Education is the backbone of the nation: How well organized is education?

"Give me an educated mother, I will give you an educated nation."  The world famous Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte said this. He showed the need for educated mothers to educate the nation. He is right, but if there is a crisis in education, how can an educated nation be created? Education is the backbone of the nation. But the backbone of the nation started to break when Covid-19.  Due to this, all the educational institutions of the country were closed for almost two years. The Ministry of Education started the online-based "Amar Garhe, Amar School" to continue the education of the students. But the acute crisis of the education system was evident during the corona period, the food shortage in common people's homes was severe.  As a result of which we have seen the cries of people because of hunger. Jobless, helpless, broken people stop living. The education of the children of those helpless people is like thinking about the sky. The fear of corona infection in villages. Among them, they are in lockdown with books on their stomachs.  Overcame fear and went out in search of work to satiate the hunger of the stomach. As a result, students dropped out of the education system. The main reason for this was the rise of internet devices.  A financial crisis to purchase a television caused most of the village to drop out of education. Media reports suggest that 15 percent of students will never return to school.

Who is responsible for returning students who have dropped out?  When will the shaking of the nation's education backbone stop?  Due to continuous commercialization of education in the past, the picture of the plight of the nation in the field of education became clear during the Corona period.  As a result only those who had money were able to educate their children.  On the other hand, those who don't have money.  They could not teach their children with android phones or home tutors.  Many went to mills as child laborers.  Many will be victims of child marriage and suffer lifelong hardships.
In such a dire situation, the anxiety of academicians, teachers, students, parents and people who are interested in learning has increased.  Everyone expressed their opinion to open educational institutions in compliance with hygiene rules.  On the other hand, symbolic classes and movement of students were going on in the streets demanding the opening of educational institutions.  New slogans were created by the mouths of the students, "Why are the educational institutions closed when everything is running?" The state opened all the educational institutions subject to conditions. Then one after another news started coming in the newspapers. The number of absences of students in the classroom is very less.  There is a ray of hope when the spread of the corona virus has started to decrease, the activities of the educational institutions have returned to normal.

 On June 9, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal proposed a budget of Tk 678,640 crore for the financial year 2022-23, which is 15.2 percent of the GDP, under the title 'Returning to the continuity of development after the impact of Covid'.  In the proposed budget, the government has set a gross domestic product (GDP) growth target of 7.5 percent and inflation target of 5.6 percent.  Several sectors including inflation control, agriculture sector, health, human resources and employment have been prioritized in the budget.  However, the most worrying thing this time is the education sector, and the debate on the education sector was also criticized in the National Parliament regarding the budget.  In his speech before the budget proposal, the education minister expressed his desire to allocate 6 parts of the GDP to the education sector as per the recommendations of UNESCO.  But sadly the aspiration remained only an aspiration.

 About 120 minutes after the education minister's speech, the budget was proposed in the education sector for the year 2022-23, a total allocation of Tk 81 thousand 449 crore has been kept for the education sector including the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education and the Ministry of Education.  That is 11.94 percent of the total budget, which was 71 thousand 954 crores in the last financial year 2021-22.  That is 11.91 percent of the total budget.  This year's education budget has increased by a total of Tk 9,495 crore as compared to the last financial year, which is a proportional increase of 0.3 percent.  This budget of 2022-23 has decreased by 2.48 percent compared to the budget of 2016-17 and 0.80 percent compared to the budget of 2017-18.

 An allocation of Tk 31 thousand 761 crore has been proposed for the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education in 2022-23, which was Tk 26 thousand 314 crore in the fiscal year 2021-22.  An allocation of Tk 39 thousand 961 crore has been proposed for the secondary and higher education department of the Ministry of Education for the year 2022-23, which was Tk 36 thousand 487 crore in the fiscal year 2021-22.  An allocation of Tk 9,727 crore has been proposed for the year 2022-23 for the technical and madrasa education department of the Ministry of Education.  In the last fiscal year 2021-22, it was 9 thousand 153 crores.  In this year's budget, 9 thousand 727 crore rupees have been allocated for madrassa and technical sector, which is 1.59 percent of the total budget and 12 percent of the total education budget, which in the last fiscal year 2021-22 was 9 thousand 153 crore rupees, which is 1.51 percent of the total budget and  12.72 percent of the total education budget.In other words, I have heard many gossips about dealing with post-Corona challenges, but in reality, no fundamental changes have been observed in the current education budget.

Education sector remained neglected. The proposed budget has increased the allocation for the education sector, but it is negligible compared to the requirement.  This allocation was close to 12% for the past few decades, so in this year's budget, the education budget has been done in the traditional way.  When will the student community breathe a sigh of relief in the education budget?  How will an educated nation be created? Adequate budget in education is essential to create skilled and creative human resources in the era of fourth industrial revolution.  Education should be stopped as a fundamental right of the state to trade in education.  As a result, the state should pay special attention to the responsibility and duty of the state to create manpower who is educated in real education, strong in moral education, efficient, active, creative, progressive and innovative through the education system by promoting and expanding science education.


 Rasheduzzaman Rashed is Essayist and columnist.