Taking proper care of our children
Photo: S Sarwar / Driknews
Any agenda for educational reform must start by recognising that children belong to a special category of citizens because they cannot protect their own rights. Children must be warmly hugged by the state in respect of all their needs, namely, health and nutrition, safety, security, and education. Significant reforms in governance are required to ensure that the efforts to be made by different departments come together. This is not easy, but there is no alternative to evolving a child-centred system of governance so that Bangladesh stops wasting its huge human resource potential on account of malnutrition, illiteracy, and child abuse. With widespread low haemoglobin levels and frequent illness, especially among girls, Bangladesh cannot compete with its neighbours like India and China, let alone the Europeans and the Americans. While no one can deny the nation's role in setting policy goals and providing funds for systemic reform, we can hardly overlook the lack of rigour and accountability in the State's response to policy directions. National-level issues of educational governance are ignored by the national media as well as by civil society groups. A vast number of systemic problems simply never get resolved. For greater focus and efficiency in the delivery of child-related services, the government overcome its inertia.
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