Cadet college story
Thank you for the article on Faujdarhat Cadet College “Wistful Memories and Unfulfilled Promises” by M. Rahman (The Daily Star: Internet Edition, December 15, 2009). It starts with his dilemma in joining the golden jubilee and ends with his disillusionment, in his view, in the elite school’s apparent failure of fulfilling the expectations of the nation. This is in stark contrast with a piece by another FCC alumnus F. Ahmed, presumably his 6th intake mate, entitled “Faujdarhat Cadet College: Half a Century of Excellence” (The Daily Star: Internet Edition, April 28, 2008) that glorified its ‘visionary founder’ and ‘the legendary founding principal’ as well as the accomplishments of many ex-cadets, among other things.
If Rahman is confounded that “FCC and similar boarding schools have simply failed to live up to the aspirations and expectations of the nation” and whether “the existing FCC structure meets national goals”, it may not be difficult to comprehend why. It is because of men like the distinguished FCC alumni and others, who were privileged to get the best pre-college education the poor nation could provide in the publicly-funded boarding schools having a ‘colonial ambience’ at a nominal cost, yet chose to live in the comfort of the West, whose taxpayers may not have spent a dime on their education.
It may be a smart thing to complain that “the most disappointing thing is the lack of any public service oriented activities by FCC alumni, who were expected to carry the torch of leadership into the broader national arena”, but it will certainly be a prudent thing to rethink whether to contribute to an alien society or to the country of their birth. No elite boarding school, like the Scotch College in Australia, the International School of Geneva in Switzerland, the Eton, Harrow or Sevenokas in the UK, the Phillips or the Deerfield Academy in the USA, or the Doon School in India, is funded absolutely with public money, except the military-style FCC and similar schools in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, Bangladesh suffers the most from the emigration of bright individuals nurtured at the cost of taxpayers’ money.
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