Neglected students
Thanks are due to Syed Badrul Ahsan for speaking up, in no uncertain terms, about the plight of students in 'On dormitories and schools' (DS 4.2.09). The problem goes even wider.
I am trying to help a young student from one of the tribal minorities through university - not least by helping the sister he is living with who only has her salary from a beauty parlour. He earns a modest Tk 1,000 a month for one, early hour session at a health club, 7 days a week. I make that 33 taka an hour. No one can say he is not trying...
The finals of his bachelor's degree, at a government university, are in May and he informs me that, from now until then, he will be receiving no teaching at all! That is something only the Honours candidates will have. He has to do all his study, from the books he has bought, at home.
What is happening in the universities of this dear country? How can final year students cope with no teaching at all?
How can society make demands on the behaviour of the students, unless it also makes demands on the behaviour of the university teachers and the authorities that pay them - as well as any outfit that is abusing them?
It is surely not surprising if some young people, rightly or wrongly, feel that, if no one cares about them - and what is being dished up to them, in the name of education - then why should they care about anyone, or anything?
This is not merely a disciplinary issue but a caring one. Parents, teachers and society have no right to discipline the young unless we make it obvious, in deeds as well as words, that we only care about their BEHAVIOUR because we care about THEM!
Once the God-given connection between love and discipline is broken, no relationship works.
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