a CEO of a big organisation, if he is not properly educated, thinks that unless one is a Master’s degree holder he or she is not educated.
But, in reality we find that most of the so-called Master’s degree holders, who passed from a Bangladeshi public university or a college, have not earned much in terms of knowledge when compared to what he had earned about eight years back when he had passed his secondary school certificate examination. Of course, there are exceptions in cases of degrees in science, engineering, medicine, or business management.
Keeping in view the severe problem of unemployment and underemployment of graduates, our policy planners have to identify discrepancies between the output of graduates in different specialisations and the absorption capacity of the labour market in the context of the poor performance of our educational institutes in delivering basic, technical and higher education to meet the changing needs of our economy.
Before finalising our new education policy, a thorough discussion needs to be held, if possible through interactive debate in a television channel, to analyse the relationship between education, manpower and economic growth, identify the impediments and derive a comprehensive solution. Exploring employment opportunities and their implications for educational planning especially for rural development and poverty alleviation through self-employment is of paramount significance in deciding what pattern of education is best suitable for our economy, which should be based on agriculture and allied industries.
Our nation could have saved a lot of money, time and resources and could solve a myriad of economic and social problems if we could establish a firm belief in our society that the kind of education which can be solidly applied to our working career is much more important than those paper certificates being churned out by educational institutions.
Maswood Alam Khan can be reached at maswood@hotmail.com
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