Are We Scrimping On Education?

Are We Scrimping On Education?

The Awami League-led government that has over 10 years tried to reshape the country in its own image, has throughout maintained how it is committed to education as the most potent tool for unlocking a nation’s potential. With some early achievements, most notably in the areas of access and gender parity, it even managed to win over quite a few believers, which now were being drawn increasingly from both sexes, or quietly impressed by Nurul Islam Nahid’s commitment to the job Sheikh Hasina had entrusted to him.

Somewhere along the way, something obviously was lost, and never recovered. That means a report card that would’ve looked highly encouraging at the 5-year mark, now looks decidedly average, almost drab, after a decade. It is telling that the free textbooks that students now receive early enough to be a New Year’s present is still celebrated with the same vigour that marked its first instance. Indeed, even the government’s telling of the ministry’s major achievements would struggle, and most probably fail, to include anything that could be said to have been post-2013.