So many fail in Bangla!

In what has come as a shock to most people, nearly 70 per cent of aspirants hoping to get admission to Dhaka University have failed to pass in Bangla, the mother tongue. This pathetic performance has forced university authorities to reconsider marks so that seats do not go vacant. The question here is whether giving grace marks will not amount to skirting the wider question of poor performance of students in Bangla. That the average student is not serious about studying the language is only one part of the problem, the other being the quality of teaching at the secondary level. This needs to be properly addressed to avert a similar dismal performance in next year's admission tests.

Both teaching material and methods are to a large extent responsible for students' lack of interest in studying Bangla. For years, we have stood by and let lacklustre text books be published with not only numerous mistakes but a general lack of creativity in preparing and imparting the lessons. Teaching methods still revolve around private tuition and 'learning by rote' remains the mainstay of the learning languages like Bangla. With emphasis on obtaining good marks, as opposed to actually learning the language, it is not altogether surprising that the average student is dumbstruck when faced with a question paper that presupposes that the entire syllabus has been studied by the examinee. This is where the challenge lies essentially and unless students are taught where knowledge is central to the theme; results cannot be expected to be anything but disappointing.