The Khuda Commission thus did away with the distinct character of madrasa education at the primary level, merging it with general education into a single stream. Madrasa education was so neglected by that commission that its 298-page report gave only two and a half pages to describing it.
The 2010 education policy, drawn up in the light of the Dr Qudrat-e-Khuda Commission, renamed Islamic studies in general education “Islam and moral education”. The Khuda Commission had extended the primary level to Class Eight, and the 2010 policy proposed the same. Putting that into practice caused serious disorder in infrastructure at the time, and in the end it simply did not work. The 2010 policy also proposed making a wide range of general-education subjects compulsory in the madrasa syllabus. That made it hard for madrasas to keep a separate religious education, because making almost every general subject compulsory loaded madrasa students with a double syllabus. When madrasa education leaders later organised protests, the policy was amended. Even so, many religious subjects had to be dropped from the madrasa syllabus because general-education books had been made compulsory.
The Khuda Commission had also proposed that, up to the primary level, meaning Class Eight, there be no separate textbooks for pupils of each religion, but a single combined book called “moral education” drawn from the core humane and ethical teachings of all religions. In line with the “secularism” principle of the constitution of newly independent Bangladesh, it put greater weight on technical, scientific and technological education, with the aim of building a non-communal, modern and productive society. In doing so, however, it ignored religious education almost entirely. The country’s devout ordinary people were not against technical, scientific or technological education, but the way religious education in general schools and madrasas was cut back in the drive to make Bangladesh a secular state left 80 percent of the population deeply angry at the time.
The education system was chosen as the foundation on which to build Bangladesh as a secular state from the ground up. That secular education policy did not fit the minds, thinking, traditions and religious values of most people in Bangladesh. One of its aims was to change, through a sweeping overhaul of education, the religious thinking, outlook and cultural awareness people had held for generations. That plan did not succeed after the political change of 1975. But in 2008, after Sheikh Hasina was brought to power through what the writer calls a staged election, the product of a deep conspiracy involving India’s intelligence agency RAW, the then army chief General Moeen and other quarters, the Awami League government again set out to steer Bangladesh back towards the secular constitution of 1972.
According to the writer, this India-backed party did not only set out to carry out the 1974 Khuda Commission report anew; it took on a mission to destroy Bangladesh’s entire education system, and succeeded.
Under Sheikh Hasina, praise of Sheikh Mujib and the Sheikh family, and the establishment of the Awami League’s political ideology, ran through textbooks from primary to higher secondary level, in Bangla, English, Bangladesh and Global Studies, history and other subjects. Sheikh Hasina’s picture and one-sided slogans appeared on the covers of nearly every textbook. A wholly one-sided and distorted account of history was put in place. Some textbooks included material that gave no sign of having been written for Bangladeshi children. At the secondary level, books produced by various NGOs were handed out alongside government textbooks by various means, the writer says, to encourage free mixing between boys and girls. Under Sheikh Hasina, public examinations meant leaked question papers. Very poorly written textbooks, repeated changes to the education and examination systems, public examinations introduced at the end of primary school and of Class Eight, deep corruption and mismanagement in education administration and other chaos destroyed Bangladesh’s education system from primary to higher secondary level. In the name of education, pupils and parents were harassed and pushed into an oppressive situation. Public universities were turned away from research and innovation into institutions that only handed out certificates. The whole education administration became a den of party flatterers and unqualified people.
After the July 2024 revolution, the interim government set up 11 commissions to carry out reforms in various fields. But it saw no need to form a commission to reform education, a sector of national importance that had been ruined.
Since the July revolution, some changes have been made to textbooks from primary to higher secondary level. But adding the events of July and dropping some one-sided Awami League narratives does not by itself raise the quality of textbooks or of education. Taking everything into account, there is no alternative to writing every textbook from primary to higher secondary level afresh, by suitable and skilled people. That needs an entirely new, up-to-date education commission and education policy. In drawing them up, it would be best not to use any past commission or policy as a model. Instead, it is essential to study closely the education systems of the countries with the best and most advanced ones, such as Japan, Singapore, Finland, South Korea, Switzerland, the United States and Canada. With their systems in view, a policy should be written with our own country’s context, needs, values, present and future in mind, and suitable textbooks and an education system put in place accordingly. There is no doubt that our present textbooks and education system are in no way suited to the current generation. For them, the existing system has become a dreadful and oppressive one. There is therefore no alternative to throwing it out and changing it from the roots. It should be remembered that rapid and remarkable advances in technology, including AI, are about to bring major change to textbooks, teaching methods and education systems around the world. Much that is established and institutional may quickly stop working. Imposing old ideas and thinking through a new commission or policy will therefore achieve nothing. The work must include people who are fully familiar with this current of change. Those given the task must hold wide discussions with people of the new generation and learn from them what kind of textbooks and education system they want.
Above all, the writer argues, the collaborators of fascism must be rooted out of the whole education administration and of every important post and policy-making level in all of the state’s administration and institutions. Otherwise any new change will be hard or impossible, as was seen under the interim government. The first round of textbook changes, made without a purge of the fascists, did not properly reflect the spirit and hopes of July, because a collaborator of fascism had a place on the textbook revision committee. So there is no alternative to an anti-fascist purge before any sweeping change to the education system. Reform of the state system is essential at the same time.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report