A MIDDLE-CLASS FATHER'S HEAVY SIGH

After a half day of office work, Jamil Saheb sipped coffee and turned to the newspaper. His gaze landed on the QS World University Rankings 2023, where no Bangladeshi university has

achieved a ranking; moreover, his daughter will be taking the next admissions test. The education industry in Bangladesh is in the worst possible situation—far worse than Dhaka's

transportation system. Universities fail to measure their performance across all metrics. Research accounts for 62.5% of the total in the global rankings, but we only scored 19.2 out of 100 in this category. Every country allocates the most money for education, it's the opposite shape in Bangladesh. Yet, our government can celebrate the grand opening of the IPL by inviting Salman Khan and Katrina, also spending $100,000 behind Aziz, Haris, Benazir, and Papon.

In contrast, the government is mostly interested in utilizing students to steal votes at night,

create a divisive political climate, and force them to vote. Why is only BUET free of politics? I'm not antipathetic to student politics, but do we need such politics where students engage in instilling fear in public?

Jamil's coffee is almost gone. Jamil, like everyone else, is aware of what occurs in Bangladeshi universities, but as a middle-class father, he never imagines his daughter attending a university abroad. He simply groaned—if Taiwan ranked in the world's top 1000, then why couldn't Bangladesh?

As a victim like Jamil's daughter, my answer is straightforward. In higher education,

Independence Bangladesh couldn't come up with any paradigms related to fashion or cricket. If it were prohibited for the children of politicians and the 350 members of parliament to pursue higher education abroad—which didn't happen after the liberation war—the country would witness a considerable improvement in universities in just 53 days.

Author-

Name: Ashura Tabassum Arshi

Institution: Cantonment Public School and College, Rangpur

Class: Currently Admission candidate

Gmail: ashuraarshi@gmail.com