Editorial
Muhammad Yunus at DU
Why debate is a stimulus to knowledge?
Professor Muhammad Yunus' remarks at the 43rd convocation of Dhaka University on Wednesday are certainly a commentary on some very serious issues involving our education system. The Nobel laureate has brought in some much-needed intellectual content into a discussion that ought to be engaged in all the more from here on. A focal point he has made is the place of debate in a society. Given the fact that we happen to be part of a world that is getting to be increasingly knowledge-based, it makes sense to argue, as Yunus does, that a primary condition for the growth of knowledge is debate. The idea of debate is indeed what the founder of the Grameen Bank has lately floated through his reflections on politics and the other elements that define life in this country. With the state of the nation none too healthy at this point, debate and intellectual exchange can surely play a useful role if we mean to redefine the concept of university education in Bangladesh.The Nobel laureate's stress on innovation as a way of taking the benefits of technology to the poor should be seen as an impetus for the young as they step out into the real world of work and experience. This is important because the abstraction which has so long underpinned education has really not created the kind of opportunities that can enhance the quality of life not only for the young but also for people by and large. It is from such a perspective that Yunus' belief in the creation of an education system that will provide young men and women with opportunities of internship at various organizations takes meaning. Such an approach will not only bring us in line with modernity but also provide a meaningful new dimension to our social attitudes to education and what follows it. Dr Yunus' point about social businesses may be looking a little too far ahead at this stage, but that in no way means it cannot be tried out in the future. The Grameen concept, after all, was an innovative idea once. We are glad that the DU convocation is finally over and that it ended well. But we do regret the fact that a section of academics went ahead with their boycott of the programme despite a reversal of the decision to have Muhammad Yunus as the convocation speaker. It does not make us happy to suspect that partisan politics can sometimes mar some very real achievements, such as coming by the Nobel Prize. Let us hope that our universities will someday return to being symbols of the universality they used to be once.
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