Letter to the Editor

A reply to “the deserving and the deprived”

Fahmina

This is in response to Deeni Fatiha's article. I felt really troubled by the way she wrote the article.

First of all, the author claimed that her family and peers neglect the achievements of students from the British Curriculum and throw parties in honour of a cousin who has earned GPA5 in HSC exams. This is entirely a personal problem, because I never saw this kind of weird discrimination in my family. All achievements are celebrated in equal manner. I never heard anyone throwing party for getting GPA 5 either.

I believe that the government does not celebrate the achievements of O and A Level students because it is not the government's success. They are the students of private organizations. The government has got nothing to do with it. There are countless personal achievements of various people all over Bangladesh.

We all know that students studying the British curriculum get admitted in universities like Harvard, Princeton, MIT, the National University of Singapore, etc. I also used to admire them for their successes but the way the author wrote, it seemed like they are the only ones getting admissions and scholarships in internationally reputed universities. For her kind information, I would like to add that students from national curriculum achieve these as everyone else. Whereas both mediums have got their own potentials, the author wrote the article about their “negligence” in society but she herself seemed to be “neglecting” the others.

The national curriculum cannot emphasize English too much because Bangladesh is still on the way to improvising the curriculum. They are translating the Bangla books because this is the national curriculum. In India, they read books written by Indian authors and so do we. Maybe the writer does not know that even two years ago, these translated books were not available. Those students had to translate the Bangla books themselves!

And yes, winning a beauty pageant always gets huge media coverage. That is a completely different issue. The only things that I can say for this “issue” is that, government can impose a law on controlling the institutions' high tuition fees. And also political parties definitely should not call strikes on their exam dates. This is absolutely ridiculous and yes, overlooked by everyone.

Department of English, East West University.

Thank you so much for writing all these on our behalf. Our elders always look down upon us as ill-mannered brats, just because we belong to English medium schools. For admission in public universities sometimes we have to complete 2 year's HSC syllabus in just 3 months! There are always discriminations, which piques our pride at times. I would like to thank The Daily Star for taking the initiative and awarding the students of O/A levels. Thank you once again for publishing her article in Star campus.

Md. Nurul Islam
Faculty of Vet. medicine
Chittagong Veterinary & Animal Sciences University

I totally agree with the writer. We the British Curriculum students are facing numerous social problems. Discrimination and underestimation is a part of our life. If I tell a little story it would be quite clear. One day I was sitting in this bookshop, a teacher of a nearby school came and was looking for one of those guide/notes for a science subject. I was quite surprised to observe that. There was another person sitting beside me. I was told by him that these guidebooks are killing the creativity of the students. Following which, there began an explosive argumentative session about the matter.
One of the people present there said that all the English medium books are written by Indian writers and published from India. As a student of that arena I felt offended. My answer to that comment was simple. If teachers were looking for answers in guides, then what is the standard of education?
One of them told me that the students of O/A-Level are only good in English and nothing else, and they are no match for Bangla medium students in terms of knowledge. All the Bangla medium students are so talented, that only courses like IELTS and TOEFL can make them just as good in English. But now I am experiencing the truth in front of my very own eyes. Every semester when I go through the English and other courses, I generally feel very happy, for the fact that I see a lot of these people having trouble in speaking in English in front of the class. They sometimes even fail to write a simple sentence properly. I am not saying anything to hurt them but this is the fact.
O/A-level students should get the recognition for their knowledge and achievements. O/A-level students are able to communicate with the outer world more effectively than anybody else. In the 21st century communication skill is one of the most important abilities a person should have. Otherwise the person is not fit to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Department of Business Administration
East West University.