Shortfalls of public colleges
A conference participated by principals of 327 public colleges has revealed the dire state of these institutions that are supposed to provide mainly higher secondary education – a crucial stage of academic life for a student.
The most glaring deficiency in these colleges is a severe shortage of teachers which no doubt has significantly compromised the quality of education. One of the principals informed that in his college there were only 70 teachers for 2,400 students! Despite informing the authorities nothing had been done. The Education minister has pointed out that despite so many vacant posts teachers are unwilling to leave Dhaka city and go to rural colleges. If this is the case then proper incentives have to be given to teachers so that they are encouraged to move outside Dhaka. Besides this, the slow process of recruitment is also to be blamed for this shortage. This must be rectified so that students do not suffer.
The other problems reiterated at the conference includes shortage of classrooms, lack of training opportunities for teachers, not enough reference books and ill equipped science laboratories as well as a lack of infrastructure. These bottlenecks have to be removed on an urgent basis.
Most of these public colleges have been running for many years. The education ministry can no longer ignore these glaring deficiencies of the most fundamental prerequisites of a college.
The Ministry must also accelerate its efforts in training and recruiting teachers, ensuring better and timely salaries along with incentives to move to rural areas, constructing bigger buildings to accommodate more classrooms and providing appropriate apparatus for the laboratories. Without these basic requirements fulfilled there is no point in expecting public colleges to perform well academically.
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