Feature

A step to be appreciated

How student politics has been harming the education system in our country is not a secret. Public universities and colleges are the biggest victims in this regard. Opposing political student wings get head to head with each other and the obvious adverse effect is suffering for the general students.

In a recent development, law adviser Mainul Hossein was found quoting that the Caretaker Government sent a proposal to the Election Commission for imposing ban on party-affiliated student bodies. With much relief he disclosed the proposal of keeping both the teachers and students out of party politics and barring the political parties from using them to their own advantage. However it was properly cleared by him that an absolute ban on student politics would not be imposed, bearing in mind the glorious history and valuable contribution of student politics in the history of our country.

Better late than never. This is an initiative that should have been taken a lot earlier, but I want to personally thank the Caretaker Government for their initiative, even though quite late, to mop out the political bad effect from the educational arena.

Because of the politically motivated moves, we very often experienced unwanted closure of public educational institutions, the latest being the 55-day long closure of Dhaka University. This is not the only instance the institute was forced to close down. Because of these unwanted closures, classes could not be finished on time, examinations were not held regularly and the schedule could not be maintained. The session jam was getting worse and the students were becoming more and more frustrated.

One thing should be kept in mind, that the number of students involved in the political process is quite small comparing to the number of students not involved in the political process. But the majority, the general students, were the sufferers.

Right now, there is a State of Emergency imposed upon us and all sorts of political activities, including student and teacher politics, are banned. Because of this, educational institutions are experiencing a politics-free environment. However, this State of Emergency will not stay forever. One day it will be lifted and normalcy will return. What will happen then? Will that old memory come back to haunt us and take us to the bottom again? I think none of us would want the answer of the above question to be 'YES'.

To make the answer 'NO', something should be done so that the repetition of these events do not occur. All of us saw what a political government can do, and nothing can be expected from them regarding this. That is why it is up to a non-political government to cure this disease.

However, a point must be noted. Teacher and student politics should not be rooted out completely. Rather a teacher-student welfare oriented politics must be allowed so that constructive and well-meant initiatives can be taken in making the educational environment more learning oriented. Bearing the teachers' and students' contribution in '52, '71, 'and 90, this much room should be allowed. Otherwise it will all be akin to cutting the head for curing the headache.

As the initiative has already been taken, I hope this will be implemented sooner rather than later. In order to safeguard the education sector of our country, political party affiliated teacher and student politics should be banned while making the educational institutions off-limits for mainstream politics. Only then will there be a free-spirited educational environment in our country that we can be proud of.

(4th Year, BBA, 9th Batch, Department of Accounting & Information Systems, University of Dhaka)