An open letter to HSC graduates
DEAR HSC graduates: Congratulations. What a display of excellence, the outcome of your hard work.
Report shows that countrywide -- comprising nine education boards -- nearly 6.2 lakh students took the HSC and equivalent exams. About 4.66 lakh, or 76.19%, of you have passed, showing a 10.59% increase over 2007-- an outstanding record. What is even more amazing is that 22,045 of you have scored GPA-5, outdistancing last year's 11,140 -- a 97.5% jump.
Your exceptional achievements have much to do with your hard work and pride, and I again applaud your success.
Like all of you, I also read the comments of some detractors. In concert with some educationists, Notre Dame College Principal Benjamin Costa argued that the record, passing rate didn't necessarily reflect overall improvement in the quality of education. He was, however, gracious in crediting your parents and guardians for their contributions in your outperformance.
Viqarunnisa's Principal Rokeya Akhter provided the analytical and persuasive arguments behind your successes. She suggested that the examiners may have acted as instructed -- crediting full marks to fully correct answers to exam questions. You should rightfully ask: What's wrong with giving "right grades for right answers?"
Madam Rokeya also credited the congenial academic atmosphere that prevailed over the last year (absence of unsettling acrimonious politics, frequent call for hartals, lockouts, and street violence). How can anyone deny that? Who can forget that a major political party called for hartal on a day of the SSC exam in 2006?
So, ignore the detractors' comments for the time being. The next real concern is that with so many brilliant performers among you, frustration may set in because of limited seats in your cherished institutions and areas of higher studies.
Understandably, all grade-5 achievers will not end up in the institution and field of their choice. That doesn't necessarily mean you cannot repeat your excellence in the next stage of your studies in another institution.
An institution of learning becomes reputable by the quality of graduates it produces. It is true that the quality of teachers, library, laboratory, and all other technical facilities attracts good students to a campus.
It is also equally true that good students can put pressure and display challenges for receiving quality education, which in turn bring reputation for the institution. So, wherever you get your admission, make sure to put your monies worth of efforts and demand the best you deserve.
The education ministry may keep track of your semester-wise academic progress, especially of those receiving various government scholarships and academic loans. That would also reflect the quality and progress of curriculum instructions of the institutions where you are placed.
Those of you receiving government scholarship must know that tax-payers' money is supporting your education. When it comes to politics, your participation should be limited to campus issues only.
As we all know, partisan politicians who have historically been openly patronising student politics and have contributed to academic indiscipline and campus violence will exploit you for their party and self-promotion. A political government won't impose restrictions to sterilise university and college campuses from the infestations of political parties, but you -- the GPA-5 and GPA-4 students can.
"Dhaka University students' elections are treated with such significance by the political parties that they choose the nominees of DU students' union -- not the students," observed a former vice-chancellor, Emajuddin Ahmed.
Watch out for some of your teachers and instructors who will try to promote political views in the middle of academic lectures and/or during your class work related visits to their offices. Such discourses are an integral part of the learning process as long as you're allowed to express your views; I do it all the time with my students. What is important though, is not to be swayed or influenced by anyone else's political views.
More importantly, do not follow the footsteps of third rate, low caliber, and underachieving rowdy students whose priorities are politics, street protests, and promotions of national political parties. Many of these students will end up behind bars -- some may become politicians like many of today's corrupt and ill-educated ones.
Today's campus politics encourages mastering violence, agitation, hooliganism, kidnapping, and so on. Much like trade unions, student organisations promote the political agendas of their affiliated national parties, and often do so under the tutelage of faculty groups.
Between 1991 and the 1/11 emergency, many student activists simply mimicked their national leaders' penchant for land-grabbing, extortion, assaulting the media, and brutally attacking the opposition. Just last week, 4 DU students were expelled for assaulting journalists.
All these illicit activities tarnished the image of student politics in people's discernment. Today, the quality of graduates, politicians, and civil servants has deteriorated relative to the pre-liberation period.
In Western countries, student politics are limited to activities that come within the purview of student government. They include academic programs, library facilities, classroom conditions, residential halls, dinning, sporting, health, and security issues, and all other aspects of campus welfare.
Being in student government, you should organise debates and seminars on national and international issues. Following the models in the US, politically ambitious students may engage in community service, work as interns in local and national government offices (such as election commission) and political party offices, and get academic credits.
Remember, you can be anything you want to be -- only if you equip yourself with knowledge. Here is a real life example.
Two friends from Comilla Victoria College got admitted into B.Sc. (Hons.) in physics in DU after receiving their HSC. After one month into the program, one left physics to do M.A. in economics and then pursued a career in civil service, retired as government secretary (now serving as Chairman of Energy Regulatory Board). The other one -- after completion of M.Sc., came to USA, received M.S. in nuclear engineering, then studied economics and is now an economics professor -- and also writes in The Daily Star on a weekly basis.
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