There lies a strong correlation between the comments of the Chief Advisor on the creativity of our students while visiting the ministry of education and the fact that 24 lac youths entering the job sector every year who are averse to work in the production sector. The Chief Advisor paid his first visit to the secretariat last week and said that our education is faulty as it does not create entrepreneurs rather it makes students depended on jobs. Our education system just produces graduates who always seek for jobs without using their own potentials. Removing or revising the faulty system of education, we must produce such type of students and graduates who will not hanker after jobs only, rather they will be entrepreneurs to create jobs for others. The more graduates will be entrepreneurs, the more country will be benefitted and financially more solvent.
Around 24 lac youths enter into the job market and a greater portion of our economy is still non-formal and the higher educated don’t want to engage themselves in productive sector. They show serious averseness if the working place stands beyond Dhaka. So, to decrease the educated unemployed formal sectors to be increased in the job market, only 5-10 lac educated youths go abroad most of who are unskilled. The rest of them cannot consume the country, it is not possible also. In the last decade the number of educated unemployed has increased three times. Our agricultural sector could be a potential field of employment. However, the educated youths show extreme aversion toward agricultural works. Very interestingly, these youths go abroad even selling their land and work there in the agricultural field particularly in Malaysia, Italy and in the Middle Eastern countries.
When we cross any college under NU a picture comes before our mind’s eye that the big infrastructure with many buildings, open playgrounds, thousands of students, hundreds of teachers and staff but its actual produce and contribution makes us frustrated. Just to produce several thousand so-called educated unemployed who are seriously averse to do any physical labour or try to do something of their own, touch any agricultural work that could have given some relief to their parents. If we caste our glance at their subject knowledge, in most of the cases they show extreme poverty in this area as well and their technical proves zero which creates direct pressure on their own families and society. What they best do, just prepare themselves by memorizing some information for job which is purely clerical job, no touch of creativity or developing entrepreneurial work. Most of these students don’t participate in classes, crowd in tea-stalls or chant slogans for so-called student leaders to gain some unlawful advantages or to show their muscle power. However, some students try to become self-employed getting connected with entrepreneurs and small business and they themselves try to do it along with procuring a certificate. Institutions don’t bother about this point. They just produce graduates without having any skills and technical knowhow, just graduates with paper but initiative is discerned from their side.
Most graduates’ linguistic ability is very questionable! They cannot write Bengali correctly, let alone English. Whereas, these two languages are absolutely necessary for well communication and these are the prerequisite of managing any job. The situation of state-run universities is not much better than the students of these NU colleges. However, as the students of public universities get admission through a competition, they are expected to do fairer than those of NU. The bad political touch has shrouded them with many negatives aspect and its upshot shows many students leaving books and pens become cadres or just followers of party goons to collect extortion, eating freely in the canteens and hotels, earning black money and after coming out of the university they continue doing various sorts of unlawful activities in the national level.
We have now around two hundred universities, both state-run and privately run. Only a few private universities are doing good but the rest of them have become the certificate selling centers. They offer ‘business administration’ mostly and training for students to become entrepreneurs. That means these universities also expand unemployment problem like the colleges under NU. Where they will get job? Private universities put emphasis on developing the linguistic ability of the students that also become failure as the students come here with extremely poor background of English. They are taught just like the children. I mean what they were supposed to learn in the school life, are taught in the tertiary level that does not become fruitful because of age, situation and without the same compulsion.
The long twelve years’ English project of the government has failed miserably as it claims huge amount of time, labour and money with almost zero production as students cannot use any English of their own in any form after learning it as a compulsory subject even though the state nurtures thousands of English teachers, arranges various sorts of training from time to time. For admission into higher education, for going abroad, for managing job they need to study English either by going to privately run coaching centres or British Council-run courses at the cost of higher fees. After going abroad, because of the lack of technical and communication skill, they earn far less than those of our neighbouring countries.
Another reason to increase the number of educated unemployed is serious attraction for cadre service through BCS exam. We produce several lac graduates both in the general and specialized education sector and all these groups try to get a job through BCS as it is the symbol of prestige and security in the society. Graduates of colleges across the country and universities throng to Dhaka city, enroll in BCS coaching depending on their old or retired parents and take preparation for BCS exam. However, BCS can accommodate only several hundred candidates a after a long and complicated process depriving several lacks who suffer from utter frustration and add to the long queue of unemployment. This situation must be reviewed by the policy makers and students should think of alternative ways to create job opportunities leaving the only desire to manage a job.
Writer: Former teacher of Cadet College
