Sylhet | Education

Once education in greater Sylhet or Jalalabad was pride for the rest of the nation. No wonder many Sylhetis held important positions across India including Nobodip and Mithila. The 1st Bengali poet Syed Sultan of Sunamgonj earned great respect and reputation at the palace of Arakan Rajshoba. Even when Lord Macaulay instituted his English education in India in 1835, Sylhet did not fall behind. It adapted it quickly. No wonder when the British created Assam Commissariat in 1874 for better management of its administration, they mostly recruited Sylhetis to manage Assam administration. This is mainly owing to superior education and administrative skills and performance tract record of Sylhetis. The same story repeated in 1905 when united Bengal was divided into East and West Bengal. To manage East Bengal’s administration, many Sylhetis were again recruited to do the job as there were not sufficient English educated people in Bengal. However, when owing to political agitation mostly by non-Muslims, the division of Bengal was annulled in 1911.On those days, many Sylhetis had the privilege to govern and administer many districts and offices all across India. Reason; they were better educated and better trained. When Pakistan was created in 1947, a large number of educated officers belonging to Sylhet started managing its administration in almost all areas of administration including civil, military, police, education, taxation, land revenue, and judicial services. In fact, after the creation of East Bengal (later East Pakistan) when 17 new Munshefs (lower court judges) were to be recruited, they did a nation-wide search. After a thorough and intensive selection evaluation, those that were selected as finalists were all from Sylhet. Such was the quality and quantity of educated in Sylhet in those days. There was competition all across Sylhet to excel in education. No wonder the 1st and the 2nd ICS (Indian Civil Service of Indian origin) of India were both from Sylhet. They were none other than Gorushodoy Dutta and Gaznafer Ali Khan of Sylhet----they were the pride of India and of course, Sylhet. When the Calcutta University was established in 1857 with only 8 (eight) students one of those eight was from Sylhet. He was none other than Mohammed Diam of Sylhet town, the 1st graduate of Sylhet in early 1860s. Following him, Maulvi Abdul Karim (known as Danobir Haji Moshin of Sylhet) graduated from Calcutta University in early 1980s. He is the 2nd Muslim graduate of Jalalabad. He was a 'beacon of hope' for the Mohammadan education in Bengal and he played a leadership role in the creation of the All India Muslim League in 1906. When Pakistan's 1st Prime Minister Liaquath Ali Khan was assassinated, Karim's youngest son, Justice A. S. M. Akram was appointed to head its investigation. Current Secretary General Irin Khan's (Amnesty International) Abdul Karim was one of the early medical professionals of Sylhet who performed services with credit in many districts in India. The issue is, on those days many Sylhetis took leadership role across nations mainly due to their superior education, performance tract record and skills. But now-a-days, literacy rate and quality education that were the pride of Sylhet is on a declining trend During partition of India, the literacy rate was highest in Sylhet in East Bengal. Now it is lowest in Bangladesh. For example, it was around 24.4% in Sylhet in 1947 vis-?vis 18.3% in East Bengal or East Pakistan or Bangladesh. As per CIA Factbook, it is 42.3% in Bangladesh now (Bangladesh government claims it to be 62%) and unfortunately, it is only 27.9% in Sylhet, the lowest amongst all divisions. As per Bangladesh government reports, the average literacy rate for Bangladesh is 62% and it is 57.1% in Sylhet, 75.1% in Barisal, 67.9% in Chittagong, 62.6% in Rajshahi and 59.7% in Dhaka divisions. The fact of the matter is, literacy rate is low in Sylhet now and it is increasing at a rate that is not conducive neither for growth, prosperity and more importantly, for competition. In these days of Published by Marupalash, Riyadh SaudiArabia Kingdom of Humanity competition and globalization where knowledge and skills are the engines of growth, competition, innovation, and prosperity, lack of basic education is surely an impediment to growth, prosperity and stability. In this paper, they evaluated the trend of education in Sylhet especially in Secondary and Higher Secondary Board Examinations. We also looked into the number of pupils and the number of educational institutions in Sylhet vis-?vis that of Bangladesh. From their study, they find clear evidence of an alarming trend in the quality and quantity of education in Sylhet. A few causes of such poor trend were mentioned by experts such as foreign remittance, tendency among the young to leave the country, religious backwardness (Sylhet was once a land of religious and spiritual tolerance and openness), shortage of teachers, etc. However, we find difficulty to understand how come female pupils (53.3%) are more than male pupils (46.7%) in Sylhet. Therefore, it need to evaluate the actual causes of such apathy and negligence in the education in Sylhet.

• < Prev