The New Nation - Internet Edition

Gas-based power, a luxury

IT is reported that the Petrobangla may stop the supply of gas to eight power plants, because their production is not cost-effective. This is because gas reserves, if not explored and developed from new found fields, will be totally exhausted by 2011. The Chief Adviser has reportedly instructed the relevant official agencies, the Petrobangla and the Power Development Board, to conduct a study on the prevailing conditions in the power sector. The power plants that were set up in the seventies and eighties of the past century are in dilapidated shapes. These units fail to generate power efficiently and their output is inadequate to meet the demands of consumers.

The existing 19 power plants fail to generate enough electricity and the shortage reaches the range of 1500 megawatts a day. The plants, installed and operated over the past thirty to forty years, have lost more than fifty percent of their original generation efficiency or remain closed for years together. In view of the upturn in the demand for power more power-plants have to be set up for generating electricity.

Gas, so far used for generation of electricity, may not be available in coming years. Alternate natural bounties including coal and solar energy plus biogas have to be used. This has to be ensured with substantive policy decisions based on national consensus. The decision of the incumbent government to stop the setting up of new gas-based power plants may have to be followed up by subsequent political governments. The generation of power has to be kept uppermost on the basis of long-term plans. Massive power outage now being experienced has to be brought under control. Cost-effective use of limited energy resources has to be ensured at all costs.

Returns from EPZs

ACCORDING to media reports, earnings from Export Processing Zones (EPZs) in the country cannot keep pace with the increased volume of investment although foreign investment in the EPZs has reportedly doubled in fiscal 2007-08. According to the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA) EPZs received US$302 million as investment in 2007-08 as against US$152 million in the previous FY. But, compared to that the growth of export earnings during the same period is much less. Earnings from export from the EPZs reached to US$2.43 billion in 2007-08 from US$2.06 billion in 2006-07, a growth of only 17.73 per cent. Local value addition to this earnings has been poor.

The BEPZA was set up in 1980 and the number of EPZs is now nine. Some specific objectives were set to achieve from them. The most important of those is to promote foreign and local investment. Other objectives are promotion and diversification of export, development of backward linkage industries, employment generation and transfer of technology. According to official sources, about 2,18,000 workers are employed in the EPZs.

The zones are provided with congenial investment climate. Investors there enjoy infrastructural facilities, various business support services as well as fiscal and non-fiscal incentives. In spite of all these, EPZs' performances are reportedly below the mark. If this is the case, a full-fledged survey of the EPZs needs to be conducted to evaluate them. Special emphasis should be given on calculation of the contribution of the EPZs to the national economy. If the EPZs are found not up to the expected level of performance, the authorities must take up the tasks of making those special economic zones more efficient and rewarding, otherwise the objectives of setting up these zones will never be achieved. Experiences gained from the existing export processing zones must be utilised while setting up new ones.

New crisis hits Nepal

Shamsuddin Ahmed

New crisis hits Nepal. CPN (Maoist) that won majority seats in the constituent assembly in April 10 election has declined to form the government or join it. In a sudden twist of events, three other parties - Congress, CPN (UML) and MRF - ganged up against the Maoist and elected Congress candidate Dr Ram Baran Yadav as President of the republic defeating the Maoist candidate in the constituent assembly on July 21. The 3-party alliance is now poised to form the government, each of the parties vying for the post of Prime Minister.

Maoist dubbed the alliance as unholy, formed only to prevent them from forming the government. How the three parties with diverse views came closer to form the alliance? The answer came from Dr Padam P Sharma, President of Empower Nepal Foundation based in USA. He wrote: India was propping the Terai Maadhesh parties (MRF) …Repeated attempts by the Maoists to forge an alliance with UML (Unified Marxist-Leninist) failed due to UML leadership's haughtiness and the pressure from the South Block (Indian Foreign Ministry) … The leaders have to pay a penalty of humiliation for committing the political sin of not heeding to the will of the people but listening to bad advice of the media, Nepali Congress and the brothers from the South Block.

Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) has sensed the motive of the alliance. It may soon topple his government with the help of President Yadav. So, he declined to form the government. But he sounded a strong warning that the Congress led alliance formed at the behest of external forces is going to push the country into grave internal conflict paving the way to take advantage by its alien masters. He told a press conference on Wednesday that the alliance has halted release of PLA (people's liberation army) budget which is bound to make the situation volatile.

Prachanda has squarely blamed India for twisting the political events and preventing his party from taking over power. "We were under pressure from India to make its henchman Girija Prasad Koirala the President of the republic," Prachanda was quoted to have told the press conference. Finally the alliance has chosen Yadav, General Secretary of Congress who studied in India and whose ancestors came from India.

He said people had voted CPN (Maoist) to govern the country. But conspiracy during the last three months has made it clear that external forces would not allow them to form the government. "Foreign agents in Nepal want the country to fall into a never ending civil war," said Prachanda, the rebel leader who waged guerilla war for a decade to end the monarchy and feudalism in Nepal that left more than 13,000 people dead. Maoist won 220 seats while Nepali Congress got 110, UML bagged 103 and Terai Madhesi parties (MRF) won less than 50 out of 575 elected seats in the Constituent Assembly.

It is true that Indian leaders were unnerved at the victory of Maoist in the election. They viewed that collusion of growing Maoist force of India and the Maoist of Nepal would pose a greater security threat to India. Nepal shares a 1400km open border with India without much check of cross border movement of their nationals. According to the Institute of Conflict Management, India, violence by growing Maoist has spread to 192 districts in 16 States. Former Chief of Intelligence Bureau, India, estimated that Maoist violence affects nearly 40 percent of India's landmass and 35 percent of its population. This excluded the secessionist movement in the eastern part of India known as Seven Sisters, including ULFA in Assam.

Reaction of Indian politicians and intelligentsia to the Maoist victory in Nepal was indeed sharp and strong. They have been advocating for timely and appropriate action to prevent Maoist rule in the closest neighbour on security ground. Some even suggested for military intervention in Nepal saying New Delhi should keep its eyes shut in case the army takes over in Kathmandu as was in the case of Mayanmar and Bangladesh.

Apparently the Indian policy has succeeded in Nepal. The development has indeed assumed lot of political significance in the region in the backdrop of newborn Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation.

Prachanda has a 20,000 strong battled hardened guerrilla force plus equal number of youths (Young Communist League) in his command. Will he take the defeat low? Besides, China on its north is another factor. Beijing views that India wants to turn the landlocked Nepal into a second Bhutan or Sikkim. And the new leadership in Kathmandu may enter the process of Sikimisation (Sikim was annex by India). China must not allow any of it happen.

Raising the quality of primary education

M.T.Hussain

The falling quality of Primary Education in Bangladesh since 1972 is nothing new to all those who cared for it and kept on tracking the issue as qualified professional educators. It is also true that the other further levels, as well, has been having the same fate as all levels are interlinked, and dependant on each other, particularly the higher ones much more dependant on Primary education quality. It, therefore, appears fairly reasonable that the present Caretaker Government (CG) took up the issue seriously to do something about it and so appointed a NGO, BRAC, to improve the quality by offering training to some teachers, possibly, on experimental basis. . It may be taken as one of their good intentions, no doubt, as they have many good wishes in many other areas to fix up, but there are few puzzling questions that they obviously need, at the same time, to ponder about seriously, possibly, on priority basis.

First, the question is raised if the CG has enough time to take up the task that can not be considered a mean one but a continuing process of lot of variables impinging on the system of primary education quality involving many socio-economic realities. Second, has the government taken for granted that the huge government administration particularly for Primary Education has had failed to do their task for which they are all paid from the public exchequer, and if so, to get rid of them all? Third, have all the teachers as a group proved inefficient to keep their teaching quality high, and if so why? Fourth, if the BRAC as a big NGO asked by the CG to provide their 'consultancy' service to work as Aladin's Wonder Lamp for raising quality of Primary schooling through training of some teachers in their own way in Bangladesh?

Improving quality of primary schooling for young children that the educators listed as 53 items of terminal competencies in reading writing, arithmetic, comprehension etc involves many critical factors that remained integral for decades with the overall socio-economic milieu. The first one could be traced as poverty of parents so much so that many children, if not the majority, more often than not go to school, if at all enrolled in the first year for some cash incentive of the provision of Upabritti for girls, as ill-fed, half fed or even fully hungry. Such malnourished or hungry young children can hardly accept class lessons even if the teacher would offer his best effort for imparting teaching for pupils' learning. That remains one of the main reasons for drop-out from year after year until the last primary class or fifth year retention rate being not more than 50%. In advanced countries like Britain where schooling until age 16 is compulsory at free of cost, for example, poorer pupils are normally given a small bottle of milk each day during school Tiffin hour, completely free of cost for the most poor and at subsidized nominal price for those from well off parents for keeping the school children full of energy to take efficient lesson from teacher. There is no question of any drop-out until age 16 or tenth class and no pass fail to be ousted from school until that statutory age limit is reached.

Illiteracy of parents of Bangladesh that many rural and Shanti dwelling parents of big cities are, is another negative factor against quality learning of pupils as they get little or no help at home for learning.

In the school campus, so far as learning aids are concerned, though books are provided by the government in primary schools, other essential learning aid materials like paper, pencil, instruments etc. are difficult to provide by the poor parents; neither schools have any budget to supply them to the needy learners. Such paucity affects learning quality.

Apart from the above constraints, there is wanting for well qualified, trained and self-motivated teachers. It is not that the teachers have no diploma or degree of colleges and universities. In fact, they have those required diplomas. In addition, many of them have undergone teachers training (One year Certificate in Education, B.Ed., etc) as well. The government primary schools have nearly all trained teachers (95% for rural and 97.3% for urban as of 1998, State of Primary Education in Bangladesh, UPL, 2001, p.8). The private schools and other institutes like Ebtedayee Madarassas, kindergartens etc., however, lag behind in number of trained teachers.

Provided the 54 Primary Teachers Training Institutes would remain fully functional and if need be expanded further in their capacities, training of the untrained teachers should not be difficult to provide. In addition, the old idea that the primary school teachers need not have university degree should now be forgotten as in advanced countries many Ph.D.s teach in many primary schools, and such degree holder untrained teachers of primary schools could be trained in other teacher training colleges/departments for B.Ed. etc. The institutes and colleges might need though reorganization not only in terms of operational mode but also in curricula contents. Psychological motivation for dedicated teaching may be an essential addition to the current syllabus for many teachers, as far as I know, lack in this regard. That teaching is a noble task for service above self unlike many other professions/vocations meant to be bought and sold only for money earning is unfortunately almost a lost idea in our midst. I still recall many of my dedicated teachers at the primary in early 1940s having no regular salaries but a paltry lump sum of Grant in Aid money, secondary and college / university at home and abroad who had been totally committed and dedicated ones that I fortunately experienced.

I may mention here two examples. The great Muslim philosopher and educator of the eighteenth century India Shah Wali Allah while had been working as the Head Mudarres at the Rahimia Madarasa, Delhi, he had applied once voluntarily to the governing body to reduce his honorees from Rs80/ to 50/ per month that the governing body did for responding to his wish and pleasure. Dr. M.A. Rashid, principal of the then Ahsanullah Engineering College, Dhaka, in 1950s, being appointed to the rank of the first V.C. of the BUET in 1961 in the making asked for a salary of only Rs 2000/ per month while the other V.C.s of the three other universities in the country had been drawing Tk 4000/ a month.

When he was asked by the government for his demand for half the amount meant for by the government, he did reply to the government that he would not need anything more for his upkeep of family. I knew this fact from the memoirs (P.A. Nazir, Smritir Pata Theke, reprint, Dhaka, 2003, p.118) of the then deputy secretary for the Education Ministry P.A. Nazir (1930-2003) who late in his life happened to be a very close friend of mine. I knew Dr. Rashid as my teacher and as a very simple living person although he held then the highest D.Sc. Degree from the elite American Carnegie Institute of Technology during late 1940s. I don't mean to say that the poor Bangladeshi teachers would have no good pay for their service, but what I mean to say is that the teachers should have the role models in their view of the examples I mentioned here while in teaching job to draw satisfaction from and incentive of spiritual kind. So far I knew from relevant document (Op.Cit., p.9), there is something of religious learning course in teachers' training syllabus, but I am not sure if the teachers' training curricula could provide sufficient incentive for dedication to the profession drawn from spiritual motivation.

The BRAC's Chairman in a statement made days before said that they would offer 'model' training for 3000 schools' teachers' in 20 Upazillas free of cost of the government and at the BRAC's own expense. The philanthropy looks wonderful. But the government should clarify the prior issue as to why their 54 teachers' training institutes could not do the required training job equally efficiently, if not more effectively. Why can't they compete in efficiency with what the BRAC could do?

Compulsory and Free Elementary or Primary education is not only the responsibility of the State as is told to us since about a century back in 1911 first in this Indian subcontinent pioneered by the young Member of the Council of the Governor General of India, M.A. Jinnah along with Gokhale (See, S.M. Zaman, Quaid-I- Azam And Education, NIHCR, Islamabad, 1995, PP.6-7) but also equally of the relevant community concerned.

That was what, in fact, in human history made compulsory by the Prophet of Islam in the State of Medina in the early seventh century A.D. when nowhere in the human civilization past and contemporary such revolutionary idea was even conceived.

The Medina tradition of the Muslims in education continued wherever the Muslims went to settle, no matter whether as conquerors or as Sufis, the elementary or Maktab education remained as the compulsory one run and managed by the local communities and the higher or Madarasa education as the State responsibility. In both cases Awkaf and La Kheraz landed properties of many Muslim philanthropists provided funding for those institutions. Professor Dr Sikander Ibrahimi noted that the first Muslim ruler of this region Ikhtiaruddin Mohammad Bakhtiar Khiljee established the first Madarasa at Rangpur (See, Madarasa Education in Bengal, Islamic Foundation, Dhaka) along with founding a Cantonment (at Damdama close to the south of the present Rangpur town but none existed afterwards for his fall and in hostile situation all around) in early thirteenth century.

The advanced countries of the West had set up as model for educational institutions following the first model of Medina minus, albeit, the Islamic spiritual contents replaced by their own based in Christianity that has been working effectively and efficiently in those countries for long until these days. The important matter is that community participation has been ensured in running and managing all primary schools. Local government provides some back up infrastructure support, no doubt, but the school governing body including therein some guardians in close association with the Head Master keep all functions going on including feedback and monitoring excluding though the teacher training that remains exclusive job of the central or regional government but not of any local government, much less of any NGO. Bangladesh could well take lessons from the model now followed by the West making innovations of realities we have here in our own locality. How come then that on account of what positive benefits the teachers' training is being proposed to be entrusted to one of the NGOs here in Bangladesh? Information about benefits, if any, should be given to all concerned for knowledge and understanding. And nothing should be imposed arbitrarily from the top.

To me, NGOs should be disqualified to do the teacher training job in Bangladesh for the glaring and well known fact that they are hardly nationalistic in approach but pursue extra-territorial objectives particularly in matters of value formation.

Thus teachers trained by them, in all likely would accept their values that may ultimately impinge adversely on young minds of school pupils that may not help healthy social transformation but inhibit it so far as the beliefs and values of overwhelming majority people of Bangladesh is concerned. .

As far as my understanding goes, NGOs provide signals for material incentive that attracts the extremely poor people for obvious reason for meeting their first of the basic needs, food for hunger. It is also the investment and development mode of secular approach for quality enhancing measured only in numbers and figures. In case of all forms and levels of education and learning, quality should include value formation and sustenance of values in learners' psyche. That is what the advanced countries aim at through what the learned educator's term as 'Hidden Curriculum' (See, Colin J. Marsh, Perspectives: Key Concepts for Understanding Curriculum-1, Falmer Press, New Edition, 1997, London, PP.33-38). The practical manifestations of the Hidden Curriculum are termed by some renowned educators as, for example, in England, producing 'Christian English Gentleman', in the USA, 'Pragmatic Christian Gentleman', in The Peoples' China, 'Red and Expert', in the Soviet (former) 'Soviet (Maxist) Typical Man' etc. In other words, the relevant nation states build up the youths psyche through schooling tuned to specific value system along with acquisition of cognitive knowledge in school programs.

Elementary or Primary schooling is particularly designed keeping the goal of personality making based on particular value system in the total curriculum process. Unfortunately Bangladesh like some other developing countries dominated by the sham secularists and the foreign donors have persistently acted in distancing the curriculum process away from our own humane value system. To me, the approach has logically made the educational quality the obvious casualty not only of the primary level but also of all levels.

The proposed BRAC involvement of secular nature in teachers' training devoid of contents of spiritual elements and incentive in training process would only further deteriorate, I am afraid, the quality of Primary schooling in Bangladesh.

I would rather feel that the teachers' training model developed and termed as Faith Based by the great educator and the founder V.C., the late Professor Dr. Syed Ali Asharf of the Darul Ihsan University, Dhaka (first Private) for B. Ed. and M.Ed. courses I happened fortunately to be involved with for a few years in their design and operation could be worth trying for improved quality and motivation of the trained teachers in the profession in primary schools, as well.