Editorial
The honoured young
It shows a commitment to tomorrow
We take this opportunity to congratulate the 733 young scholars honoured by the Daily Star for their performance at the O and A level examinations on Friday. These young people, like their predecessors in the last several years, have vindicated the idea once again that despite the difficult circumstances which Bangladesh lives through, its children are still capable of doing it proud in academic achievement.We of course realize that the foundations of education in Bangladesh are the mainstream schools or, simply put, the Bangla medium schools all across the country. We are happy to know that in the past, our children from Bangla medium educational institutions have done extremely well career-wise both at home and abroad. To that sense of achievement has been added the contributions of our English medium schools, fifty six of which were represented at Friday's awards ceremonies. We cannot deny that since the mid-1970s, when a handful of such schools tiptoed into the academic arena, the scope for instruction in the English language has grown tremendously. The performances put up by students at these institutions, or at least many of them, have served as a complement to the overall education system in the country. The fact that three of the students honoured on Friday scored the highest marks globally in such subjects as mathematics, human and social biology and Bangla testifies to the thought that good schools unambiguously hold the key to academic excellence. It all boils down to a question of standards. These schools and their students have shown that they are capable of raising standards of education as the years go by. We need hardly repeat the idea that in the recent past our children have, through their brilliance, shown themselves capable of handling life and careers on the global stage. Young people like those honoured on Friday have gone out into the wider world of the intellect to demonstrate their enormous capacity of carving a niche for themselves. That is one reason why we choose to call them the nation builders of tomorrow. Their dreams and their aspirations, all so very well articulated by some of them on Friday, are a pointer to what the future may hold for our country. There are, certainly, some basic issues that need handling. One is the matter of high fees at these schools, a reality which prevents large numbers among the poor and middle classes from taking advantage of such education. Devising a way out of such difficulties will surely add more substance to the commitment that our young have made to tomorrow.
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