Editorial
State minister's rally at the cost of exams
Such practices should stop forthwith
It has been always the case that whenever a bigwig visits a district town or upazilla the worst sufferers are the school students. It is they that have to line up for hours in the heat to welcome their 'beloved leader' or have to walk long distances to shore up attendance at his rally or, as had happened recently in Gomastapur upazilla of Chapainawabganj, have their terminal exam for that day postponed because a state minister was holding his public meeting in one of the school grounds.
And it was not only the Alinagar High School, which was instructed by the district education officer to do so, but six other schools in the areas adjacent to the rally ground that postponed the tests on that day because all of them were giving the test for the same question paper.
One cannot think of a more outrageous situation where studies are given the short shrift because of political programmes. Reportedly, in this case not only was the exam postponed, the students were kept standing for several hours to accord reception to the state minister. The headmasters' request to hold the exams before the rally was also turned down.
We feel that the government ought to issue clear and strict instructions, if not already there, that the practice of laying out ostentatious programmes on the occasion of the visit of high government functionaries to districts and upazillas that hamper normal life and clash with educational programmes in particular, must be discontinued forthwith. It should be also for the visiting dignitaries to insist upon the local authorities dispensing with pomp and grandeur during their visits. These are, after all, unproductive exercises that bring no benefit to anyone, least of all, fetch any political dividend, and if anything create more disruption to public life than anything else.
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