Good and bad students
The other day Channel-i arranged a discussion with the students to get to the bottom of the causes of failure and the discussants were the Hon'ble Education Minister, Prof. Muhammad Zafar Iqbal and Mrs. Khusi Kabir. The students, among many other problems faced by them, referred to forcefully that they do not get proper attention of and support from their teachers in class teaching. The poor students blamed their fate as they could not afford money, they could not go to subject-wise coaching practised by the school/college teachers in their residences. The renowned personages above, though accepted the students' views, did shy away from finding fault with the teachers, and while advising the students stressed, among other things, the imperative of reading the text, first and last, instead of going through the guides for short-cut success. Question remains whose duty is it to make the students get the habit of reading the text to know things fully and find out the answers there from?
Except for the few renowned schools/colleges, the teachers hardly take pains to see for themselves through class works as to the weaknesses of the students and help them out to improve. Once called people of 'noble profession' and 'manush garer karigar' they have sold their ethics and thrown themselves into the business of coaching to be hefty money makers. In fact, they too are no less responsible for the erosion of moral values in society. In our time we did not see any college teacher earning by private tuition or coaching but some of them used to write guidebooks which we consulted as helping materials. How funny now you stand dead against guidebooks, but do not criticize the teachers for home tuition.
Here is a story of coaching business of teachers of a private college in Dhaka (at Iqbal Road) where my daughter studied. A few months ahead of the 1st year final examination she and her fellow mates were given to understand through grapevine that promotion to second year might be difficult unless they have their tuition from their class teachers. And when in the second year they heard the same sermon that to be able to sit for the board exams they need to be enrolled in the coaching centres of their teachers. So both times I had to escort my daughter (a science student) to 4/5 teachers' residence almost every day for more than six months and I found each teacher coaching in batches, each batch comprising no less than ten students. This is how a private college runs with lofty ideals and lets its teachers run their coaching business at their residences. This is only a tip of the ice-berg. This norm or trend is permeated through so deeply and widely that nothing could bring this coaching practice to an end unless the whole system of education is a overhauled.
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