Educate properly to exit poverty

Educate the nation properly to produce productive and diligent workforce with risk-taking entrepreneurial skills for national competitiveness at global marketplaces. Innovative, adaptive, and dynamic education system emphasising both effective life-long learning/teaching that transcends classrooms, and research and development has the power to generate a virtuous circle of economic prosperity, and hence the enhancing well-being of the society. Economic prosperity is usually measured quantitatively by increasing per capita real GDP. But there is more to life in terms of quality than only monetary income figures. The well-being (although yet an elusive concept) is, in fact, reflected through improvement in quality of life (proxied by a combination of literacy rate and life expectancy at birth). The empirical connection between the above is highly positive meaning that the former implies the latter.

Globalisation is transforming product-characteristics as products are becoming increasingly intensive in knowledge, skills, and technology. The services sector is expanding in developed economies at the expense of the manufacturing sector. Seemingly, this is a natural course of economic transformation that transits from agriculture to manufacturing, and subsequently from manufacturing to services. The above attributes relating to product-characteristics can be acquired only through an innovative and creative education system that is compatible with age and adaptable to unfolding socio-economic and technological changes and challenges. Such an education system will enhance global employability of Bangladeshis with higher income and will produce a class of risk-taking entrepreneurs who will contribute to higher output and services. They together will reduce income inequality, boost buying power of the people and create additional capacity leading to higher national output and consumption. In my view, a rise in per capita consumption is a better proxy for improvement in standard of living than per capita GDP. At the same time, the productive society will generate more savings available for higher investment in existing businesses, new business ventures, capital markets, better education, and better healthcare services. In short, there is no better substitutes for creative education system that also teaches the values of hard work and ethical behaviour.

If all people be creative, hard-working, and ethical with strong social commitment, the levels of both financial and moral corruption will recede. This will help alleviate systemic and multidimensional poverty as corruption is identified as one of its root causes. The education system must emphasise creativity and entrepreneurial skills rather than memorisation. Memorisation destroys the creativity and raises obsession with test scores that have no practical values in the real world except for some initial advantages at the point of entry in the job market. There are many examples of failures of high test-performers in the competitive real world that demands new creation, not mere reproduction. In contrast, there are many examples of splendid success of the average test-performers because of their creativity and hard work. They did not do so well in the tests because they did not care much for memorisation of prepared notes with subsequent bouts of refinements. They rather understood the subjects and internalised knowledge to create self-proprietorship thereof.

As the nation can produce creative and diligent workforce with continuous improvement, national productivity will rise leading to larger output with the same. Consequently, unit production cost will decline and surpluses will be created thereby enhancing the employment-intensive exporting power of the country. Such export enhancement is another good example of virtuous circle generating higher income, better employment, and consequently better quality of life.

Surging manpower export since mid-1970s has been a boon for Bangladesh. It reduces domestic unemployment pressure and the concomitant remittances have 100 percent value-addition unlike exports of readymade garments (Bangladesh's top export item). But the global skill-demands are undergoing continuous transformations. To retain a competitive edge in this dynamic domain, Bangladesh should focus immediately on educating and training the prospective migrants according to changing global skill-specifications in public-private partnership. Moreover, emigration should complement international trade and foreign direct investment as an added advantage to Bangladesh.

A creative education system does not only ameliorate economic conditions and improve well-being, it also mitigates corruption. Unfortunately, our entire education system today is virtually submerged in corruption. Its moral dimension is far greater than its financial dimension. To mention a few, the extent of moral corruption is reflected in dereliction of duty, undue politicisation of the noble academic profession, lack of direct correspondence between promotion and performance, lack of accountability, etc. Restoration of transparency, accountability with freedom within reason, pay/promotion and performance linkages, gradual depoliticisation, etc., are likely to remedy the situation. Unfortunately, there is corruption in education while the nation needs education on causes and consequences of corruption with proper remediation.
Bangladesh has witnessed high growth of private universities for a long haul. On paper, they are registered as non-profit institutions. In fact, they are very much profit-oriented and Dhaka-centric. They grew like fungus, but serve a useful purpose by providing education to a large number of young people who are generally from the affluent segment of the society and do not qualify for admission in public universities or do not like to go outside the comfort zone.

Ironically, there is no uniformity in quality of education across these universities. They should be brought under some regulatory authority/accrediting agency to ensure uniformity in quality and accountability. At the same time, there is a need to devise methods and build capacity to promote adult literacy, functional literacy, and financial literacy in addition to vocational training. Religious education should also be integrated with modern curricula that emphasise science and mathematics, as science without religion is blind. For example, there are 6000 verses in the Holy Qur'an. Out of them, over 1000 verses deal with science — astronomy, physics, geography, geology, oceanography, biology, botany, zoology, physiology, embryology, general science, etc. Many modern discoveries in each field are referenced in the Holy Qur'an that was revealed 1400 years ago (www.finalrevelation.com). Furthermore, all religions inculcate moral values and ethical conduct as recipes for mitigation of corruption.

Constitutionally, Bangladesh is a secular state. Secularism does not mean absence of religions. In fact, this is about respect for and tolerance toward all religions guaranteeing freedom of practices. The education system should place greater emphasis on commonalities in religions in lieu of differences. More or less, the religious fundamentals are more in common than differences that are observed mainly in the rituals, in my view.

At school level, moral corruption is relatively even more rampant than at college/university level. This is reflected through proliferations of private tutoring. Inadequate income in teaching profession is also partly responsible for such proliferations. School teachers in an increasing number do not teach adequately any more in the classrooms. To ensure higher scores, students have to go to them for private tutoring that has now become a symbol of pride and affluence for many families. Again, the affluence in many cases is the outcome of corrupt practices. Today, many students and their parents are obsessed with high test-scores. There was a time when it was considered shameful by many to seek private tutoring. They tried to remain silent on it. Moreover, it was not needed much then because of adequate attention in the classrooms, given by teachers. They were truthful to their noble profession. To do well in tests today, students waste energy on memorising prepared notes, given by private tutors, and as available in traded notebooks. They even do not care to possess or study prescribed textbooks. This is an ominous trend and calls for a reversal without delay.

Otherwise, the education system will keep producing unproductive memorisers who simply will traditionally look for public sector jobs without being creators and entrepreneurs. We should draw valuable lessons from rapidly emerging economies of China and India in this regard. In addition, education will make common people aware of their own rights and responsibilities. In return, this awareness will enable them to launch a strong social movement against corruption, injustice, income inequality, and social inequity, as necessary.

The following sayings, as heard often in the USA, underscore the profound importance of lifelong learning in poverty alleviation: in old days, after the cultural revolution in China in 1966 and during the period of 1966-1976 under Mao Tse-Tung, parents in the USA at the dinner table used to tell their children "Do not waste any foods, millions of children in China go to bed hungry."

Today, the US parents tell their children "Do your homework, the Chinese are coming to take your jobs." What a reversal of fortune! China replaced Japan in 2010 as the second largest economy in the world, the enviable position held by Japan for 42 years in a row. Today, China is also about to challenge the US monopoly in military and aircraft technologies. Another US saying goes as "To get out of public housing, go to school." To note, public housing in the USA is meant only for the extreme poor.

To exit poverty, Bangladesh should design a proper education system with innovative and dynamic curricula incorporating vision, mission, and academic freedom with accountability, and performance measured with emphasis on creativity in teaching and research. At the same time, education has to be made affordable and accessible to all with shrinking inequity in quality through geographic spreading of colleges and universities. The current education policy seems to be the first step in the right direction but a good policy in itself is not a solution. The solution lies in its sincere, timely, and full implementation with necessary capacity-building.

To ensure some accountability, college/university students should have the opportunity to evaluate an instructor's teaching quality and ability regularly for each course, he/she teaches. For annual merit evaluation, every instructor's research publication and consulting works should be taken into account in addition to other academic as well as community services.

Performances in these three components with proper weighting system should fairly determine eligibility for pay raise, promotion, and tenure. This is a common practice in US colleges/universities. They also may be adopted and implemented in Bangladesh with appropriate modifications. No faculty member should be allowed to use the primary job as a stepping stone to find income opportunities somewhere else without prior permission with proper justification(s).
To close, Bangladesh is blessed with abundant working-age population. Only creative and innovative education system can turn them into human capital.

This human capital will be the source of income production and higher well-being for Bangladesh. More precisely, only proper education can mitigate both corruption and poverty. There is no better form of investment than investing in education.

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Dr. Matiur Rahman is the MBA Director and JP Morgan Chase Endowed Professor of finance at McNeese State University, USA.