e_Paper, Monday, August 7, 2017

14
MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 2017
DT
Opinion
An apology to my students
We should support students, not try to control them
Students are the rightful voices of tomorrow
BIGSTOCK
• Rifat Mahbub
to an
unavoidable
circumstance,
“Due
the authority
of (name any public university)
has declared that the university
will remain closed until further
notice” -- this is the most common
and frustrating news that any
student who studied or studies
in public universities gets here in
Bangladesh.
Days pass by, uncertainties
brew in, frustration mounts -- and
one day the universities open,
classes are managed, and exams
are taken.
The situation has changed
slightly for the better recently,
when many public universities
are maintaining their academic
calendars accurately.
The semester system means
that teachers and students need
to move by the clock, life becomes
busy, work is routinised, exams
are standardised, results are duly
published, and the next semester
comes by too quickly.
The boom and success of
private universities in Bangladesh
partly lie on the long-standing and
unresolved failures of the public
universities.
In the early 2000s, when
private universities first started
to increase in numbers, they were
a breather in our claustrophobic
and vision-less higher education
system. We envied our distant
friends who were able to study at
private universities because their
parents could afford to.
Their fluent English, their
rambling about presentations
and quizzes, their confidence
lin anding a job shamed us. Our
only consolation was repeating
to ourselves we were the truly
brilliant students, yet, deep inside,
we knew even that was not true.
I now teach at a private
university. And I see my students
with wonder.
They are kids of today, as I look
at them and I realise, silently yet
rapidly, how our education system
(not all the structural criticism
withstanding) has produced
groups of young people who are
While I just observe, my students take action to change their world.
They are no copycats; they are human beings with a real sense of
perception and ability. They are firm and controlled -- they know how
to share the world together
brilliant and empathetic, who
are global thinkers yet are firmly
rooted in their local causes.
I teach courses on feminism in
literature, media, and culture; and
I see how my students take in the
lecturers to transform themselves
and their surroundings for the
better. I see them boiling in anger
when they realise that discussions
in the classroom are the hardest to
translate in the real world.
Our society changes slowly,
the education system moves in
contradictory directions, and the
entrenched autocratic system,
even in the relatively liberal
institution such as universities, are
fed on the power of iron hands.
While I just observe, my
students take action to change
their world. They are no copycats;
they are human beings with a real
sense of perception and ability.
They are firm and controlled --
they know how to share the world
together.
Let them grow up, let them be
the rightful voices of tomorrow.
They are our best parts. If
we destroy them, we will be
destroying ourselves. •
Rifat Mahbub is Assistant Professor,
Department of English and Humanities,
BRAC University.