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<title type="text">krishan Times | krishan foundation</title>
<subtitle type="text">Blog post Website About Krishok</subtitle>
<updated>2026-05-05T17:30:49Z</updated>
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<title type="html"><![CDATA[বৈরী আবহাওয়াতেও ক্ষতিগ্রস্ত কৃষকদের পাশে দাঁড়ানো সম্ভব]]></title>
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<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>সিলেট বিভাগের ছোট-বড় সকল হাওর এ কদিনের অতিবৃষ্টির পাহাড়ি ঢলে তলিয়ে গেছে। পানির নিচে তলিয়ে গেছে কৃষকের পাকা ধান! স্বপ্ন! কী পরিমাণ ধান কাটা হলো—এর প্রকৃত তথ্য কৃষক ছাড়া সংশ্লিষ্ট প্রশাসন, দপ্তর-পরিদপ্তর কেউই জানে না। জেলা কৃষি সম্প্রসারণ অধিদপ্তর তো মনগড়া হিসাব দেয়, কথা বলে, যা শুনতেও অরুচি হয়। একটা স্বাধীন দেশের চাকর-বাকরেরা জনগণের ট্যাক্সের […]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com/%e0%a6%ac%e0%a7%88%e0%a6%b0%e0%a7%80-%e0%a6%86%e0%a6%ac%e0%a6%b9%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%93%e0%a6%af%e0%a6%bc%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%87%e0%a6%93-%e0%a6%95%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%b7%e0%a6%a4%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%97%e0%a7%8d/">বৈরী আবহাওয়াতেও ক্ষতিগ্রস্ত কৃষকদের পাশে দাঁড়ানো সম্ভব</a> appeared first on <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com">krishan Times | krishan foundation</a>.</p>
<p>Read more at <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com/%e0%a6%ac%e0%a7%88%e0%a6%b0%e0%a7%80-%e0%a6%86%e0%a6%ac%e0%a6%b9%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%93%e0%a6%af%e0%a6%bc%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%87%e0%a6%93-%e0%a6%95%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%b7%e0%a6%a4%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%97%e0%a7%8d/">krishan Times | krishan foundation</a></p>]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://krishanfoundation.com/%e0%a6%ac%e0%a7%88%e0%a6%b0%e0%a7%80-%e0%a6%86%e0%a6%ac%e0%a6%b9%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%93%e0%a6%af%e0%a6%bc%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%87%e0%a6%93-%e0%a6%95%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%b7%e0%a6%a4%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%97%e0%a7%8d/"><![CDATA[<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">সিলেট বিভাগের ছোট-বড় সকল হাওর এ কদিনের অতিবৃষ্টির পাহাড়ি ঢলে তলিয়ে গেছে। পানির নিচে তলিয়ে গেছে কৃষকের পাকা ধান! স্বপ্ন! কী পরিমাণ ধান কাটা হলো—এর প্রকৃত তথ্য কৃষক ছাড়া সংশ্লিষ্ট প্রশাসন, দপ্তর-পরিদপ্তর কেউই জানে না। জেলা কৃষি সম্প্রসারণ অধিদপ্তর তো মনগড়া হিসাব দেয়, কথা বলে, যা শুনতেও অরুচি হয়। একটা স্বাধীন দেশের চাকর-বাকরেরা জনগণের ট্যাক্সের টাকায় বেতন নেন তাঁদের নিজেদের হক বা পাওনা মনে করে, কিন্তু তাঁদের কর্তব্যজ্ঞান বিবেকবর্জিত এবং নির্লজ্জ অবস্থায় পৌঁছেছে—সে বোধটুকুও যেন হারিয়ে গেছে!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">বোরো ধান কাটা মৌসুম আসার শুরু থেকেই (রোজার ঈদের ২ দিন আগে থেকে) মৌলভীবাজার জেলা প্রশাসনসহ হাওরের সাথে সংশ্লিষ্ট দপ্তরের জেলা পর্যায়ের কর্মকর্তাদের সাথে ফসলের সুরক্ষা নিয়ে একাধিকবার কথা হয়েছে। কে শোনে কার কথা? আর আমলা-কামলারা কথা শুনবেই বা কেন—যে দেশের রাজনীতিবিদেরাই জনস্বার্থের উন্নয়নের চেয়ে অগ্রাধিকার দেয় লুটেরা উন্নয়নকে? আচ্ছা, একটা দেশের আবহাওয়া, জলবায়ু, পরিবেশ এবং ভূপ্রকৃতির গঠন কাঠামোর ওপর ন্যূনতম জ্ঞান না রাখলে কি উন্নয়নের রাজনীতি জুতসই হয় বা হবে?</span></p>
<p><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-955" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/unnamed-1-300x225.jpg" alt="unnamed (1)" width="300" height="225" title="বৈরী আবহাওয়াতেও ক্ষতিগ্রস্ত কৃষকদের পাশে দাঁড়ানো সম্ভব" srcset="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/unnamed-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/unnamed-1-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/unnamed-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/unnamed-1.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">হাওরের বড় দাগের উন্নয়ন মানে বন্যা নিয়ন্ত্রণ অথবা ফসল রক্ষা বাঁধ। এর বাইরে কোনো ভাবনা তো দেখি না। বোরো ধানের ফসলের সুরক্ষা নিয়ে উপরোক্ত ভাবনায় সুরক্ষার চেয়ে বছর বছর সরকারি অর্থ লুটের মানসিকতা বেশি কাজ করে। একটা প্রকল্পের সাথে সংশ্লিষ্ট আমলা-কামলা থেকে শুরু করে কে না পায় এই লুটের ভাগটা? এখানে, এ দেশের পরিবেশে কৃষিজ উৎপাদনের ইতিহাসটাই আদিম (Primitive)। তখনও, সেই সনাতনী ও আদিম যুগে মানুষ ফসল ফলাত পরিবেশের সাথে সমন্বয় সাধন করে। বুঝতে হবে এর ধারাবাহিকতাই কেবলমাত্র বহন করছি আমরা। ইতিমধ্যে কৃষিতে যুক্ত হয়েছে টেকনোলজি। টেকনোলজির তোড়ে আমরা নীতিনির্ধারক পর্যায় থেকে কিছু সাধারণ কাণ্ডজ্ঞানও হারিয়ে ফেলেছি। বিষয়টি পরিষ্কার করতে একটা উদাহরণ দিয়ে বলছি। ১৯৭৬ সালে (মনু ও কুশিয়ারা নদীতে বাঁধ দিয়ে ‘মনু সেচ প্রকল্প’ তখনও হয়নি) চৈত্র মাসের অতিবৃষ্টিতে কাউয়াদিঘি হাওরের বোরো ফসল উজানের ঢলে তলিয়ে যায়। থৈ থৈ পানিতে ভাসতে থাকে হাওর। কৃষক বাবা-চাচার ফসল হারানোর বেদনাভরা বিষণ্ন মুখ, মাথায় হাত—এ যেন প্রকৃতির বিরুদ্ধে ঈশ্বরের কাছে বিরাট আর্তনাদ! সবাই যেন কিংকর্তব্যবিমূঢ়! একই সময়ে উজান এলাকার আত্মীয়স্বজন এসে বাঁশ দিয়ে ‘মুরন’ বানিয়ে (এক ধরনের বাঁশের তৈরি চিরুনির মতো প্রযুক্তি) পানির তল থেকে প্যাঁচিয়ে প্যাঁচিয়ে ধান সংগ্রহ করে নৌকায় ভরে বাড়ি নিয়ে আসতে থাকেন। এতে করে নষ্ট ও অপচয় বাদ দিলেও ৬০ থেকে ৭০ ভাগ ধান সংগ্রহ করা সম্ভব হয়েছিল। এমন স্বেচ্ছাশ্রমে ছিল পারস্পরিক সহমর্মিতা, আন্তরিকতা। রাষ্ট্র ও শাসকগোষ্ঠীর লুটেরা চরিত্রের কারণে আমাদের সমাজের মানবিক ভ্রাতৃত্বের বোধ, বিপদে পরস্পরের পাশে দাঁড়ানোর আকাঙ্ক্ষাও আজ ধ্বংসপ্রায়!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">অদক্ষ রাজনৈতিক নেতৃত্বের হাতে থাকা টেকনোলজি আমাদের কাণ্ডজ্ঞান কেড়ে নিয়েছে। টেকনোলজি এখন আমাদের চিন্তাকে একপেশে করে দিয়েছে। আমরা এখানের পরিবেশ-প্রতিবেশ বিবেচনায় রাখি না। ক্ষতির পরিমাণ নির্মূলের চিন্তা মাথায় ঘুরঘুর করে। সর্বোচ্চ মুনাফা আমাদের মগজকে গ্রাস করে ফেলছে। দরকারে অথবা অদরকারে কৃষিতে টেকনোলজির প্রয়োগের কারণে হাওরাঞ্চলে না আছে আগের মতো পর্যাপ্ত নৌকা, না আছে শ্রমিক, না আছে সরকারের কৃষি ও কৃষকবান্ধব কর্মসূচির আন্তরিক প্রয়োগ। এটি যে ভাটির দেশ, এ যেন আমরা কয়েক দশক আগেই বেমালুম ভুলে গেছি। যে কারণে লাগসই প্রযুক্তিও হারিয়ে গেছে। হারিয়েছি নদীপথে যাতায়াতের সকল সুযোগ-সুবিধা।</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">জেলা প্রশাসন, পাউবো, পিডিবি, কৃষি বিভাগ ও সরকার বাংলাদেশের বোরো ধান উৎপাদনের দ্বিতীয় বৃহত্তম ‘মনু সেচ প্রকল্প’-এর কাউয়াদিঘি হাওরে ঢলের পানিতে তলিয়ে যাওয়া ধান সংগ্রহে এবং ইতিমধ্যে কৃষকের সংগ্রহকৃত ধান পচে যাওয়া থেকে বাঁচানোর নিম্নরূপ উদ্যোগ জরুরি ভিত্তিতে গ্রহণ করতে পারেন:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">১. মনু সেচ প্রকল্প একটি জাতীয় প্রতিষ্ঠান। কুশিয়ারা নদীর পানি পরিমিত থাকলে এ প্রকল্পের কাশেমপুর পাম্প হাউসের ০৮টি পাম্প একসাথে চালু করলে ভরা কাউয়াদিঘি হাওরও ৪৮ ঘণ্টায় শুকিয়ে ফেলা সম্ভব। পাম্প সচল রাখতে প্রয়োজনীয় ০৩ (তিন) মেগাওয়াট বিদ্যুৎ জাতীয় গ্রিড থেকেই সরবরাহ করা সমীচীন। বিদ্যুৎ ঘাটতির যুক্তি দেখিয়ে কোনো অবস্থাতেই জেলার ভাগের হিস্যা নামের শুভঙ্করের ফাঁক বা বিদ্যুৎ ভাগাভাগিতে পাম্প হাউস অন্তর্ভুক্ত করা যাবে না।</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">২. জেলা প্রশাসন তড়িৎ গতিতে চা-বাগান মালিক-ম্যানেজারদের সাথে সমন্বয় করে চা-বাগানের পার্ট-টাইম শ্রমিক ও কর্মহীন শ্রমিকদের হাওরে ডেপুট করতে পারেন।</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">৩. রোদের আলো না থাকায় ইতিমধ্যে কৃষকের সংগ্রহকৃত বোরো ধানের স্তূপ কৃষকের বাড়ির ঘরে, আঙিনায় এবং রাস্তায় পচে যাওয়ার উপক্রম হয়েছে। জেলার সবকটি অটো রাইস মিল মালিকদের নির্দেশ প্রদান করে এই ধান দ্রুততার সাথে চালে রূপান্তরের ব্যবস্থা করতে হবে।</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">৪. ভবিষ্যতের দুর্যোগ মোকাবিলায় সরকারের অগ্রাধিকার কর্মসূচিতে ভাটি অঞ্চলের প্রতিটি উপজেলায় একটি করে আধুনিক মানের ধান সংরক্ষণাগার নির্মাণ করা এখন সময়ের দাবি।</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">পরিশেষে, কৃষকের সন্তান হিসেবে একটা অভিজ্ঞতার কথা বলে লেখাটা শেষ করতে চাই। এই যে সংগ্রহকৃত ধান পচে গেল—এজন্য এককথায় দায়ী হলো কৃষি ও কৃষকবিমুখ জাতীয় অর্থনীতি এবং রাষ্ট্রের গণবিমুখ আমলাতান্ত্রিক চরিত্র। আমরা জানি, মৌলভীবাজার জেলায় আধুনিক প্রযুক্তি নির্ভর পানিতে ভেজা ধান শুকানোর মতো সরকারি কোনো ব্যবস্থা নেই। এটি একটি প্রধান সমস্যা, কিন্তু প্রকৃত সমস্যা নয়। প্রকৃত সমস্যা হচ্ছে গরিব কৃষক-শ্রমিকের প্রতি ব্রিটিশ লিগ্যাসির আমলাতন্ত্র ও লুটেরা চরিত্রের রাজনৈতিক নেতৃত্বের দায়-দরদের অভাব। মৌলভীবাজার জেলায় যতগুলো পোল্ট্রি ফার্ম আছে, তার একটি তালিকা আছে প্রশাসনের হাতে। আমার জানামতে, ওই ফার্মগুলোর খালি শেডে (মুরগি রাখার বড় ঘর) ১ লাখ মেট্রিক টন ধান শুকানো কোনো ব্যাপারই ছিল না।</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">দেশের রাষ্ট্রযন্ত্রে কাজ করা আমলাতন্ত্র ও রাজনৈতিক নেতৃত্বের চরিত্রে পরিবর্তন না আসলে জাতি হিসেবে মাথা উঁচু করে দাঁড়ানোর কোনো সম্ভাবনা দেখছি না।</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">লেখক: এম. খছরু চৌধুরী </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">সদস্যসচিব, হাওর রক্ষা আন্দোলন</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">মৌলভীবাজার।। </span></p>
<p><a href="mailto:mkmchowdhury@gmail.com"><span style="font-weight: 400;">mkmchowdhury@gmail.com</span></a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com/%e0%a6%ac%e0%a7%88%e0%a6%b0%e0%a7%80-%e0%a6%86%e0%a6%ac%e0%a6%b9%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%93%e0%a6%af%e0%a6%bc%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%87%e0%a6%93-%e0%a6%95%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%b7%e0%a6%a4%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%97%e0%a7%8d/">বৈরী আবহাওয়াতেও ক্ষতিগ্রস্ত কৃষকদের পাশে দাঁড়ানো সম্ভব</a> appeared first on <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com">krishan Times | krishan foundation</a>.</p>
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<title type="html"><![CDATA[kanihati Rice varieties developed by Dr Abed CHAUDHURY being grown in London by famous chef Azom Khan]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://krishanfoundation.com/kanihati-rice-varieties-developed-by-dr-abed-chaudhury-being-grown-in-london-by-famous-chef-azom-khan/" />
<id>https://krishanfoundation.com/?p=947</id>
<updated>2026-04-24T10:10:23Z</updated>
<published>2026-04-24T10:10:23Z</published>
<category scheme="https://krishanfoundation.com/" term="Science" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>The post <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com/kanihati-rice-varieties-developed-by-dr-abed-chaudhury-being-grown-in-london-by-famous-chef-azom-khan/">kanihati Rice varieties developed by Dr Abed CHAUDHURY being grown in London by famous chef Azom Khan</a> appeared first on <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com">krishan Times | krishan foundation</a>.</p>
<p>Read more at <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com/kanihati-rice-varieties-developed-by-dr-abed-chaudhury-being-grown-in-london-by-famous-chef-azom-khan/">krishan Times | krishan foundation</a></p>]]></summary>
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<p>The post <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com/kanihati-rice-varieties-developed-by-dr-abed-chaudhury-being-grown-in-london-by-famous-chef-azom-khan/">kanihati Rice varieties developed by Dr Abed CHAUDHURY being grown in London by famous chef Azom Khan</a> appeared first on <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com">krishan Times | krishan foundation</a>.</p>
<p>Read more at <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com/kanihati-rice-varieties-developed-by-dr-abed-chaudhury-being-grown-in-london-by-famous-chef-azom-khan/">krishan Times | krishan foundation</a></p>]]></content>
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<title type="html"><![CDATA[The Pathans of South Asia: Rise and fall of the Miankhel Lohani dynasty in medieval India]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://krishanfoundation.com/the-pathans-of-south-asia-rise-and-fall-of-the-miankhel-lohani-dynasty-in-medieval-india/" />
<id>https://krishanfoundation.com/?p=936</id>
<updated>2026-04-16T16:54:13Z</updated>
<published>2026-04-16T05:06:26Z</published>
<category scheme="https://krishanfoundation.com/" term="Abed Chaudhury" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>This is one chapter from Tamim Choudhury’s book “My Family History: A Journey From The 1300s.” What does it take to rule a kingdom? Is it for the highborn, blue-blooded aristocracy or can one win over sovereignty with grit, tenacity, and the right strategy, or do the stars need to be aligned for greatness to […]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com/the-pathans-of-south-asia-rise-and-fall-of-the-miankhel-lohani-dynasty-in-medieval-india/">The Pathans of South Asia: Rise and fall of the Miankhel Lohani dynasty in medieval India</a> appeared first on <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com">krishan Times | krishan foundation</a>.</p>
<p>Read more at <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com/the-pathans-of-south-asia-rise-and-fall-of-the-miankhel-lohani-dynasty-in-medieval-india/">krishan Times | krishan foundation</a></p>]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://krishanfoundation.com/the-pathans-of-south-asia-rise-and-fall-of-the-miankhel-lohani-dynasty-in-medieval-india/"><![CDATA[<p>This is one chapter from Tamim Choudhury’s book “My Family History: A Journey From The 1300s.”</p>
<p>What does it take to rule a kingdom? Is it for the highborn, blue-blooded aristocracy or<br />
can one win over sovereignty with grit, tenacity, and the right strategy, or do the stars<br />
need to be aligned for greatness to beam onto you? The Miankhel Lohani tribe from<br />
Afghanistan would have stories to tell you. In the late 1500s and early 1600s, this<br />
Pathan family ruled territories in eastern India, independent of the Mughal Empire. This<br />
was an incredible feat, considering the superpower status of the Mughals. Two<br />
successive Mughal emperors, Akbar and Jahangir, deployed military forces against<br />
them for nearly four decades, with the final battle executed in an imperial scale. Instead<br />
of submitting to Mughal rule, these Pathan chiefs chose to remain as independent<br />
rulers, charting the inevitable in their high-risk life trajectory. This is the story of the<br />
Miankhel Lohani dynasty, mapmakers of their own destiny.<br />
The Origin of the Pathans<br />
Originally from eastern Afghanistan, the Pakhtuns/Pathans are highlanders with a<br />
democratic tribal organization, where the most able person is chosen by the khel or<br />
group. Their lineage is from Qais Abdur Rashid, believed to have been born in 570 AD<br />
and died in 657 AD. His son Sheikh Beitan and family settled on the western side of<br />
Suleiman Mountains. Sheik Bitan’s daughter Bibi Matto married Shah Hussein, a Tajik<br />
who took refuge with her family. As Shah Hussein was not Pathan, this lineage is<br />
referred to as Pathan from the maternal side. Bibi Matto’s descendants include the Lodi<br />
and Lohani tribes, as her son was named Ibrahim Lodi and great-grandson was Luhan.<br />
One of Luhan’s sons was named Miya, after whom came the Miankhel Lohani, as<br />
Pathans named tribes after their ancestry.1,2<br />
This historiography is from Makhzani-i-Afghani, written in 1623 by Nematullah, a scribe<br />
at Mughal Emperor Jahangir’s court. Although the narrative has been questioned by<br />
scholars, it remains the breath of life for many Pathans, and therefore the shajra—<br />
ancestry table—is included here. Pathans for the majority believe in this family tree of<br />
their tribes, which are closeknit, interconnected organizations that form the foundation of<br />
their society.3</p>
<p>The Lohani tribe in medieval Afghanistan had continual seasonal migrations as a<br />
pastoral, nomadic people, spending summers in the Ghazni plateau and winters in<br />
Indus Valley. Their migratory route also became a trading one, running from Central to<br />
South Asia, across Samarkand to Bengal. Horse trading was a springboard to gaining<br />
political power, as Afghan traders controlled the overland supply lines through Central<br />
Asia, becoming an indispensable part of the route regulatory system and trading<br />
arrangements. Hindu merchants and other foreigners also travelled alongside the<br />
Miankhel branch of the Lohanis for their trading activities.4</p>
<p>The Pathans’ Reign Over India<br />
Pathan brilliance frequently illuminated outside the homeland, when they became<br />
captains and kings in far-off lands. Their bravery as servicemembers, shrewdness in<br />
political realism elevated them to high positions in lands outside their own domain. This<br />
began with Sultan Muizuddin Muhammad of Ghor, present-day central Afghanistan,<br />
who conquered northern India and established the Delhi Sultanate in 1206. Although a<br />
Turk himself, his army composed largely of Afghans.3<br />
The Turko-Afghan rulers of the Delhi Sultanate reigned for more than 300 years,<br />
utilizing a Persian administrative system that went all the way up to the shape of the<br />
crown. The Muslim rulers brought a civilizational shift in India; the idea of a singular<br />
deity without idolatry and a rejection of the caste system came into the public<br />
consciousness; the latter attracted lower castes across the land. Sufis became popular<br />
among the masses, as they denounced social inequality.5<br />
The Lodis from Afghanistan initially arrived in India to conduct commerce; so was the<br />
case with Bahlul Lodi’s ancestry, before he gained the Delhi throne in 1451. Sultan<br />
Bahlul Lodi needed a royal ruling class and efficient military skills. Therefore, he issued<br />
a firman, royal decree, asking Afghan tribesmen to come to India with their families and<br />
take up estates there, as the sultan wanted fellow Pathans to support the state against<br />
enemies. The Lohanis were among the tribes to answer this call. The Delhi Sultanate<br />
under the Lodis, a dynastic rule for seventy-five years from 1451 to 1526—changed the<br />
course of history for the Lohani tribe.3,5</p>
<p>Sultan Bahlul Lodi had a longstanding, trusted man from this tribe—Mubarak Khan<br />
Lohani—who gained top rank under this sultanate, being awarded the governorship of<br />
Kara and Manikpur in Uttar Pradesh. He had three sons—Ibrahim Khan Lohani became<br />
governor of Etawa, Uttar Pradesh, from 1479 until 1489, Nasir Khan Lohani was<br />
governor of Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, from 1495 to 1525, and Darya Khan Lohani was<br />
governor of Bihar under Sultan Sikandar Lodi in 1495. However, things took a turn for<br />
the worse in 1524, as Nasir Khan Lohani rebelled against the new sultan Ibrahim Lodi,<br />
and was driven away from Ghazipur to Bihar, where his brother Darya Khan Lohani held<br />
the vizier, chief minister title, and had 30,000 cavalry. He also had a poor relationship<br />
with the sultan, who wanted to eliminate him. Upon Darya Khan Lohani’s passing away,<br />
his son Bahar Khan declared independence, calling himself Sultan Muhammad Shah.<br />
During this time, Bihar became a base of resistance for the Afghans.6<br />
Before Sultan Ibrahim Lodi could dislodge the Lohani ruler, he himself was defeated by<br />
Mughal Emperor Babur in 1526. When Bahar Khan Lohani passed away in 1527, his<br />
son Jalal Khan Lohani lost support from many Afghans, who favored a scion of the Lodi<br />
dynasty named Mahmud Lodi, who had arrived in Bihar. In 1529, the youngster Lohani<br />
submitted to Mughal Emperor Babur, who agreed to restore the governorship of Bihar to<br />
him in return of an annual tribute. By this time, Nasir Khan Lohani’s son Mahmud Khan<br />
Lohani joined Emperor Babur’s service as well; the die was cast for the family’s future,<br />
or so they thought.6</p>
<p>Sher Shah Sur Reignites the Delhi Sultanate<br />
During Bahar Khan Lohani’s reign of Bihar, a little-known landholder of Sahsaran under<br />
his service, Mian Farid Sur, gained a military victory against a rival. The Lohani ruler<br />
titled him Sher Khan. However, when he was assigned to run Bihar as a deputy to<br />
Bahar Khan Lohani’s son, Sher Khan Sur usurped power and became the ruler of Bihar<br />
in 1530. Sher Khan ended up marrying Hergusain, the widow of Nasir Khan Lohani, due<br />
to her extensive wealth, a testament to the lengths one will go to for power.6<br />
As Mughal Emperor Babur had already passed away, the Lohanis lost their patron<br />
support and evacuated to Bengal. They were sheltered in the court of Bengal Sultan<br />
Nusrat Shah in Gaur. The Bengal Sultan had married Sultan Ibrahim Lodi’s daughter,<br />
and extended hospitality to all Afghan refugees.6<br />
Mughal Emperor Humayun—the successor—battled Sher Khan Sur for supremacy of<br />
the Delhi throne, but was defeated in 1539. In 1540, Sher Shah Sur gained the Delhi<br />
Sultanate, and once again Bengal became part of its realm. He was sultan for six years.<br />
In 1553, upon his son and successor Islam Shah’s death, Bengal broke away from the<br />
empire, as Sur Governor Muhammad Khan declared independence. In 1555, Mughal<br />
Emperor Humayun took full advantage of the infighting amongst the Pathans and<br />
regained the throne.3,7<br />
The Lohanis had a role in the rise of Sher Khan Sur; they were the ones to give him the<br />
title and position of deputy. As kismet would have it, Sher Khan surpassed his masters<br />
and gained the Delhi Sultanate itself. As the tide turns, this dynasty was not to last.<br />
From the Ashes of Delhi Sultanate Rise an Afghan-run Bengal Kingdom</p>
<p>In 1564, Taj Khan Karrani, who was chief officer of Sher Shah Sur, began another<br />
independently run Afghan-run sultanate of Bengal. By this time the Mughal Empire, the<br />
Turkish/Mongol origin dynasty that ruled most of South Asia, turned its sights onto<br />
Bengal. The Pathan ruler had domain over Bengal and Bihar, and upon his death, his<br />
brother Sulaiman Khan Karrani’s rule extended to Orissa in 1567. He had an army of<br />
40,000 cavalry and 14,000 infantry, alongside 20,000 cannons and hundreds of<br />
warships. When Sulaiman’s son Daud Karrani succeeded the throne in 1572, he<br />
repeatedly engaged the Mughals in warfare, even after concluding a peace treaty with<br />
Mughal General Munim Khan in 1575, where he was allowed to rule as a Mughal<br />
tributary. In 1576, Daud Karrani was defeated in the field of Rajmahal, and executed by<br />
Hussain Quli Khan, the governor of Bengal. This marked the end of the independent<br />
Afghan-run sultanate in Bengal.7,8,9</p>
<p>Qutlu Khan Lohani carves out a minor kingdom out of Bengal Sultanate<br />
During the Karranis’ reign, Afghans across northern India migrated to its eastern side to<br />
become servicemen. Qutlu Khan Lohani was a commander of these armed forces; he<br />
was an exceptional officer who rose to become a ruler himself. For our familial context,<br />
he was also Khwaja Isa Khan Miankhel Lohani’s brother. Upon Sultan Sulaiman’s<br />
conquest of Orissa, he was appointed as a governor at Puri. He was also a general and<br />
trusted counselor in Sultan Daud Khan Karrani’s royal court. In February 1574, the<br />
Mughal army laid siege to the Fort of Patna to defeat the sultan. The sultan managed to<br />
shelter there for three months, when Mughal Emperor Akbar himself came to Bihar, and<br />
captured a subsidiary fort in Hajipur, which provided support to the sultan’s forces. This<br />
is when Qutlu Khan Lohani planned and executed an evacuation, carrying the sultan by<br />
boat in the darkness of night to the capital Tanda. The journey was treacherous as the<br />
river flooded, a bridge collapsed, and the elephants frightened to the point of trampling<br />
over soldiers. Although many lost their lives when fleeing, both the sultan and his<br />
treasures were safely evacuated.9,10<br />
When Sultan Daud was captured at the hands of Mughals, Qutlu Khan Lohani escaped<br />
the battlefield at Rajmahal and took full advantage of the power vacuum. The Afghans<br />
still held Orissa, but no clear leader had emerged. Therefore, he took possession of<br />
North Orissa, advancing towards Hugli and then Mangal Kot, defeating Mughal forces at<br />
both places. Thereafter, Emperor Akbar deployed a vast army, which defeated Qutlu in<br />
1583. Although he submitted for peace, soon afterwards he broke off the offer. As the<br />
Mughals were not prepared for further warfare, Qutlu was left to rule Orissa.11</p>
<p>However, in 1587 he started occupying new places in the Mughal territory and driving<br />
away Mughal faujdars, military governors, from their stations, causing Emperor Akbar to<br />
dispatch General Raja Mansingh to defeat him. Qutlu Khan was an able military<br />
tactician, and took necessary steps to halt the Mughal army’s advance, deploying a<br />
large army to the Fort of Raipur. In a rarity, the colossal Mughal Empire lost this battle to<br />
the minor kingdom held by the Afghans, and Qutlu Khan was formally recognized as the<br />
governor of Orissa. Upon achieving peace with the Mughals, Qutlu Khan dropped<br />
allegiance to the Mughal Emperor, and stopped remitting revenues to the imperial<br />
treasury. He passed away before Mansingh could engage him in battle again;<br />
afterwards the Afghan leaders signed a peace treaty in 1590. His brother and minister<br />
Khwaja Isa Khan Miankhel Lohani was instrumental in maintaining the unstable peace,<br />
until his own death.9,12<br />
The Lohani dynasty is driven out to Bengal<br />
When leadership passed to the next generation, Khwaja Isa Khan’s sons—Khwaja<br />
Sulaiman and Khwaja Usman—relaunched the rebellion against the Mughals. Khwaja<br />
Usman Khan Lohani had already proved his mettle back in 1567, when Sultan Sulaiman<br />
Khan Karrani attacked Orissa, Khwaja Usman was among the nobles posted at Fort of<br />
Sunka Gardh to complete the territorial integration into the sultanate. Now, on their own<br />
volition, the Miankhel Lohani brothers attacked a Mughal ally and captured Jagannath</p>
<p>Temple. In 1591, Mansingh once again went to Orissa. Khwaja Sulaiman and Usman<br />
formed the army’s vanguard to meet the imperial forces, but lost the battle. By 1592, the<br />
Mughal Empire fully controlled Orissa, and thousands of Afghans lost their lives in<br />
battle. In 1593, Orissa was annexed to Bengal, with Raja Mansingh ruling as viceroy<br />
from the Bengal headquarters.6,13,14<br />
Upon defeating the Afghans in Orissa in 1592, Mansingh gave Khwaja Sulaiman and<br />
Usman fiefs in Faridpur District, as he wanted to remove them from this territory.<br />
However, as the Afghan chiefs were heading to East Bengal, Mansingh cancelled the<br />
arrangement, and ordered them to immediately report back to him. This caused the<br />
Afghans to rebel again; on February 1593, they turned toward Bhushna, Faridpur<br />
District, and seized the fort there from the zamindar, feudal landlord, family of Kedar<br />
Rai. This is when Isa Khan Masnad-i-ala stepped into settle the matter.9<br />
Isa Khan was chief of the Bara Bhuiyans, the approximately twelve landlords who<br />
independently ruled Bengal. He asked the Afghan chiefs to return the fort back to Kedar<br />
Rai, the zamindar of Sripur and Bikrampur, and arranged for Khwaja Sulaiman to<br />
become the zamindar’s commander-in-chief. In addition, he gave part of his own land in<br />
Bokainagar, Mymensingh District, to Khwaja Usman, so that he can become a zamindar<br />
in that area. Thereafter, both Afghan chiefs joined Isa Khan in the anti-Mughal<br />
resistance.9<br />
This proves the strategic mastery of Isa Khan; instead of battling the Miankhel Lohani<br />
family, he coopted them into service against the Mughal Empire. He realized that giving<br />
away a portion of the entire district that he ruled would be worthwhile, as he would gain<br />
strong allies in his quest for independence from Mughal rule. One can imagine the<br />
Pathans’ plight; what was once promised as an estate for a livelihood was taken away<br />
on a whim, leading the desperate group to commit raids, probably for the sake of<br />
survival for thousands in the tribe. A generous, firm guidance by Isa Khan provided<br />
tremendous dividends for the Pathans in Bengal who now had a place to stay and a<br />
chance for living well.</p>
<p>As the years passed, in 1596, Mughal General Mansingh deployed an army to conquer<br />
the Fort of Bhushna, which was now headed by Kedar Rai and Khwaja Sulaiman.<br />
During the ensuing battle, Khwaja Sulaiman was killed and Kedar Rai escaped, thus<br />
bringing a closure to the eldest among Khwaja Isa Khan Miankhel Lohani’s sons.9<br />
Khwaja Usman establishes a principality in North Bengal<br />
Khwaja Usman’s best days may have been at Bokainagar, where he was chief of<br />
approximately 20,000 Afghans. He rebuilt an existing fort on the eastern bank of Balua<br />
River, a branch of Brahmaputra. Bokainagar Fort was a mile long east to west, and half<br />
a mile wide, protected by a high earthen wall and deep external moat. A stream flowed<br />
through the fort, and the Pathan chief’s residence was in the southwestern portion.15,21</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His family greatly assisted him in maintaining his principality and frequently attacking<br />
Mughal forces. His brothers Wali, Malhi and Ibrahim, sons Mumriz and Yakub and<br />
nephew Dawud were commanders in this area. In 1602, he and his troops crossed the<br />
Brahmaputra River from Bokainagar and drove back Mughal officer Baz Bahadur<br />
Qalmaq of Mymensingh to Bhawal. This led Mansingh to arrive in Bhawal and defeat<br />
Khwaja Usman. Once again, before 1608, Khwaja Usman attacked and occupied the<br />
Alapsingh administrative unit of the Mughals at Mymensingh. After a strong force under<br />
Sheikh Ghiyasuddin recovered the area, he was honored with the title Inayet Khan by<br />
Emperor Jahangir.9<br />
Khwaja Usman’s ongoing battles intensified in 1608, when Islam Khan became Bengal<br />
governor under Mughal Emperor Jahangir, and was tasked with bringing Bengal under<br />
the Mughal Empire. In 1611, he struck against Usman at Bokainagar. At this moment,<br />
Nasir Khan and Darya Khan, two of Usman’s chiefs, defected to the Mughals, causing<br />
him to evacuate to Sylhet. The center of gravity had shifted for the Miankhel Lohani<br />
tribe.16<br />
The Mughal historic account Baharistan-i-Ghaybi mentions that Khwaja Usman had<br />
several daughters as well. They most likely grew up amidst the lush agricultural lands of<br />
Mymensingh. Moreover, it is chronicled that Khwaja Dawud, Usman’s nephew, was an<br />
expert javelineer. He and his relatives may have practiced throwing javelins and<br />
shooting arrows, and tamed the Bengal elephants used in warfare, in these very<br />
grounds. For eighteen years, the Pathan chief had rulership in North Bengal, but had to<br />
evacuate the territory for his refusal to submit to the empire. There were thousands<br />
under his rule, and all moved away from the place they had built their lives and homes.<br />
Imagine settling in one territory and collectively building a principality there, only to<br />
leave for an unknown destination. However, destiny had one more territory for Khwaja<br />
Usman’s reign.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Khwaja Usman gains a minor kingdom in Sylhet<br />
Upon reaching Sylhet, Khwaja Usman seized the minor kingdom of Ita, or Manukula<br />
Pradesh, from Raja Subid Narayan, whose father Bhanu Narayan received the raja title.<br />
This extensive tract of land in South Sylhet gained the status of a small state under<br />
protection of the Tripura kings. The state had the following boundaries: Langla Hills on<br />
east, Manu River on south, Gopla River on West, and Kushiyara River on north. Upon<br />
Khwaja Usman conquering this state, Raja Subid Narayan passed away, his sons<br />
converted to Islam, and were provided zamindaris in the area. Afterwards, Usman<br />
seized Taraf and other areas of Sylhet.17<br />
The fleeting nature of landownership manifests itself; what was once deemed a<br />
birthright for the raja’s sons was provided to them only in small portions by the new<br />
feudal landlord.</p>
<p>Khwaja Usman’s fortified capital was established on a hilly tract at Patan Ushar, in<br />
present-day Maulvibazar District. His brother Khwaja Malhi and son Mumriz were<br />
stationed as commanders in neighboring Taraf.18<br />
Khwaja Usman had a strategic reason behind the conquest of South Sylhet, as Afghan<br />
chief Bayazid Karrani II ruled over North Sylhet at the time. He was connected to the<br />
Karrani dynasty that previously ruled Bengal, and upon the fall of Daud Khan Karrani,<br />
carved out an independent kingdom, with Sylhet Town being his capital. When the<br />
Mughals decided to simultaneously attack both chiefs, Bayazid actually built a<br />
temporary fort on the bank of Surman River as a defense measure. The battle for Sylhet<br />
had begun on 1612.9<br />
Khwaja Usman’s final showdown against the Mughal Empire<br />
When the Mughals pursued Khwaja Usman to Sylhet, the final military operation against<br />
him was organized in an imperial scale. Under Chief Commander Shujaat Khan, high<br />
officers were brought in from outside Bengal. Initially, Usman was asked to surrender,<br />
which he tersely refused. Sujaat’s forces included 500 cavalry, 4,000 musketeers,<br />
elephants, and a fleet of warships. He reached Taraf, South Sylhet, and left a small<br />
garrison there. Reaching the hill pass of Tupia and Putiajuri, the Mughals came across<br />
two forts that were to be guarded by Usman’s third brother Khwaja Wali, but both were<br />
abandoned. On February 1612, one thousand cavalry and musketeers joined Shujaat at<br />
this site.16<br />
The cannons were cast, the swords were forged, and the chainmails were linked as<br />
armor; Khwaja Usman Khan Lohani and his battle-tested tribe, forged in the flames of<br />
decades-long battles, were ready for the final showdown. They had come a long way<br />
since the bygone days of horse trading from Samarkand to Sindh; today, they were to<br />
face off against the most powerful empire in South Asia. Was this a brilliant military<br />
strategy? Not at all, but tell that to the Pathan chief determined to have independence at<br />
all costs. This day would define his legacy for centuries across the history of Bengal.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Khwaja Usman’s forces included 5,200 cavalry, 8,200 paiks, bonded militiamen, and<br />
140 elephants, which marched 12 miles east from Patan Ushar to Dawlambapur, five<br />
miles south of Maulvibazar town. His brother Khwaja Wali commanded the left wing,<br />
and the vanguard was assigned to Khwaja Dawud, son of his eldest brother Khwaja<br />
Sulaiman. Large guns were placed on a raised platform for a battle to commence on<br />
March 12, 1612. A hand-to-hand combat ensued, with Bengal elephants causing<br />
massive damage to the Mughal side. Arrows, bullets, and cannonballs showered the<br />
skies, with the Mughals possessing better artillery and marksmanship. During the<br />
warfare, a Mughal cavalryman pierced an arrow into Usman, causing a fatal wound.<br />
Thereafter, his son Mumriz carried his body to their camp. As the gunsmoke ascended<br />
in the fog of war, the Afghans left the battlefield after midnight, retreating to Patan<br />
Ushar, taking Usman’s body and burying him in a hidden grave. This protracted<br />
campaign removed the last Afghan resistance from the Bengal delta.16,19,20</p>
<p>The cataclysmic clash between the Mughals and Pathas brought an end of an era; the<br />
latter no longer held rule over Sylhet. The minor kingdom would see another ruling<br />
power, as the Mughal Empire’s shadow of sovereignty was cast over Sylhet.<br />
The following day, Khwaja Wali and Mumriz requested a pardon from the Mughals, and<br />
mentioned that if assured safety, would proceed to the royal court to become the<br />
emperor’s faithful adherents. They presented forty-nine elephants and jewelry of the<br />
deceased Pathan chief, upon which Shujaet Khan proceeded to Dhaka alongside his<br />
prisoners, to present them to the governor. Bayazid Karrani II had also surrendered<br />
upon hearing news of the death of Khwaja Usman, and with a heavy heart, handed over<br />
his elephants to the Mughal Empire.9,21<br />
Upon accepting Mughal sovereignty, Usman’s brothers Wali, Malhi, and Ibrahim, and<br />
sons Mumriz and Yaqub, and nephew Dawud all received robes of honor twice.<br />
Usman’s family members were brought before Emperor Jahangir in Agra by Mutaqid<br />
Khan, the diwan, finance minister, of Bengal. Thereafter, the Afghan nobles fully<br />
supported Mughal Governor Islam Khan in maintaining law and order. Afghans from<br />
Khwaja Usman’s group joined a delegation and became associates of Mughal<br />
Commander Mirza Nathan, even assisting him in a military campaign in Assam.22,23<br />
The third generation of the Lohani dynasty gets sidelined<br />
After the war, little is recorded about the Miankhel Lohani family’s third generation.<br />
Khwaja Usman’s son Ibrahim and nephew Dawud both joined Prince Shahjahan’s<br />
rebellion at Bengal in 1624. Moreover, Khwaja Dawud married one of Usman’s<br />
daughters.19, 23, 25</p>
<p>From ruling North Orissa, and then South Sylhet, the family ended up on the sidelines of<br />
Prince Shahjahan’s failed rebellion. The prince’s revolt against his father Emperor<br />
Jahangir lasted more than fourteen months from December 1622 until January 1625,<br />
when he captured Bengal, Bihar, and a portion of Uttar Pradesh. He stayed at<br />
Rajmahal, the capital of Bengal during the 17th century, from where his rebellion<br />
depended on regional allied powers. The prince had Mughal generals, Afghan and<br />
Rajput forces, alongside Bengali zamindars. In late October 1624, the prince was<br />
entangled in a battle on the east bank of Ton River, when the allied zamindars of the<br />
Bengal army and Portuguese captains withdrew their support, leading to his defeat. This<br />
led Prince Shahjahan to eventually retreat to the Deccan, becoming a wandering exile.24<br />
When Emperor Jahangir reasserted his rule in Bengal, the Afghan chiefs that rebelled<br />
earlier became his servicemen. They were already a powerful force in Bengal, and<br />
assisted the empire in removing the Portuguese presence, expanding Mughal frontiers<br />
to Assam and Bay of Bengal. By the 1630s, a once conflicting relationship between the<br />
Mughals and Afghans had evolved into a mutually beneficial one, as the Afghans<br />
realized the benefits of serving the superpower empire.25</p>
<p>The legendary stories continue down the lineage<br />
The Miankhel Lohanis were frontiers-people from a landlocked region. These Pathans<br />
lived and died by the sword. They swayed to the beating drums of war, lives forged in<br />
the flames of combat. Ambition and a keen desire to rule caused both the rise and fall of<br />
the dynasty in eastern India. Qutlu Khan Lohani wanted to succeed Sultan Daud<br />
Karrani, and therefore took over North Orissa at the first available opportunity. The<br />
ruling area may have been approximately 30,000 square miles. He could have<br />
submitted to the Mughal’s supremacy and kept his position as a tributary ruler to the<br />
empire, just as so many minor rulers did so. However, he chose to establish his own<br />
domain, by driving away the Mughal faujdars. Likewise, his nephew Khwaja Usman<br />
could have simply submitted to the Mughals and kept his territory in Maulvibazar, but<br />
chose to go into battle against the empire.<br />
Afghans such as the Miankhel Lohani clan crisscrossed across Bengal and finally<br />
settled in Sylhet as the Mughals kept winning battles against them, pushing this group<br />
to one of the easternmost portions of South Asia. In Sylhet, Khwaja Usman gained a<br />
minor kingdom that was approximately 1,500 square miles, according to my calculations<br />
of the land sizes he conquered. Although he could only hold onto this for approximately<br />
one year, the impact of this conquest is felt to this day. It is said that this Afghan group<br />
married into the local Bengali population down the lineage, leading to many Sylhetis<br />
with strong builds and fair complexion.<br />
Centuries passed and in 2017, a site was marked as Khwaja Usman’s tomb in the<br />
village of Usmangarh at Maulvibazar. This is at the western part of his erstwhile estate,<br />
and the project was the culmination of Khwaja Osman Khan Memorial Implementation<br />
Council’s efforts.26</p>
<p>Today, a few longstanding Sylheti families, such as Ghulam Yazdani Khan’s<br />
descendants, lay claim to Khwaja Usman’s lineage. This family’s ancestor Rahmat<br />
Khan was the son of Khwaja Dawud, according to a published genealogy chart. There<br />
are no structural remnants of the Miankhel Lohani family’s rule in Sylhet; all we have are<br />
their stories. Having listened to the stories from Ghulam Yazdani Khan’s grandchildren,<br />
I can attest that memories keep these historical figures alive. A sense of grandeur<br />
permeates across the dining table when these stories are shared alongside milk-based<br />
chai, harkening to a bygone era of royalty, knights, and forts. Today, the Mughal Empire<br />
is long gone, but the names of these individuals who stood up to this imperial power live<br />
on among their descendants, including the great-grandchildren who are now adults. Be<br />
it a sense of romanticism or nostalgia, as long as their stories remain, they stay with us.</p>
<p>References:<br />
1. Rashid, Haroon. History of the Pathans: Volume I. Pakistan: Printo Graphic, 2005.<br />
2. Rashid, Haroon. History of the Pathans: Volume III. Pakistan: Printo Graphic, 2008.<br />
3. Caroe, Olaf. The Pathans: 550 B.C.- A.D. 1957. London, 1958.<br />
4. Bhat, Javid Ahmed. “Trade, Politics and Nuhani Afghans during the Sixteenth and<br />
Seventeenth Centuries.” International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts.<br />
Volume 9, Issue 7, July 2021.<br />
5. Ray, Aniruddha. The Sultanate of Delhi (1206 – 1526). New York: Routledge, 2019.<br />
6. Siddiqi, Iqtidar Husain. Mughal relations with the Indian ruling. New Delhi, 1983<br />
7. Roychoudhury, Suchira. Gaur: The Medieval City of Bengal c. 1450–1565. Pratna<br />
Samiksha: A Journey of Archaeology, New Series, Vol. 3, ed. 2012.<br />
8. Ullah, MD. “Determining the Contribution of Abdul Karim Searching the History of<br />
Bara–Bhuiyans against Mughal Empire in Bengal.” Saudi Journal of Humanities and<br />
Social Sciences 6, No. 2, p. 78–89, 2021.<br />
9. Chisti, A.A. Sheikh. The Bara-Bhuiyans and Their Times. University of Dhaka, 2013.<br />
10.Hussain, Syed Ejaz. The Bengal Sultanate: Politics, Economy and Coins, AD 1205-<br />
1576. Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 2003.<br />
11.Ray, BC. Orissa Under the Mughals. Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1981.<br />
12.Roy, B. Raja Mansingh and the final conquest of Orissa by the Mughals.<br />
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 13, p. 243-253, 1950.<br />
13.Yamin, Mohammed. Impact of Islam on Orissan Culture. Readworthy Publications,<br />
2009.<br />
14.Prasad, Rajiva Nain. Raja Mān Singh of Amber. Calcutta, 1966.<br />
15.Jahan, Shahnaj Husne. Bokainagar Fort, Banglapedia, 2021.<br />
16.Sensarma, P. Military History of Bengal. Darbari Udjog, 1977.<br />
17.Sangma, Milton S. and V. Venkata Rao. Essays on Northeast India. New Delhi:<br />
Indus Pub. Co., 1994.<br />
18.Khan, Muazzam. Khwaja Usman. Banglapedia. Dhaka: Asiatic Society of<br />
Bangladesh, 2021.<br />
19.Gommans, J.J.L. Mughal Warfare Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire 1500-<br />
1700. Oxon: Taylor and Francis, 2003.<br />
20.Nathan, Mirza. Bahāristān-i-ghaybī. Translated by Dr. M. I. Borah,1936.<br />
21.Stewart, C. The History of Bengal: From the First Mohammedan Invasion until the<br />
Virtual Conquest of that Country by the English AD 1757. Cambridge: Cambridge<br />
University Press, 2013.<br />
22.Jahangir, Nuruddin. Tuzuk-i jahāngīrī. Translated by Alexander Rogers, 1863.<br />
23.Joshi, Rita. The Afghan Nobility and the Mughals: 1526-1707. New Delhi: Vikas Pub.<br />
House, 1985.<br />
24.Roy, Yogendra P. “Rebellion of Prince Shahjahan and his career at Rajmahal.”<br />
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 73: p. 231-240, 2012.<br />
25.Faruqui, Munis. The Princes of the Mughal Empire, 1504 – 1719. New York:<br />
Cambridge University Press, 2012.<br />
26.“Five Hundred Years Later, the Marking of Khwaja Usman’s Tomb” (In Bengali).<br />
Boishakhi News, May 20, 2017.</p>
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<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>The integration of solar panels into agricultural land offers a practical pathway toward achieving energy independence, environmental sustainability, and resilient food systems in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is widely recognized as an agriculture-dependent country where farming plays a central role in ensuring food security for a large and growing population. The agricultural sector not only sustains rural […]</p>
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<content type="html" xml:base="https://krishanfoundation.com/the-solar-panel-solution/"><![CDATA[<h2 class="post-summary">The integration of solar panels into agricultural land offers a practical pathway toward achieving energy independence, environmental sustainability, and resilient food systems in Bangladesh.</h2>
<div>Bangladesh is widely recognized as an agriculture-dependent country where farming plays a central role in ensuring food security for a large and growing population. The agricultural sector not only sustains rural livelihoods but also contributes significantly to national economic stability.</div>
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<div>At the same time, Bangladesh faces a rapidly increasing demand for electricity driven by industrialization, urbanization, and improved living standards. In recent years, the country has prioritized renewable energy development to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decrease dependence on fossil fuels.</div>
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<div>Among various renewable energy sources, solar energy holds immense potential due to Bangladesh’s favorable geographic location, abundant sunlight, and relatively consistent solar radiation throughout the year.</div>
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<div>Despite this potential, an important question remains: Is it possible to install solar power systems on agricultural land without negatively affecting crop production? Traditionally, agricultural land has been viewed as incompatible with solar energy infrastructure, as conventional solar farms require large open areas and may compete with food production.</div>
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<div>However, recent scientific developments and practical experiences suggest that this perceived conflict can be transformed into an opportunity through innovative land-use strategies.</div>
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<div>Bangladesh is also a country rich in biodiversity, particularly in terms of native and indigenous crop varieties that have been cultivated for generations within both human settlements and natural ecosystems. This biological diversity provides a strong foundation for adapting agriculture to changing environmental conditions.</div>
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<div>Many crop species possess natural tolerance to partial shade, and through careful selection, breeding, and agronomic management, it is possible to identify and cultivate crop varieties that perform well under reduced sunlight conditions.</div>
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<div>Research indicates that several vegetables and leafy crops can grow successfully with limited sunlight exposure, demonstrating the feasibility of integrating solar panels with crop production systems.</div>
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<div>The current global energy and environmental situation further reinforces the urgency of exploring such integrated solutions. Fossil fuel-based development models are becoming increasingly unsustainable due to environmental degradation, rising fuel costs, and climate change risks.</div>
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<div>Bangladesh remains heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels, which exposes the national economy to energy price fluctuations and supply uncertainties. Transitioning to a green economy is therefore essential, and solar energy is expected to become a major pillar of this transformation. However, achieving large-scale solar deployment requires innovative approaches that maximize land-use efficiency while safeguarding agricultural productivity.</div>
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<div>One promising solution is the adoption of agro-photovoltaic (APV) systems, also known as agrivoltaics. These systems enable the simultaneous production of food and electricity on the same piece of land by installing solar panels above crops at an appropriate height and spacing.</div>
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<div>The design of such systems is critical, as factors such as panel elevation, tilt angle, and gap spacing determine the amount of sunlight reaching the crops below. When properly designed, APV systems can create a balanced microclimate that benefits both plant growth and energy generation. For example, partial shading from solar panels can reduce soil evaporation, maintain moisture levels, and protect crops from excessive heat stress during hot seasons.</div>
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<div>International research and field experiments have demonstrated that dual-use agricultural systems can provide significant economic and environmental advantages. Instead of forcing farmers to choose between agriculture and energy production, integrated systems allow them to generate additional income from electricity while continuing to cultivate crops.</div>
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<div>Studies from agricultural research institutions have shown that combining solar energy production with farming can improve land productivity and increase financial resilience for rural communities.</div>
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<div>In some cases, the presence of solar panels has even enhanced crop yields by moderating extreme temperatures and improving water-use efficiency.</div>
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<div>Farmers in several regions around the world have reported practical benefits after installing solar panels in their fields. These benefits include reduced irrigation demand, improved crop survival during drought conditions, and protection from extreme weather events such as heat waves.</div>
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<div>The shade provided by solar panels can create a cooler microenvironment that supports plant growth, particularly in regions experiencing rising temperatures due to climate change. Such findings highlight the potential of agrivoltaic systems to address both energy security and climate adaptation challenges simultaneously.</div>
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<div>In Bangladesh, the concept of agro-photovoltaics is still in its early stages but shows considerable promise. Using Hazipur Union as a model area, a pilot scenario can be developed to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of installing solar panels on agricultural land.</div>
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<div>Preliminary assessments suggest that standalone agro-photovoltaic (SAPV) systems can generate substantial amounts of renewable electricity while maintaining crop productivity. These systems represent a sustainable model for integrated food and energy production, enhancing land-use efficiency and supporting long-term agricultural and energy resilience.</div>
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<div>Furthermore, the adoption of solar-powered agricultural systems aligns with national development priorities, including renewable energy expansion, climate change mitigation, and rural economic development. By promoting the dual use of land resources, agro-photovoltaic technology can contribute to reducing carbon emissions, improving farmer income, and strengthening food security.</div>
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<div>The successful implementation of such systems requires collaboration among scientists, engineers, policymakers, and farmers to develop locally appropriate designs and management practices.</div>
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<div>To sum up, solar radiation can serve a dual purpose in Bangladesh — supporting both photosynthesis for crop production and electricity generation for sustainable development. Rather than competing with agriculture, solar energy infrastructure can complement farming activities when implemented through thoughtful design and scientific planning.</div>
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<div>The integration of solar panels into agricultural land offers a practical pathway toward achieving energy independence, environmental sustainability, and resilient food systems in Bangladesh.</div>
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<div><em><strong>Abed Chaudhury is a scientist and Tahmid Anam Chowdhury is a lecturer in Spatial Informatics Section in Habiganj Agricultural University.</strong></em></div>
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<title type="html"><![CDATA[খাদ্য নিরাপত্তা নিশ্চিতে ‘পঞ্চব্রীহি’ ধান]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://krishanfoundation.com/%e0%a6%96%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%a6%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%af-%e0%a6%a8%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%b0%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%aa%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%a4%e0%a6%be-%e0%a6%a8%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%b6%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%9a%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%87/" />
<id>https://krishanfoundation.com/?p=923</id>
<updated>2026-03-06T05:33:26Z</updated>
<published>2026-03-06T05:33:26Z</published>
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<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>বাংলাদেশের মানুষের প্রধান খাদ্যশস্য চাল এবং দেশের মোট আবাদি জমির প্রায় ৭৫ শতাংশেই ফলানো হয় ধান। তাই বাংলাদেশের অর্থনীতিতে ধান চাষের গুরুত্ব অপরিসীম। কিন্তু, আশেপাশের কোনো এক ধান চাষির জীবন পর্যবেক্ষণ করুন। দেখবেন অনেক স্বপ্ন, আশা-প্রত্যাশা নিয়ে সার, বীজ, কীটনাশকের উচ্চমূল্য দিয়ে, কৃষি উপকরণ ও কৃষি শ্রমিকের অভাবসহ, ঋণের বোঝা নিয়ে কৃষক ধান চাষ করেন। […]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com/%e0%a6%96%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%a6%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%af-%e0%a6%a8%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%b0%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%aa%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%a4%e0%a6%be-%e0%a6%a8%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%b6%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%9a%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%87/">খাদ্য নিরাপত্তা নিশ্চিতে ‘পঞ্চব্রীহি’ ধান</a> appeared first on <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com">krishan Times | krishan foundation</a>.</p>
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<content type="html" xml:base="https://krishanfoundation.com/%e0%a6%96%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%a6%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%af-%e0%a6%a8%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%b0%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%aa%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%a4%e0%a6%be-%e0%a6%a8%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%b6%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%9a%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%87/"><![CDATA[<p class="has-drop-cap">বাংলাদেশের মানুষের প্রধান খাদ্যশস্য চাল এবং দেশের মোট আবাদি জমির প্রায় ৭৫ শতাংশেই ফলানো হয় ধান। তাই বাংলাদেশের অর্থনীতিতে ধান চাষের গুরুত্ব অপরিসীম। কিন্তু, আশেপাশের কোনো এক ধান চাষির জীবন পর্যবেক্ষণ করুন। দেখবেন অনেক স্বপ্ন, আশা-প্রত্যাশা নিয়ে সার, বীজ, কীটনাশকের উচ্চমূল্য দিয়ে, কৃষি উপকরণ ও কৃষি শ্রমিকের অভাবসহ, ঋণের বোঝা নিয়ে কৃষক ধান চাষ করেন। পরবর্তীতে মাঝারি ব্যবসায়ীদের শোষণ, নিম্ন দাম ও বাজারজাতকরণ ব্যবস্থার অভাবের কারণে তার সেই আশা হতাশায় রূপান্তরিত হয়।</p>
<p>সম্প্রতি ইন্টারন্যাশনাল ফুড পলিসি রিসার্চ ইনস্টিটিউট (IFPRI) এর এক গবেষণায় উঠে এসেছে, প্রধান খাদ্যশস্য হওয়া সত্ত্বেও কৃষকের জীবনমান উন্নয়নে সেভাবে প্রভাব ফেলতে পারছে না ধান চাষাবাদ। ধান বিক্রির টাকা ও উৎপাদন খরচ দিয়ে খেয়েপড়ে বাঁচতে পারেন না কৃষক, মানবেতর জীবনযাপন বেছে নিতে হয়। এই কঠিন বাস্তবতা খুবই পীড়া দিত সিলেটের কুলাউড়ার সন্তান, বিখ্যাত ধান গবেষক ড. আবেদ চৌধুরীকে।</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" class="entered error" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdUYiop__atsktQQ7UBIza7cbYPA5MIRyRfGMXtRvK311SMjM3VXrkLw-4hj9y8wX_a3d2SvyTB55RJgB2sW6DSxuppz6f4nSmecE7u0oTOv51TRP5AqrPuLbAiyR0H8MdzXo1m32WLGf8FmKFWmgdnQRg72-6c62b2nsMY4A?key=LW7swmKOBjSy6KqhxpHaTA" alt="AD 4nXdUYiop AtsktQQ7UBIza7cbYPA5MIRyRfGMXtRvK311SMjM3VXrkLw 4hj9y8wX A3d2SvyTB55RJgB2sW6DSxuppz6f4nSmecE7u0oTOv51TRP5AqrPuLbAiyR0H8MdzXo1m32WLGf8FmKFWmgdnQRg72 6c62b2nsMY4A?key=LW7swmKOBjSy6KqhxpHaTA" data-lazyloaded="1" data-src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdUYiop__atsktQQ7UBIza7cbYPA5MIRyRfGMXtRvK311SMjM3VXrkLw-4hj9y8wX_a3d2SvyTB55RJgB2sW6DSxuppz6f4nSmecE7u0oTOv51TRP5AqrPuLbAiyR0H8MdzXo1m32WLGf8FmKFWmgdnQRg72-6c62b2nsMY4A?key=LW7swmKOBjSy6KqhxpHaTA" data-ll-status="error" title="খাদ্য নিরাপত্তা নিশ্চিতে ‘পঞ্চব্রীহি’ ধান" /></figure>
<p>কৃষিতে কিভাবে আয় বাড়ানো যায় এবং ব্যয় কমানো যায়, তা নিয়ে চিন্তা করতে থাকেন ড. আবেদ চৌধুরী। তার এই চিন্তা ও গবেষণারই ফসল ‘পঞ্চব্রীহি’ ধান। যা একবার রোপণে বছরে পাওয়া যাবে পাঁচবার ফলন। শুধুমাত্র একবার চাষ ও বীজতলা তৈরি করতে হয় বলে এই ধান চাষে খরচও হয় কম।</p>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>‘পঞ্চব্রীহি’ ধান সম্পর্কে বিস্তারিত</strong></h4>
<p>আজ থেকে ১০-১৫ হাজার বছর আগেও ধান চিরজীবী ছিলো। সভ্যতার উন্নতির সাথে সাথে ধান বিভিন্ন মৌসুমে ভাগ করে চাষ শুরু করা হয়। ফলে ধানও সেভাবে অভিযোজিত হতে থাকে। বিজ্ঞানী আবেদ চৌধুরী চাইছিলেন আম, কাঁঠাল গাছ যেমন দীর্ঘদিন বেঁচে থাকে, ঠিক তেমনই ধান গাছগুলোকেও দীর্ঘজীবী করা যায় কিনা। ২০১০ সালে প্রথম মৌলভিবাজারের হাজীপুর ইউনিয়নের কানিহাটি গ্রামে ২৫ বর্গমিটার জমিতে ২০টি ধানের জাত নিয়ে গবেষনা শুরু করেন ড. আবেদ চৌধুরী। সেখান থেকে তিনি প্রথমে নতুন ধানের শিষ হয় এমন ভিন্ন জাতের ১২টি ধানবীজ সংগ্রহ করেন এবং তিন বছর ধরে জাতগুলোর চাষ পর্যবেক্ষণ করেন।</p>
<p>দেখা যায়, নিয়মিতভাবে দ্বিতীয়বার ফলন দিচ্ছে এই ধানগুলো। এরপর তিনি একই গাছে তৃতীয়বার ফলনের গবেষণা শুরু করেন এবং তাতেও সফল হন। কিন্তু তার মধ্যে চারটি জাত ছাড়া অন্য জাতগুলো চতুর্থবার ফলনের পর ধ্বংস হয়ে যায়। অতঃপর এই ৪ জাতের ধানের ওপর আবারও ১০ বছর ধরে গবেষণা চালান। মূলত স্থানীয় জাতের সঙ্গে বিভিন্ন উচ্চ ফলনশীল জাত এবং স্থানীয় জাতের সঙ্গে স্থানীয় হাইব্রিড জাতের সংকরায়ন করে এই উচ্চ ফলনশীল ধানের জাত পাওয়া যায়, যা একই গাছে ৫ বার ফলন দিতে সক্ষম হয়। গ্রামের কৃষকদের সঙ্গে নিয়ে দীর্ঘদিন ধরে মাঠপর্যায়ে গবেষণা করে কোনোরকম রাসায়নিক ছাড়াই বৈজ্ঞানিক পদ্ধতিতে তিনি দীর্ঘ ১৪ বছর তার গবেষণা চালিয়ে যান।</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" class="entered error" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe3o03Vj12edBOKCrVWhRPJKiQVLYhwVf8Kn1uu-lnYWheu8W9lye-cGFnEFyFN2jra2vWdsyb9wt0p34g0R-AbZJ7iz_xh-g015lHCTS4D3fOMkb-fPFAeAInjf6WznosaRsD_-QXVfHMr7lpfb7jFSR-YZeFJ3X91R1e78w?key=LW7swmKOBjSy6KqhxpHaTA" alt="AD 4nXe3o03Vj12edBOKCrVWhRPJKiQVLYhwVf8Kn1uu LnYWheu8W9lye CGFnEFyFN2jra2vWdsyb9wt0p34g0R AbZJ7iz Xh G015lHCTS4D3fOMkb FPFAeAInjf6WznosaRsD QXVfHMr7lpfb7jFSR YZeFJ3X91R1e78w?key=LW7swmKOBjSy6KqhxpHaTA" data-lazyloaded="1" data-src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe3o03Vj12edBOKCrVWhRPJKiQVLYhwVf8Kn1uu-lnYWheu8W9lye-cGFnEFyFN2jra2vWdsyb9wt0p34g0R-AbZJ7iz_xh-g015lHCTS4D3fOMkb-fPFAeAInjf6WznosaRsD_-QXVfHMr7lpfb7jFSR-YZeFJ3X91R1e78w?key=LW7swmKOBjSy6KqhxpHaTA" data-ll-status="error" title="খাদ্য নিরাপত্তা নিশ্চিতে ‘পঞ্চব্রীহি’ ধান" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><em><strong>ছবিঃ ‘পঞ্চব্রীহি’ ধানের ফলন; সূত্রঃ সমকাল।</strong></em><br />
আবেদ চৌধুরী আরও জানান, পঞ্চব্রীহি ধানের গাছ ৫ সে.মি দূরত্ব রেখে রোপণ করতে হয়, যাতে গাছটি গোড়া থেকে শক্তি নিয়ে বেড়ে উঠতে পারে। পঞ্চব্রীহি ধান চাষে প্রথম বার ১১০ দিন পর ফলন আসে। পরের ফলন আসে ৪৫ দিন অন্তর। একবার বোরো, দুইবার আউশ ও দুইবার আমন ধানের ফলন পাওয়া যায়। অর্থাৎ তিন মৌসুমে বা বছরজুড়েই ধান দিবে একই গাছ। পঞ্চব্রীহি ধানে প্রথমবার হেক্টর প্রতি উৎপাদন হয়েছে ৪ টন। ডক্টর আবেদ চৌধুরীর ভাষায়,<br />
‘এ নতুন ধান চাষ পদ্ধতি যদি সারা দেশের কৃষকদের মধ্যে ছড়িয়ে দেওয়া যায়, তাহলে আগামী ৫০ বছরের জন্য গোটা জনগোষ্ঠীর খাদ্যনিরাপত্তা নিশ্চিত করা সম্ভব হবে’।</p>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>সমালোচনা ও আশার কথা</strong></h4>
<p>বিজ্ঞানীমহল ড. আবেদ চৌধুরীর এই আবিস্কার নিয়ে বেশ কিছু সংশয় প্রকাশ করেছেন। যেমনঃ</p>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>৫ সে. মি. দূরত্বে চারা লাগানো হলে, গাছ বড় হওয়ার জন্য যথেষ্ট জায়গা কোথায় পাবে?</li>
<li>একই গাছে বার বার ফলনের কারণে ধানে চিটা হওয়ার সম্ভাবনা বেড়ে যাবে।</li>
<li>এলাকার সব ধান একই সাথে কাটা হলে রেটুন ফসল পোকার বংশবিস্তারের হাব হিসেবে কাজ করবে এবং অর্থনৈতিক ক্ষতি করবে।</li>
<li>৫ বার ফসল ফলনে খড়ের ফলন কম হবে। খড়ের আর্থিক বাজারমূল্য কিন্তু কম নয়। এবং খড় গবাদিপশুর খাদ্যের অন্যতম উৎস।</li>
<li>সরকারি হিসাব অনুযায়ী, দেশে হেক্টরপ্রতি ধান উৎপাদন হয়ে থাকে তিন থেকে চার টন। পঞ্চব্রীহি ধান একবার রোপণ করে, ৫ বার ফলনে যে ফসল পাওয়া যাবে, তা বস্তুত আলাদা আলাদা ফসল রোপণে উৎপাদিত ধানের চেয়ে কম। প্রথমবার ফলন আসার পর পরের বার ফলন কমতে থাকে। এ জন্য এটি এতটা লাভজনক নয়।</li>
<li>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><em><strong>ছবিঃ ‘পঞ্চব্রীহি’ ধানের চারা ৫ সেমি দূরত্বে রোপণ করা হয়।</strong></em></figcaption></figure>
<p>যেহেতু এ ধান নিয়ে গবেষণা চলমান রয়েছে, তাই এত সব সমালোচনার পরও আমরা এই যুগান্তকারী আবিষ্কার নিয়ে আশা বুনতে পারি। কারণ, এই ধান চাষে কৃষকের সময় যেমন বাঁচবে, তেমনি তিনগুণ কম খরচে উৎপাদন করা যাবে বলে সাশ্রয় হবে অর্থও। এছাড়া এই ধান চাষ পদ্ধতি পরিবেশবান্ধব এবং প্রতিবার চাষ ও ফসল ফলাতে হয় না বলে মিথেন ও কার্বন ডাই-অক্সাইড গ্যাসের কম নিঃসরণ হয়। একইসঙ্গে একই জমিতে একই গাছে পাঁচবার ধান উৎপাদনের ফলে দূর হবে দেশের খাদ্যসংকট। প্রতি বছর প্রাকৃতিক দুর্যোগে ক্ষতিগ্রস্ত, বন্যাপ্রবণ ও খরাপীড়িত দেশের ক্রমবর্ধমান জনগোষ্ঠীর খাদ্যসংকট দূরীকরণে নিঃসন্দেহে এটি একটি যুগান্তকারী আবিষ্কার। বাংলাদেশে বছর বছর কৃষি জমি কমে গেলেও কৃষি উৎপাদন বেড়েছে কয়েকগুণ। কৃষিতে নতুন নুতন উদ্ভাবন ও প্রযুক্তির আবিষ্কার ও ব্যবহার বাংলাদেশের কৃষিকে সমৃদ্ধ করে চলেছে।</li>
<li>ধান নিয়ে এই গবেষণা এখনও চলমান রয়েছে এবং এই গবেষণা এখনও কোনো পিয়ার-রিভিউড্ জার্নালে প্রকাশ করা হয় নি। এই ধানের নাম এখনও চূড়ান্ত করেননি ড. আবেদ চৌধুরী। কারণ এর ষষ্ঠ ফলন নিয়ে কাজ করছেন তিনি। পরবর্তী ষষ্ঠবার ফলন দিলে ধানটিকে ‘ষষ্ঠব্রীহি’ নামকরণ করা যেতে পারে।</li>
<li>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>কে এই ড. আবেদ চৌধুরী?</strong></h4>
</li>
<li><img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-924" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ponchobrihi-dhan-300x169.webp" alt="ponchobrihi dhan" width="300" height="169" title="খাদ্য নিরাপত্তা নিশ্চিতে ‘পঞ্চব্রীহি’ ধান" srcset="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ponchobrihi-dhan-300x169.webp 300w, https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ponchobrihi-dhan-1024x576.webp 1024w, https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ponchobrihi-dhan-768x432.webp 768w, https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ponchobrihi-dhan-800x450.webp 800w, https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ponchobrihi-dhan.webp 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></li>
<li>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading"></h4>
<p>ড. আবেদ চৌধুরী বাংলাদেশের আধুনিক জীববিজ্ঞানের প্রথম সারির একজন গবেষক, বিখ্যাত জিনতত্ত্ববিদ, লেখক ও চিন্তাবিদ। জিনতত্ত্ব, প্ল্যান্ট ব্রিডিং, মলিকিউলার বায়োলজি এবং বায়োটেক বিষয়ে দক্ষতার কারণে তিনি নিজেকে আধুনিক জীববিজ্ঞানে একজন শীর্ষস্থানীয় ব্যক্তিত্ব হিসাবে প্রতিষ্ঠিত করেছেন।</p>
<p>১৯৮৩ সালে পিএইচ.ডি গবেষণাকালে তিনি ‘রেকডি’ নামক জেনেটিক রিকম্বিনেশনের একটি নতুন জিন আবিষ্কার করেন আশির দশকে আমেরিকা ও ইউরোপে ব্যাপক সাড়া ফেলে দিয়েছিলেন। এ পর্যন্ত তিনি বিলুপ্তপ্রায় ৩০০ প্রজাতির ধান উদ্ধার করেছেন। তাছাড়া তিনি একপ্রকার রঙিন ভুট্টা উদ্ভাবন করেছেন, যাতে ডায়াবেটিস ও ক্যান্সার প্রতিরোধক উপাদান রয়েছে। এর আগে তিনি বছরে দুইবার ফলন হয়, এমন একটি ধানের জাত আবিষ্কার করেছিলেন। কিন্তু, আইনী জটিলতা, সরকার ও কৃষি অধিদপ্তরের যথেষ্ঠ সহযোগিতার অভাবে এ ধান কৃষকদের মাঝে সেভাবে জনপ্রিয়তা পায় নি।</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" class="entered error" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf6UUL5Lz1-5C9tTSMPu9MPMloMs3SRVck6Hf8hFIVIf-48zLZeRuZAJwRoLg6cRxlNjTBF0YIf2RbcfE32kJ4iGij8g8UbdCF7WKpotFwxz0V84R1T7Ha40zqY5qpY_bQOm-YPSQcqR6Xf4HWS3RvL71bsejSl11IkCzCr?key=LW7swmKOBjSy6KqhxpHaTA" alt="AD 4nXf6UUL5Lz1 5C9tTSMPu9MPMloMs3SRVck6Hf8hFIVIf 48zLZeRuZAJwRoLg6cRxlNjTBF0YIf2RbcfE32kJ4iGij8g8UbdCF7WKpotFwxz0V84R1T7Ha40zqY5qpY BQOm YPSQcqR6Xf4HWS3RvL71bsejSl11IkCzCr?key=LW7swmKOBjSy6KqhxpHaTA" data-lazyloaded="1" data-src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf6UUL5Lz1-5C9tTSMPu9MPMloMs3SRVck6Hf8hFIVIf-48zLZeRuZAJwRoLg6cRxlNjTBF0YIf2RbcfE32kJ4iGij8g8UbdCF7WKpotFwxz0V84R1T7Ha40zqY5qpY_bQOm-YPSQcqR6Xf4HWS3RvL71bsejSl11IkCzCr?key=LW7swmKOBjSy6KqhxpHaTA" data-ll-status="error" title="খাদ্য নিরাপত্তা নিশ্চিতে ‘পঞ্চব্রীহি’ ধান" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><strong><strong><em>ড. আবেদ চৌধুরীবৈজ্ঞানিক অবদানের পাশাপাশি, ড. আবেদ চৌধুরী তার নিজ শহর, সিলেটের কানিহাটিকে সামাজিক, বুদ্ধিবৃত্তিক, কৃষি এবং পরিবেশগত উন্নতিতে আদর্শ গ্রামে পরিণত করার জন্য নিজেকে উৎসর্গ করেছেন। প্রতিষ্ঠা করেছেন বেশ কয়েকটি শিক্ষা প্রতিষ্ঠান। তিনি বাংলা এবং ইংরেজি ভাষায় অনেক গুলো বই লিখেছেন, তার মধ্যে উল্লেখযোগ্য হলোঃ<br />
</em></strong></strong>‘মানবজিনোম : মানুষের জিন জিনের মানুষ’, ‘অনুভবের নীলনকশা’, ‘নির্বাচিত কবিতা’ ইত্যাদি।</p>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>‘পঞ্চব্রীহি’ ধান নিয়ে উদ্ভাবকের ভাবনা</strong></h4>
<p>নতুন এই ধান উৎপাদন পদ্ধতি বাণিজ্যিক উদ্দেশ্যে ব্যবহার করা হবে কিনা জিজ্ঞেস করা হলে ড. আবেদ চৌধুরী জানান, ‘তিনি তার এই আবিষ্কার বাণিজ্যিক উদ্দেশ্যে ব্যবহার করবেন না। দেশের দরিদ্র কৃষকদের জন্য সহজলভ্য করে দিবেন। তিনি চান, এই আবিষ্কার দেশের মানুষের জীবনমান বদলে দিক এবং মানুষের খাদ্যনিরাপত্তা নিশ্চিত করুক।’</p>
<p>সবশেষে, জীবনানন্দ দাশের কবিতার একটি অংশ মনে পড়ে যায়, ”একটি নক্ষত্র আসে; তারপর একা পায়ে চ’লে ঝাউয়ের কিনার ঘেঁষে হেমন্তের তারাভরা রাতে”। সত্যিই, নক্ষত্ররা চুপি চুপি আসে, একা একা চলে এবং একা একা বিস্ময় তৈরি করেন।</p>
<p><strong>তথ্যসূত্র-</strong></p>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://ricenewstoday.com/scientist-gets-encouraging-results-from-rice-ratoon-experiments/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scientist gets encouraging results from rice ratoon experiments</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.tbsnews.net/features/panorama/panchabrihi-how-practical-five-yield-year-rice-721922" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Panchabrihi: How practical is a ‘five-yield-a-year’ rice?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://pakistanrice.com/news/pakistanrice-com-panchabrihi-rice-method/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Discoverer of ‘Panchabrihi’ Rice Cultivation: Dr Abed Chaudhury</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.daily-sun.com/post/749902" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How Prospective Panchabrihi Really Is?</a></li>
</ul>
</figcaption></figure>
</li>
</ul>
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<title type="html"><![CDATA[Paradigm Shift]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://krishanfoundation.com/paradigm-shift/" />
<id>https://krishanfoundation.com/?p=920</id>
<updated>2026-02-16T10:15:55Z</updated>
<published>2026-02-16T10:11:00Z</published>
<category scheme="https://krishanfoundation.com/" term="Science" /><category scheme="https://krishanfoundation.com/" term="abed chowdhury" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>Paradigm Shift Reflection on Nature, Heritage and Islam ……………………………………………………… Abed Chaudhury Peering through gilded glass This year marked half a century since the discovery of DNA. It is also the year when the overall human genome sequences were described with clarity and with all the gaps filled. It is also roughly sixty years since the […]</p>
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<content type="html" xml:base="https://krishanfoundation.com/paradigm-shift/"><![CDATA[<p><img decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image1_2.jpeg" alt="Image1 2" width="297" height="448" title="Paradigm Shift" /></p>
<p><span style="color: #003366;">Paradigm</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Shift</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #003366;">Reflection</span> <span style="color: #003366;">on</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Nature,</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Heritage</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Islam</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #003366;">………………………………………………………</span></p>
<p><strong><span style="color: #003366;">Abed</span></strong> <strong><span style="color: #003366;">Chaudhury</span></strong></p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Peering</span> <span style="color: #003366;">through</span> <span style="color: #003366;">gilded</span> <span style="color: #003366;">glass</span></h1>
<p>This year marked half a century since the discovery of DNA. It is also the year when the overall human genome sequences were described with clarity and with all the gaps filled. It is also roughly sixty years since the atomic bomb came to be part of politics, of life in general. For a person who is around sixty now, a lot has happened in his lifetime. In the time scale of the civilised history of human beings, thought to be at most 60,000 years if we include the Palaeolithic hunter- gatherers, it is a mere wink of an eye. In one thousandth blink of elapsed time of our civilised history we have travelled from a sense of self-cognition to a form of molecular self knowledge; and we have also have taken a leap from being stone throwing hordes to thermonuclear sophisticates. If 60,000 years ago we could only crack a few skulls in our anger, now we can potentially destroy everyone and that too a hundred times over. However, we still carry in us that same primeval skull, that same hate-lust-fear-curiosity infested mind. Suddenly we are beyond gradual and incremental steps and a defined future; now we are being fast-tracked in milliseconds of history in a direction the nature of which we cannot even comprehend.</p>
<p>This exhilarating journey of the human species is a given condition now. It has been a result of many accidents, many events that were unique and salubrious, while others were reprehensible and loathsome. Many fine minds are involved in cataloguing and thinking through these calamitous changes that shape us.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, we as a nation do not have this luxury. In order to keep pace with the rest of the world and prosper, we, the 140 million members of the 6-billion member human community, must find a formula for cohesive, peaceful and prosperous existence.</p>
<p>My own point of view is informed by a science-based optimism, a belief in human ingenuity. I believe that a nation of 140 million is potentially very strong by definition. Intelligence being randomly distributed in human species irrespective of lineage and race, we have a huge pool of talented individuals amongst our nation. Our challenge is to their future unfettered from the assorted mixture of negative traits such as poverty, conflict, and a lack of vision. We have no option but to make our politics very simple. We have no choice but to be optimistic, driven by a tradition that harnesses the past but one that is at the same time informed by science and a set of pragmatic skills that will quickly help realise the potentials of our people.</p>
<p>These are not idle or vague or general statements. For Bangladesh, this</p>
<p>incantation of the obvious is indispensable. Just a cursory look at our political landscape will convince even the most mellow of observers that our politicians and ruling elite are not interested in taking even the first steps. A platform of national consensus comprising core values and intent is missing. The very fabric of national existence is woven every few years; we are like year-to-year spiders spinning transient cobwebs, never wanting a home, an edifice that will endure time. We are shy of boldly proclaiming who we are.</p>
<p>Bangladeshis are a unique brand of people distinguishable partly by their language and ethnicity, but also by their religion and unique history. They are a people comprising the aborigines of the timeless alluvial delta but made hybrid through transmigrations through the millennia. A people informed by streaks of animist, Buddhist and Hindu ideas but then modified and reinvented through a Sufi syncretic version of Islam. And in this modern era a people that are creative, poetry-infused, spiritual, tolerant and democratic. We do not need to be inspired any more by the urban anglophilic Bengal Renaissance of Raja Ram Mohan Ray and Bankim Chandra; the core values of that movement do not resonate with the people of east Bengal with their peasant heritage; we do not need to endlessly pay homage to those pathfinders, important though they were in that historic epoch. For they advocated a kind of urban, occident-inspired exclusiveness and intellectual snobbery that is still rampant in our educated class and is in fact an obstacle to the true democratisation of our society. It branded the traditions of our villages as “Gramyo” caricatured and lampooned our wise elders of both religions and it nucleated a version of xenophobia against Islam that has not served us well. Our nationalistic educated class still does not have the courage to say that we reject those traits and assumptions totally and categorically, that we have fashioned a set of newer assumptions, which serve us better. We do not yet have the courage to say that we carry in us the legacy of what happened in Sylhet and Chittagong, Comilla and Narsingdi and Barisal and Pabna. We have not learnt yet that the history of those places together is our history; the events that resonated through those places through the millennia are our fountainhead of inspiration. Thirty-two years of independence and our intellectual classes are still giving us the old hackneyed doctrine of the Bengal renaissance, the First Light that dazzled our eyes for the first time. We are still like poor peasants looking through gilded glass into a house where history is taking place; where we are mere vicarious spectators encountering our enlightenment through others’ eyes.</p>
<p>It has been a long time since the world moved from this kind of second-hand experience and learned to accept every place as a valid unit of history. In European countries, every village, every hamlet is celebrated for its unique contribution to the nation’s history. In the USA, every small town is celebrated</p>
<p>for its uniqueness. In Bangladesh, we make no such attempt. Our school students memorise lore of Ibrahim Lodhi or Vasco da Gama; our university students wax lyrical about Ram Mohan Roy and yet we do not know or study why our cities are named the way they are; we do not know the history of our villages, the stories behind the ancient <em>parganas</em>. No acceptable intellectual investigations are ever made of these things. Somehow they are devoid of glory, they are only our history, and therefore not important. We still behave like colonised people where our history comes bottled from somewhere else. We copy others history and pass them as our own.</p>
<p>Of course we celebrate our war of independence as uniquely ours. We pretend as though we did not exist as people before 1971; that suddenly out of nothingness we came into being through this war. We pretend that we only existed as agents of struggle before that forever marching, chanting slogans. We have turned ourselves into cardboard caricatures of history. In reality, for millennia there were creativity in our land, our people were shaped by ancient ideas that proliferated in the landmass of what is Bangladesh. Old primal animist ideas mingled with those of Buddhism, Hinduism and then were transformed and incorporated by the Sufi version of Islam. In agricultural innovations, artistic pottery and craft, maritime ventures people of this delta have left a legacy. They bred better crops, were custodians of the genetic heritage of our flora and fauna. And through their actions they have left behind names of our villages and towns, sometimes enormous reservoirs of water that celebrate their name and they have left us, carriers if those hybrid genes and those songs poems and stories that enrich our mental lives. If the conglomerations of that legacy cannot be my renaissance then I do not want one borrowed from Florence or Kolkata.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Science</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">technophobia</span></h1>
<p>There exists among social scientists, liberal activists, and other workers and thinkers trained in the humanities a form of technophobia that has its origin in western romanticism. This attitude has been nurtured through millennia as a form of rebel resistance against the machine, often fed by dreams of a utopian arcadia devoid of material wants or machine derived gains. Both the technophobia and the inchoate poetic melancholia that triggers it are human conditions with their genesis hidden deep in our psyche. Loving machines certainly is an acquired taste.</p>
<p>In the old hunter-gatherer society, or even as late as the sixties in the bulk of what is described as ―developing‖ countries, technologies were not significantly visible, especially in the villages. I recall growing up in a rural hinterland amidst breathtaking sceneries but without electricity or running water. There were giant ponds, often celebrating the names of some personality of local history and we swam and bathed with great gusto in those ponds any time we wanted. For more enfeebled ones there was always bathing with warm water poured with a mug, the ―bath of a crow‖, as it used to be described derisively. At night giant vistas of adjoining rice fields used to scintillate with fireflies and inside our houses we studied diligently in feeble light lit by kerosene lanterns. During full moon the whole village used to glow in a form of light-shadow routine, that in memory, even now brings a chill to my spine. Years later, images of those nights would be rekindled in me by the haunting song of Cat Stevens, ―I am being followed by a moon-shadow…‖ Somehow, somewhere, it seems that that inner-London music sophisticate had encountered something that I encountered in the bucolic village of Kanihati.</p>
<p>But poetic memories of rural arcadia aside, what are we to do with technology? Villages are now routinely lit with electricity and the moonlit nights of howling jackals have receded into the deep obscure hinterlands of our psyche. Instead of being gripped by the twinkling stars at night kids ogle the flickering electronic light shadow of TV screens, deriving vicarious sensations from faraway lands. The passive insemination of easy technology has certainly occurred in all walks of life. The giant high-tension electrical poles resembling miniscule Eiffel Towers dot our rural landscape with as much matter-of-fact visage as the undulating betel-nut palm. But has technology entered our attitude in a way that we can be</p>
<p>masters of technology? Or has technology remained for us as enigmatic as the mystical moonlight of the bygone era?</p>
<p>In 1895, a Bangali by the name of Jagadish Chandra Basu demonstrated the effect of radio waves in full view of the British administrative elite in the city of Kolkata. That was virtuoso discovery of a technology that would later change the world; thought up by a Bengali. But instead if getting credit for it, Basu today languishes in obscurity, overshadowed by Marconi, who made the same discovery a year later. In a recent extravagant biography of Marconi, Basu gets a one line cursory reference. That was the first and probably the most dramatic event of someone from our lands making a technological breakthrough.</p>
<p>Today, in spite of all the paraphernalia of technology around us, Bangladesh remains a technology-averse nation. While Rabindranath, a contemporary of</p>
<p>Basu, has kept us mesmerized for a whole century, Basu‘s memory has faded or is often linked with his work with plants. In the hundred years since 1895, no discovery of that magnitude has ever been made by a Bangali. In the Pakistan days no significant attempts were made to inculcate a love of science and technology (S&T) in the population. S&T remained, and still remains, soiled by the image of a form of boring obscurity, an arena occupied by nerds and geeks. Bright students gravitate towards subjects such as economics, or commerce, or medicine where the sole motive often is not to conquer new vistas of human physiology and preventative medicine, but simply to mint money as quickly as one can hold a stethoscope. The whole cultural space of the nation, containing its loftiest goals, dearest images and all its pious visions are consummated with songs, dance and poetry. For science there is only a hard shell of ennui, or a grudging acceptance on the grounds of a better life.</p>
<p>What we need to culture instead is what I would like to describe as the ―Jagadish syndrome‖, after the great scientist, J.C. Basu (JCB). To JCB, science was not a drab, difficult topic eliciting boredom; it was rather like poetry and music. In fact, the same impetus that causes us to understand poetry and music also could propel us to understand science, not as rote calculations but as a sense of wonder about nature. Somehow in our education system that wonder and the consequent mental energy are allowed to be dissipated.</p>
<p>What causes this form of subtle animus that makes us resistant to the true spirit of science? I believe that in Bangladesh we nurture a brand of Luddite technophobia that has become a part of the mythical lore of the nation. In that view poetry, dreaming, love, etc., are pitted, in subtle ways, against a genuine appreciation of nature through mental tools of science. Part of the problem is that technology did not develop from within. If we had known radio waves through the poetry-infused writings of JCB, rather than the radio-sets that came from</p>
<p>England, maybe we would have looked at electromagnetic radiation differently. In a way that is not appreciated widely, colonialism robbed us of an attitude towards science that in my opinion is the only way of implementing science successfully. And that is to see it as an extension of our organic self, as a valid and inevitable expression of our inner creativity. We have to re-invent that attitude. We have to love science like we love poetry and music.</p>
<p>I believe that it can be done. It has to begin very early in our villages where six- year-old girls look at butterflies with dreamy eyes. It has to begin in our village <em>maktabs</em> where toddlers oscillate their bodies with chants of the Koran that they are memorizing — where sylvan rice-paddocks with storks and kingfishers flying above look like yet another poem waiting to be written.</p>
<p>In that nature-infused world, we have to sow the seed of science as a form of wonder about nature, about water, about insects and about the paddy that is growing everywhere. We have to take very basic ideas of genetics, numbers, chemistry, and physics to those kids whose minds have just blossomed and will soon wither. It is about as challenging as instilling poetry and music all over the nation. It will need love and creativity more that it will need number-crunching zeal.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Will</span> <span style="color: #003366;">he</span> <span style="color: #003366;">or</span> <span style="color: #003366;">will</span> <span style="color: #003366;">he</span> <span style="color: #003366;">not?</span></h1>
<p>I recently had a meeting with Professor Norman Borlaug, father of green revolution, wheat breeder par excellence and eminent laureate of Nobel Peace Prize. A few of us scientists talked to him one by one, and later he singled me out for further exposition of my own work on seed production, about which he showed great interest. Later he described his own work spanning well over half a century culminating in the huge increase in wheat production all over the developing world including what had become known as the “hunger belt” of South Asia including vast areas of India. Today India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are self-sufficient in food grains and any prevailing hunger is not due to an absolute shortage of grains in these countries. In spite of all the criticisms directed at the Green Revolution, its ability to increase the level of production of food grains can never be doubted. Professor Borlaug, and to some extent Professor Swaminathan of India, deserve full credit for that. In Bangladesh, eminent rice breeders such as Dr. Hasanuzzaman and Dr. Mortuza Chowdhury, among others, have played very important roles in making us self-sufficient in rice. From the famine-prone years of early 1970’s to the end of millennium our population has increased by 60-80%, and yet from a chronic short-fall of several million tons in the 1970s we have now become a totally self-sufficient, even a marginally food-surplus nation. This remarkable progress has been made possible by elegant work on rice breeding, good agricultural extension and the talent of our rice producers. I have asked both Prof. Borlaug and Prof.</p>
<p>Swaminathan about this miracle and whom they thought were the post important people behind this awesome improvement. Both scientists put very high importance on the ingenuity of our farmers and breeders — people who remain nameless and largely unappreciated.</p>
<p>Indeed it is the genius of the Neolithic farmers that gave us the first agricultural revolution. Since that time people who were never formally trained in genetics or breeding science but clearly understood the cardinal principle of improvement through selection have selected plants meticulously for better and better traits.</p>
<p>Through millennia better-selected crops have been accumulated in many countries. Called land-races, these lines became the raw materials that were used to create new combination of traits through breeding; lines that ushered in the green revolution. The green revolution did not create anything fundamentally new; it simply combined pre-existing traits in a more intelligent way, producing lines that did not lodge and shed its grains prematurely, or ones that used fertilizer better. The individual traits that made these combinations possible were there through millennia, selected and maintained by our farmers, who were often women. The genetic endowment of crops, a noble heritage and wealth of</p>
<p>humankind, is owned by the farming women of the world, including the women of Bangladesh. As we celebrate the arrival of the high performing grains most of these original innovators remain unknown to us.</p>
<p>A large part of the problem of why science has not become an integrated part of our culture in Bangladesh is a failure of understanding the process by which technology, in particular breeding technology, has survived over millennia. This has led to a very low status accorded to our farmers and also formal scientists who study plant sciences. The disdain meted out to our farmers finds its parallel in the way we treat our agricultural scientists and extension workers. In the matrix of social position they often enjoy a low acclaim. While we shower acclaim on our poets and painters and politicians and visionaries, we shower the scorn of neglect on our plant breeders, our veterinarians, our horticulturists.</p>
<p>Surely an act of creative ingenuity that increases food production by even one percent is hugely more laudable than the most sublime poetry imaginable. Yet name me one person whose work on producing more food grains comes even close, in the scale of national adulation, to fame enjoyed by our poets or painters or musicians. The mental habit and cultural assumptions that have created this science-averse atmosphere in our nation are many and their eradication even more problematic. But those changes are minimal preconditions of any genuine improvement of our nation. A major problem is a lack of people in the higher decision making echelons who understand anything about science themselves, or even have any interest in being informed about science by an adviser. We have a Minister of S&T but does he advise the Prime Minister on Science? In many countries including Australia, the PM has a scientific adviser. In developed nations there are learned bodies such as Academies of Science, think tanks, and universities that are linked to farming communities. In neighbouring India, eminent scientists have access to the PM directly without the need to go through intermediaries. In our country the old-guard bureaucratic mandarins, often products of totally science-less education, make sure that technocrats become “desciencitized” before they become politically influential. Or somehow the process of reaching the stratospheric heights of national leadership causes them to forget that they once were and still could be scientists. After watching a few scientists turned politicians, that is my humble conclusion.</p>
<p>So we do have a systemic problem on our pathway of becoming a S&T savvy nation? Already these systemic problems have caused us to pay dearly. The lack of adequate IT infrastructure related to a faulty decision regarding under-ocean cable network has already been talked about widely but it is not clear that any remedial thinking is in place regarding these mismanagements. In life sciences, encompassing agro and veterinary and horticultural sciences as well as medicine and molecular sciences we now have a huge gap even by South Asian or regional</p>
<p>yardsticks. In scientific productivity as evidenced by publication records in eminent journals, we languish somewhere between Afghanistan and Upper Volta even though we have produced people like JC Basu and SN Basu, of Boson fame. The later Basu was a professor of Dhaka University physics department, the alma mater of our current Minister of Science and Information technology. A life scientist is now President of the Republic. As a ceremonial icon of the nation he could become a highly visible champion of science in Bangladesh. Will he, or will he not? That is now the question.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">In</span> <span style="color: #003366;">search</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Maulavi</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Abdul</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Ghani</span></h1>
<p>Following is what General Colin Powell the US secretary of State said <em>inter</em> <em>alia</em></p>
<p>regarding his recent trip to Bangladesh.</p>
<p>―In the course of my meetings in Bangladesh, I spoke with the Minister of Science and Information and Communications Technology, Dr. Ahmed Moyeen Khan, and he‘s putting all government services on-line: E-government, e- business. But more importantly, he is determined to make sure that every town and village in Bangladesh — that poor country, a country with such a large population, such desperate need — he is going to make sure that every village and town in Bangladesh has access to the Internet, has access to that marvellous store of knowledge and information up in the ether, waiting to be brought down, waiting to be brought down to educate youngsters, to provide opportunities, to bring in the knowledge of the world to help the most desperate people in the world.</p>
<p>It is a seductive image, to bring knowledge down from mere ether for the</p>
<p>―desperate‖ people, and although the ether theory has been discredited, the metaphor lingers on and feeds the imagination of <em>developmentwalahs. </em>In reality though, information is stored in real computers, often a world away, and while it is available through Internet, everyone, poor peasants of Bangladesh included, must access it through an Internet service provider, a decent computer and above all, stable supply of electricity, commodities not in ample supply in rural Bangladesh. And even after all that there are caveats; for instance, ten times as much garbage than genuine information clutter the cyberspace, and unless our rural folks are discriminatory and judicious users of internet, they could be misled in their search for information as innocuous as how to grow better onion.</p>
<p>While I hesitate to take a stand that might dampen the national enthusiasm for the cyber era, I would like to point out a few realities of our villages that have occurred to me during my recent frequent trips to a particular Bangladeshi village. And that village happens to be the one that I grew up in the sixties.</p>
<p>While much has changed since then the issues related to development education literacy etc have remained fairly similar in spite of the cyber era.</p>
<p>From the age of four till I turned nine I was taught, in a village, by a man named Maulavi Abdul Ghani who was my teacher of the Quran, arithmetic, Bangla, Social Studies and English. Early in the morning he used to arrive, often walking briskly, from a neighbouring village. In winter months we would see him</p>
<p>materialize, suddenly from thick fog that used to accumulate in the plain. In the following several hours he would teach me and my cousins and other rural kids rudimentary Arabic as well as how to read the Quran, and then after a break would change into being the teacher of the local primary school. Our learning tools included the conventional black board, chalk and a duster, and a healthy supply of dried tamarind seed with which we wrote both Bangla and English on the dirt floor of the school.</p>
<p>We often collected mud from the neighbouring fishpond and made model cars, sculptures etc with that mud. We used to collect flowers and rubbed soda and alkali on them seeing how flowers changed colours which gave us basic ideas of dyes and PH. It was learning through interacting with the elements of nature and with materials available from the local area.</p>
<p>Maulavi Abdul Ghani was a demanding taskmaster without a shadow of any sense of inferiority about the humble school of which he was the only teacher. Rather, he would often invite us to measure ourselves against people like Ghandhi, Jinnah and Suhrawardi.</p>
<p>A seed was planted in me in that bucolic hinterland of a village; a seed of daring curiosity, a home-grown pride, and learning so intimately linked to nature and elements that it became an organic part of my self. Looking back and many universities of world calibre later, I still remember those dew-soaked mornings of learning rapid-fire mental arithmetic, those tamarind seeds that taught me how to write Bangla and English alphabets and the sticky mud of the flood plains of Sylhet that taught me how to carve a shape out of clay.</p>
<p>All the ingredients of good education was there for me then in that village and it is there now for the kids who are now learning in that village. However, what is Missing is Maulavi Abdul Ghani. A man with intellectual rigour, simplicity, prides and punctuality all parcelled in a deceptively humble and incredible chutzpah-filled personality. That inability, a failure to produce teachers like him has become the biggest problem of our rural education.</p>
<p>I recently met the state Minister of Education who was visiting Australia along with a high-powered delegation from the ministry of education. I met them surrounded by important people representing Australian Government, our High Commissioner to Australia, and many other dignitaries. It was not an atmosphere congenial for debate on the strategy of our education but I did mention the bit about Maulavi Abdul Ghani, and the tamarind seeds to the Minister. I also told him that we in Bangladesh always had a healthy tradition of primary and secondary education that our improvement must flow organically from what we had before and anything new, particularly anything from a culture</p>
<p>as different as Australia will invariably lead to teething problems. There are fundamental differences in how teachers are looked at and treated in Bangladesh compared to western countries for example. I do not think I made a good impression with my love of the ancient Bangladeshi ways. An atmosphere of uncritical technophilia and hype has been generated around Internet and technology and expectations have been raised through publicity in a way that perhaps cannot be fulfilled.</p>
<p>In this clamour it is often forgotten that there is no real substitute for actual cognitive changes through education, changes that need emotion-laden attentiveness, a genuine love and close encounter with the learning material, and development of sensory faculties through patience, guidance and actual interaction with nature. These basic human aspects of learning are immutable and cannot be substituted by any cyber experience. Internet mediated learning is simply a tool, like the printing press was a tool and is not a substitute for actual thinking and learning.</p>
<p>Thus in our head -long fascination for the cyber era we should not forget the good old primary school teaching, of mud-strewn sculpturing, mental arithmetic learnt through rote chanting, and language learnt through actual descriptions of nature experienced through our senses. Along with these essentials our kids can also learn how to download information from ―cyber-space‖ and how to use Internet search engines to find the desired information, and even how to make a web page of their school.</p>
<p>Let us let our village kids learn, if we indeed can afford to so, how to use internet based virtual education, but only as an adjunct to, and not as a substitute of the real earthy education that we already have in place in our schools. And in our newfound fascination for computers let us not forget that we need more teachers like Maulavi Abdul Ghani.</p>
<p>And by the way, General Powel, our villages might appear poor seen through American eyes, but believe me, there is more resourcefulness there than there is desperation.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Science</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">technology:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Hoping</span> <span style="color: #003366;">for</span> <span style="color: #003366;">a</span> <span style="color: #003366;">miraculous</span> <span style="color: #003366;">cognition</span></h1>
<p>Technological breakthroughs are reported with a dizzying frequency these days. Hardly a week goes by without us hearing of yet another wonder discovery occurring somewhere. The human genome has been sequenced, gene therapy is about to become common, cloned animal are routine, cloned babies are just round the corner, and genetically modified food will end poverty and hunger for food. These claims, though with a degree of substance in them, also contain the usual hyperbole and are often described without appropriate consideration being made of the timing, extent and context.</p>
<p>Yes human genome has been sequenced and we know of our genetic blueprint at the level of DNA, the macromolecule that defines life. But going from this discovery to therapeutic molecular medicines for every human malady is still a long journey. The spin-offs coming out of the sequencing has given rise to a huge industry, but mostly it is outside the reach of countries like Bangladesh. Cloning is often described as a hyped-up caricature, stoking the popular imagination and almost turning it into a spectacle of science fiction. It is often not reported that cloning is inherently an error-prone process generating a lot more sick and nonviable organisms than successful identical subjects, although the latter category generates the publicity.</p>
<p>The wastefulness of the process could well be temporary; and successful viable cloning could become routine in near future. But clearly, even a low level of impaired and sub-optimal success would create a huge ethical dilemma for human cloning. Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs have become a tinderbox in dialogues that are occurring in developing countries. The debate is often confused with other equally important issues such as monoculture in agriculture with consequent loss of biodiversity, the increasing control by multinational corporation of agriculture and food production system and a fair- go for the developing countries in the world trade organization (WTO) regime.</p>
<p>Technology is intrinsically tied to the power structure of the world and this creates enormous problem on the path of a clear-headed pragmatic dialogue about the utility of vital technologies for the alleviation of poverty. Many development activists, left-leaning personalities working with the poor, and liberal opinion makers without a detailed knowledge of technology often take a stand that is directed against a particular encroachment, arrogance and monopolization by an entity wielding unjustifiable power. But these objections, and the activisms that accompany it often take an anti-technology position.</p>
<p>Perhaps unwittingly, technology itself gets branded as a problem through default and an anti-technology Luddite platform gets strengthened.</p>
<p>In reality there is no reason why technology must remain the handmaiden of the rich and the powerful. Countries with strong socialistic ethos such as China and Cuba have made technology a major focus of their development. In China GM organisms have been released with no official objection leading to huge boost in the production of cotton. Vietnam has made technological adaptation a bedrock of their rural development. In Cuba Fidel Castro himself takes keen interest in technology including biotechnology. In countries with a free-market economy, technology is often touted and applied by private-enterprise organizations; and while global monopolization has occurred in many sectors leading to suspicion and distrust, the technology itself is available for any country that might want to make use of it.</p>
<p>However for resource poor countries such as Bangladesh, non-investment in R&D has been a huge shortcoming. While immaculate houses are built or rented for Ministers, ambassadors, and while huge delegations peregrine the globe in mere talk fests, virtually no money is available for Science and Technology or strengthening the country‘s infrastructure. Bangladesh could easily have participated in the international efforts of sequencing of the genome of rice, a plant of national importance, by simply curtailing the excesses of some our diplomatic missions. That participation and the resultant intellectual property would have given us enormous clout in the arena of agricultural science. The same thing could be said of research on malaria, use of genomics in medicine, or the whole new field of research on molecular and genomic biology of plants and animals. Having a national lab of consequence in these areas will not need a huge amount of money. While Bangladesh is not an affluent country it can tighten her belt and obtain that kind of fund easily. What is needed is a national will and a belief in our ability as a nation. If necessary, a national levy similar to one instituted for the Jamuna Bridge should be initiated to raise the critical seed fund for targeted research and development of national importance.</p>
<p>We need to obtain funds by reducing our expenses. Our national leaders, top bureaucrats, diplomats do lead a life of profligate spending. I have visited residences of ambassadors of Bangladesh in Europe, USA and Australia; there is plenty of scope of reducing their expenditure and saving money. One room less in the ambassadorial residence in every country where our missions exist would not reduce convenience too much and yet it might generate enough money for a functional laboratory of molecular genetics for the nation. While it is important for our missions to uphold the dignity of the nation and appropriate funding should be made available to them, it is equally important for our missions to be</p>
<p>national outposts of dignified thrift, efficiency without ostentation, and places where ideas and technologies can the gathered, discussed and then disseminated back home. I am not aware of any diplomatic service officer who has even a cursory interest or background in science and technology. Regarding the facilities and performance of diplomatic missions our benchmark should be countries such as Vietnam, Costa Rica, ad Sri Lanka and not countries like Norway, or USA.</p>
<p>We can obtain part of this crucial fund by simply moving our diplomatic premises to less expensive locales in the expensive capitals of the countries of Europe and USA. Countries with a focus on national performance and goal rather than national pomp and prestige (e.g., Vietnam) often save money this way for crucial endeavours. We have to remember that our prestige as a nation will come from our strength in Science, Technology and other creative endeavours and not from the size, splendour or locales of our ambassadorial mansions.</p>
<p>Part of this money can be obtained in Bangladesh itself by sacrificing some of the facilities that our VIPs enjoy, like cars driven by chauffeurs taking their families in running numerous errands or shopping, by reducing the size of the houses and constructing enclaves with apartments where secretaries and even Ministers could live. It is a sorry site to see Ministers who are hardly ever value for the huge sum of money they extract from the treasury living in such profligate excesses while the brightest scientists of the nation commuting in crowded buses and not having a decent apartment for their families. This lop-sidedness lead to brain-drain, causing our brightest mind to become victims of despair and cynicism and looking for greener pastures even before they have had a decent chance in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh it is always the big fat unproductive top that is destabilising the precarious bottom; we have a perpetually unstable, perennially fragile inverted pyramid of a nation.</p>
<p>For the sake of the nation I invite the rich, the powerful, the wise and the senior to think of this problem for a moment. I would like to invite them to come out of the obfuscation, the self-importance and the grandiose posturing and look at what is happening intently directly and without hubris. Anybody with an iota of sincerity would immediately see that we have constructed a very unfair system through which we are failing to invest, appropriate and marshal resources for our future. And through this slothful cowardice we have become dependent on outsiders who are now ordering us around. This dependence and the consequent humiliation is a result of our failure of making hard choices based on pragmatism, courage and a belief in our own abilities.</p>
<p>That self-discovery is the seemingly unsurmountable challenge that we now face. While I sometimes fear for the worst, I am often tempted to believe in a new cognition that might dawn on us all soon. I believe in miracles.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Our</span> <span style="color: #003366;">intellects</span> <span style="color: #003366;">only</span> <span style="color: #003366;">for</span> <span style="color: #003366;">hire?</span></h1>
<p>I was invited to a dinner in Canberra where I found myself sitting between a senior but retired Australian parliamentarian and a visiting senior member of the Bangladesh parliament, a man of precise manners and quiet dignity. The Australian parliamentarian at one point turned to the honoured guest from Bangladesh and asked: ―So, Excellency, what are your plans for the future of your country? How can we help?‖</p>
<p>It was one of those expansive dinner-table questions, sufficiently vague and partly rhetorical and so did not really require a precise answer.</p>
<p>But the leader from Bangladesh was animated. With voice becoming almost strident in his genuinely felt enthusiasm, he replied, ―We want to export our manpower to your country, please help us‖. The lady, a past doyenne of the Australian parliament, looked at me and asked; ―So what do you think about that?‖</p>
<p>Even though I was sandwiched between two kind soft people, I felt like I was stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. ―Exporting manpower‖, the avowed and endlessly repeated national motto, is one of those slogans that sound patriotic and dynamic back in Dhaka, but here at this table, where we were all pretending to be genteel and equal, it sounded like a cruel joke. ―Why do you want to export our valuable people?‖ I found myself muttering feebly, crying my heart out and at the same time making it virtually inaudible so as not to dampen the obvious spirit of the guest.</p>
<p>Indeed, as I asked many others and myself many times after that dinner, why do we want to export our people, our ―manpower‖, with lesser compunction than exporting natural gas? What the leader from Bangladesh seemed to be suggesting was that Australia should be ready to accept a limitless number of educated trained work-force from Bangladesh with a great deal of enthusiasm for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>Indeed it would be a great thing for Australia. In recent years much of the educated and trained work force in the field of agriculture, aviation, and marine science has migrated from Bangladesh to Australia thereby offering to Australia skilled migrants for which Australia made no investment. But each of these people represents literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment from Bangladesh, starting from their publicly funded early education to their subsequent training and higher education often in developed countries such as the USA, Canada and Australia. Often this higher education and targeted training was funded by money earmarked for the development of Bangladesh. Instead, these crucial people opted to take up jobs in Australia, Canada and other developed countries depriving Bangladesh the opportunity of their services.</p>
<p>Bangladesh government, instead of lamenting this unacceptable situation and taking remedial measures, in fact welcomes it, and lobbies hard in foreign capitals so that more such people can get employment outside the country with the lame excuse that there are no jobs for them back home.</p>
<p>So what is our national vision statement, if there is one, regarding our skilled work force? That they will get educated in Bangladesh using public money and then will be exported overseas where they will stay and send money back home! Apparently, Bangladesh simply needs foreign cash for her survival, she doesn‘t need homegrown ideas, nor does she want educated local boys and girls to come back and make the country a vibrant competitive place in science technology, trade and commerce. It seems to me that Bangladeshi planners have aspirations for the country to be like a family where one foreign currency earner living abroad finances the well being of those who live back home. It somehow seems easy, this scheme, where the national energy, vibrancy and intellect can be sold for easy cash. It is justified by saying that we have too many people, that we need them more to make money for the country overseas than we need them back home.</p>
<p>To some extent that may be true regarding a work force involved in construction, peacekeeping, or domestic help. But what about aviation engineers, agronomists, horticulturists, doctors, teachers, economists, and accountants? Do we have them is such large supply that we make a blanket policy of exporting them without any regard to the national need?</p>
<p>I did a brief anecdotal survey of Dhaka University based on people I knew mainly in the science faculty, engineering and architecture. More than 90% of the bright students that I knew in each of these disciplines now live overseas in a way that they have become virtually invisible from the point of view of</p>
<p>Bangladesh‘s needs. Not only are they not in Bangladesh, there is no evidence that they are engaged in a substantial way in any activities that relate to</p>
<p>Bangladesh. I personally know some of these absolutely brilliant people; together, they represent a whole generation of intellect of our struggling nation. They often yearn to do something for the country, but it seems that the country wants them out.</p>
<p>One of course hears the usual litany from our leaders; it is dispensed in expatriate gatherings, urging people to work for the welfare of the nation, warning them against ―information terrorism‖ and exhorting them to uphold the image of the nation. There is a theatre of the absurd going on in many foreign capitals where Bangladeshis, in a zeal as complex as a psychodrama, re-enact the vendetta-prone <em>desi</em> politics of the homeland in overseas capitals. I am not talking about that saga involving our expatriate politicians that generates huge publicity. Rather, I am talking about harnessing the genuine talent of the best brains of several generations which is now lost to the country forever unless these people are given a robust chance to participate in nation building.</p>
<p>The government should do several things to stem the tide by which we are being deprived of these talents that belongs to Bangladesh. There should be a national assessment of skills that we need in the country, skills that are critical for our technological survival and improvement and the government and private sector should coordinate and try their best to lure good people back home. China and India have done that successfully. Our visiting dignitaries should scout foreign countries for ideas and potential collaborations and joint enterprises rather than simply offering the services of our people everywhere. We should never say that we want to ―export our manpower‖. That terminology itself displays callousness to one‘s own people. A more sophisticated slogan or intent should be searched for and utilized instead of this archaic and rude jargon.</p>
<p>Why not invite some of our best technical minds on sabbatical leave to local institutions? There used to be a program run by UNDP called TOKTEN, to bring technical experts of the ―south‖ to come back to ―south‖ for a brief period. Our governments, NGOs and private sector could start something like that. Our embassies, consulates, high commissions are sadly inactive in this potential venture. With important exceptions, Heads of our Missions overseas are sometimes caught up in either shenanigans reinforcing their pomposity and self- importance, or are busy playing hosts to the endless stream of dignitaries and their relatives from Dhaka. Our missions in New York, Washington, London, and Paris are often glorified travel agencies and hotels for our elites from Dhaka. There is precious little time left on the part of our diplomatic service people after hosting the VIPs and their families that keep coming.</p>
<p>Our embassies should become outposts of pro-active strategic thinking regarding our development. Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of USA and a</p>
<p>man of colossal intellect made it obligatory that each US ambassador brought seeds of crops, fruits etc back from whichever country they were posted to.</p>
<p>America evolved from a country of only one or two indigenous crops to a nation of diverse and plentiful crops and mighty in agronomy and crop cultivation. All thanks to the progressive policy of Jefferson. I have seen many suave, well- dressed and sophisticated ambassadors of Bangladesh in many foreign capitals. I am not aware of any who ever contemplated carrying a few seeds back home when they went there during vacation. In my ten years in USA I have never heard of a Bangladeshi ambassador ever visiting a major scientific establishment of that country.</p>
<p>We, a nation of awesome problems, stunning challenges and needs, unfortunately have very callous and cavalier elite. And to keep the soft and lazy option alive these ruling elite are bartering away our people, rather than positioning them through leadership in a network of vision and enterprise.</p>
<p>Incapable of fashioning a challenging course of national will and action, our</p>
<p>leaders have found it convenient to simply pawn our brightest people‘s talent at the door of the highest bidder. It is a system-loss of generational intellect, and our barren future will surely testify to this crazy folly.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Time</span> <span style="color: #003366;">to</span> <span style="color: #003366;">know</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">process,</span> <span style="color: #003366;">not</span> <span style="color: #003366;">only</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">content</span></h1>
<p>For some reason all the expectations and hype for the new millennium seem to have died now. Since our species discovered time, events are packaged, demarcated, analysed and pondered over in neat packages. We call them days, weeks, years, decades, centuries and millennia. This delineation is a human activity; actual time is of course fluid and seamless. But the seamless primordial fluidity of time inevitably brings discrete changes in objects both celestial and living: the earth, the moon, the trees and human bodies. We recognise these changes and call them seasons; they define circadian rhythms and diurnal biological clocks. Time, both the primordial time that changes us and the constructed cerebral time of digital watches and yearly calendars, influences us, makes us dream, instils in us a belief in idealised events that one day may come and redeem us. We call that notion optimism. We are lucky, we tell ourselves, that we are alive to see a new millennium begin. Such colossal transition of demarcated time is seen to be a holy episode in its own right.</p>
<p>However, these enthusiasms do not last long. Soon we realise that even a sublime realisation of time‘s august transition cannot change human nature. We realise that we harbour in us an entity that is primal and to a large extent immutable, an entity comprising hubris, selfishness, apathy in one extreme and naïve dreaming, expectant yearnings and a craving for love on the other. Human nature, that grandiose concept that engages the minds of great philosophers, remains eternally embedded in this complex destiny defined by biology and environment. Millennium or not, we go on being just the same old self we have always been — part angel, part demon, but always so refreshingly human.</p>
<p>Why are we the way we are? In this cloudy morning in Canberra an appetite for introspection grips me. It is not the subjective analysis of the personal self, but a scientific self-assessment of what I consider to be the human condition. A condition partly defined by the biological apparatus of the grand continuum of organisms, and partly by the presumptive higher faculties that define the lofty human traits. So what is our unique legacy as a biological organism, and what is our signature as an entity that might have transcended biology and become something greater?</p>
<p>These are grand questions of philosophy and have engaged the minds of the greatest thinkers of all times. Humbled though I am by these questions, I think it is time that they become topics to be discussed by ―common men‖. For I think that behind the bulky bodies of these seemingly grandiose questions are hiding the answers of many of our problems. Answers those are common to all people</p>
<p>because they are distilled from an understanding of the human condition, answers that might allow us to make a better society for all of us.</p>
<p>For most of the time that humanity has been self-aware, these questions have engaged our minds. In fact, it is through these questions that we define our higher consciousness that separates us from other organisms. But intriguing and old though these questions are, they have mostly been dealt with at the level of their contents and never at the level of their processes. So when we think something, we are aware of what we are thinking about, but we never worry about how it is that we are thinking the thought that we are thinking. When we like someone we are aware of it and know the mental image that the feeling of that liking brings, but we never think or know the process by which this adoring image and feeling is being mediated. We take the autonomy and presence of our feelings as a given condition, almost like an objective reality. We seem to think that just like the sun, the moon and the stars exist, just like my hands; my feet and my body exist, so exist these feelings of mine.</p>
<p>In fact we can read such explicit proclamations of love in literature. A pubescent girl in the rapture of amorous love for her beloved might proclaim, ―If this moon and this star exist, so exists my love for you.‖ This explicit proclamation linked with objective reality is important; it shows how certain and definite we are of our feelings. Feelings are not nebulous entities — to us they are potent manifestations of our very existence. Similarly, with regard to all our other non- amorous feelings such as grief, hate, jealousy, and fear, we dwell on the content but almost never on the process. There exists a biological screen by which the processes are hidden from us.</p>
<p>As we can digest food without being aware of the acids in our stomach, sing without knowing how songs make sound waves that travel, and speak without knowing anything about our vocal chords, so it is that we can feel anger, fear, hate and hubris without knowing how it is that we have those feelings and precisely what happens to our bodies when we have them. It is the content of those feelings that engages our minds and our actions. It has been our legacy as a biological organism to just know the content and never the process. Nature has constructed us in such a way that we know only what we ―need to know‖. But in the course of human history that ―need to know‖ idea has changed. Just like modern medicine has enlightened our mind so that we can now fix our digestive maladies, or surgically fix our kidney, or transplant our blood-pumping heart, so it is that we now need to know the process of how we think in order to truly know ourselves, and if necessary to change it.</p>
<p>For almost all the known times of human history the search for the mechanics of the human mind has been the domain of just a few. We call these few the</p>
<p>philosophers, gurus, maharishis, savants. In more recent times civilisation has produced the psychologists, the psychiatrists, the tele-evangelists, or even the executives of the advertisement industry. Armed with a little knowledge of the human mind they have explored us and manipulated us, and sometimes even enlightened us. But the accumulated knowledge of all these people is little compared to what is needed to understand the human mind. It is almost like the way Physics was in the days of Aristotle or Chemistry was in the Middle Ages.</p>
<p>If I were allowed to name this new millennium, I would call it the millennium of the mind. For the first time in human history we have a real chance to decipher the mechanics of the human psyche. Armed with knowledge of all the genes that encodes and define our brain, and very fast imaging techniques such as MRI to look at the brain in real time as thoughts occur, cognitive neurobiologists are trying to understand the neuronal architecture, and linkages that define mental traits. In the parlance of neurobiology these thought-related neuronal changes are called the ―neural correlates‖ of a thought. It is the total ensemble of exchanges, all electro-chemical, that occur in the brain when we have a simple feeling like wanting a glass of water, or when we see a rose. So for the first time there will be an opportunity to know in physiological terms how the process of a thought works.</p>
<p>Will this knowledge make us wiser, nobler, or more loveable? Will it end in wars, starvation and aggressive zest for domination? Or will it lead to a flowering of a new renaissance, a renewed affirmation of creative humanity?</p>
<p>It is too early to tell. But I think it should make us more respectful of our spectacular but ultimately fragile human condition. When we realise how thoughts, ideas, dreams, and poetry are created from neuronal firings of globules of cerebral fat, when we appreciate how amazing it is that one hundred billion neurons with their thousands of linkages create a world of connections whose number is greater than the number of all the particles in the universe, surely then we will learn how precious a human being is. Surely we will understand the absurdity of killing people for the sake of a thought, a belief, a world view, a global scheme, no matter how intensely felt or cherished it is by us. Seen from the theatre where thoughts are made out of fat and neurons, it just might dawn on us that killing others is not homicide but autocide, a criminal killing of our own self. It is possible that out of the explicit study of the neural processes a new non-violent way of thinking might emerge.</p>
<p>As our Sufis and <em>Bauls</em> said long ago, a human being is like a universe. A universe is manifested in her mind through the neuronal processes, the body. Thus what she knows, what she perceives, what she yearns to become, is ultimately vested in her body. That realisation, so modern in the annals of</p>
<p>developing neuroscience through work of people like <em>Damasio</em>, is also strangely similar to the <em>Baul </em>songs of <em>Deho-totto</em>, where the body is described as the repository of all knowledge.</p>
<p>Whether we are inspired by <em>Baul</em> metaphysics, or whether we derive our inspirations from cognitive neurosciences, a time has now come for a grand synthesis of ideas. It will be part science, part arts and totally and grandly human. It will be at once analytical and spiritual. It is the deep spirituality of the biological cognition with the realization of how time‘s unswerving arrow has finally created self-knowledge out of the wanton nihilism of colliding molecules. If we are lucky, this syncretic amalgamation of the mind and the heart might occur through the understanding of the brain. If it does, it will become the mother of all renaissances. Just the sort of thing one expects to happen in a new millennium.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Pure</span> <span style="color: #003366;">science</span> <span style="color: #003366;">must</span> <span style="color: #003366;">be</span> <span style="color: #003366;">prioritised</span></h1>
<p>Arts and sciences are two different pathways to truth. The first is subjective and belongs to the realm of the mind and of aesthetics. The second, often thought to be the preserve of the few, deals with the objective reality, which is terrestrial and celestial at once.</p>
<p>In making a choice between these two different intellectual enterprises, we in Bangladesh have somehow neglected the study or pursuit of science and mathematics — the latter being the pivot of any scientific inquiry.</p>
<p>It is curious that it has turned out like this. Two civilisational and intellectual heritages of the world — those of the greater Indian and the Islamic — have had glorious traditions in the development of science and mathematics. Greater</p>
<p>India‘s emphasis on mathematics led to the discovery of the zero, one of the most important contributions to the basic discipline of mathematics. The Indian and the Arab Muslim scholars together created the modern numbering system. In more recent times, India has produced mathematicians of great genius like Ramanujam. Several scientists like C.V. Raman, Chandrasekhar, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Meghnad Saha, Abdus Salam also are from South Asia.</p>
<p>Islamic civilisation was at its height in the Middle Ages or even before produced great scientists and mathematicians. In fact much of early contributions to astronomy, chemistry and mathematics were made, and scientific pursuits flourished, when the Islamic civilisation and the society were syncretic. But the contemporary Islamic world, despite its economic riches, particularly the oil-rich West Asia, has demonstrated little inclination towards scientific pursuits and attainments. Is the chronic decline of science in Bangladesh stemming from a deep-seated cultural aberration?</p>
<p>Bengalis, particularly those from Bangladesh, have never valued science and mathematics. And the only local scientist of whom we know in recent times is the late Dr. Qudrat-e-Khuda. This poverty in the study and pursuit of scientific knowledge and mathematics stems from our cultural values, which we need to change urgently. I know of social or cultural groups who value science as much as the arts. It is enshrined in the religio-cultural value system of the Jewish people, for instance. They hold, almost as an article of faith, that learning has to be based on the acquisition of knowledge in science and mathematics on a higher plane of excellence. This cultural attribute has resulted in a disproportionate number of scientists turning out to be Jewish. The Talmudic exhortation for knowledge is something that puts a very high premium on science and mathematics. Other cultural groups who, in my opinion, highly value science</p>
<p>and mathematics include the Chinese, the South Indian Tamils and the Hungarians.</p>
<p>In Bangladesh, the buzzword now is technology and computers. These are not science or mathematics by themselves, but are products of those disciplines. The goal of a cyber society is fine; but it needs to be pointed out that computer literacy or acquisition of technology cannot be a substitute for actual science. The scientific base of knowledge remains as shallow as ever. Even the new private universities have literally jettisoned the core scientific disciplines like physics, chemistry and biology altogether and instead have concentrated on teaching business to produce some glorified managers and an apology for science under the title of ‗natural science‘. That branch used to be extant in the universities in the bygone days of Darwin.</p>
<p>These days the traditional scientific discipline of biology has broken new ground in sub-disciplines like molecular biology, genomics and bio-informatics.</p>
<p>Computers and information science or technology can help power bio- informatics research as it does not need a laboratory but high-speed Internet connection and, of course, sound theoretical scientific knowledge. The think- resource can only multiply and grow in vibrant educational environments for result-oriented researches in genetics and genomics. The traditional departments of Botany and Biochemistry in our public universities should take the lead in this regard.</p>
<p>For undertaking the task of putting science and mathematics on the pedestal and accessing ever-newer avenues of scientific knowledge, we urgently need cheerleaders and role models who will show our youth the way to scientific learning. Popular and well-known persons with backgrounds in pure science and other disciplines under it, like Chemistry Professor-turned novelist Humayun Ahmed , pharmacist-turned poet and social activist Farhad Mazhar,</p>
<p>physicist-turned Minister Dr. A. Moyeen Khan and, above all, scientist-academic- turned President of the Republic Dr. Iazuddin Ahmed, to name a few in the driving seats, could play the role in this enterprise. Our scientists, who belong to the Diaspora, should be invited to contribute in their own country either in matters consistent with their expertise or to do so in any manner they choose. I know of many who are willing or eager to help create a solid scientific knowledge base in the country, but just do not know how to go about it. The government, the NGO community and the private sector should tap into this knowledge potential.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Science</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">aesthetics:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Is</span> <span style="color: #003366;">it</span> <span style="color: #003366;">like</span> <span style="color: #003366;">oil</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">water?</span></h1>
<p>A recent essay in New Age talks about aesthetics and human creativity as a paradigm incompatible with and completely distinct from the scientific enterprise. In fact, this is a commonplace view among those engaged in both artistic and scientific endeavours. However, as I would argue in this essay, arts and sciences meet each other in a much closer harmony than is commonly conceded by either the scientists or the artists. This view of incompatibility has its root in the lack of understanding of the mechanics of our cognitive processes that mediate creative work. This is due to our unique biological legacy whereby our perceptions are conditioned, and cannot read its own deciphering, a situation that might change due to new knowledge in neurobiology. In this resistance, deep computational attributes of our brain are concealed from our commonplace self of cognition and emotion, causing us to believe that a thing of beauty is not a matter of incisive and computational understanding. The idea that painting, poetry and music, and in fact any creative art begins as a flash of inspiration without any prior analyses is an illusion of our mind. I would argue that the dichotomy between the arts and the sciences, so lamented by scientist- novelist C.P. Snow, also stems from this illusion that we harbour deep in our psyche.</p>
<p>In reality much of the decisions determining tastes and aesthetics that our brain makes, occur due to computations that are hidden from our conscious brain. Let us just talk about the visual system of our brain through which we see things.</p>
<p>The process begins with the eyes through which light carrying information of the external world falls on our retina. This information, which is a two dimensional image on the retina, is then carried to the back of our brain and is interpreted by the neurons of the visual system to create a three dimensional image of the observed objects. The neurons of the visual system take the information of the shape of the object as well as the intensity of light and shadow, and create a virtual replica of the external reality. It is the recreated virtual image of the external world, a creation of our brain that we perceive as our visual reality. So, for instance, when we lose the ability to respond to blue colour due to a brain lesion, we do not have the subjective imprint of blue any more even though objectively blue is still there in the world.</p>
<p>This neuronal interpretation of the visual world requires that we have rules embedded in our brain that interpret the information it receives. Because of these embedded rules, and their inherent assumptions, the brain can create for us something much greater than the actual input stimuli it receives. These rules and</p>
<p>assumptions are in part our biological attribute and in part traits acquired after we are born. We all have part of these assumptions hard-wired in the brain. For instance, our brain ―knows‖ that light in nature comes from the top. If it didn‘t know that it could not interpret whether an image is concave or convex, then we wouldn‘t see objects of the visual world in a readily interpretable way.</p>
<p>Similarly, specialised neurons respond to vertical lines, horizontal lines, and to objects that are in motion such as a galloping horse. It seems that we have a whole separate visual apparatus to recognise human faces that is different from the apparatus used to recognise objects that are not faces.</p>
<p>All these ideas are results of new research of cognitive neurobiology and not just an opinion or a conjecture.</p>
<p>How are these facts and ideas of the human visual system relevant to visual creativity? Semir Zeki, a celebrated neurobiologist of the visual system, has given a brilliant interpretation of how our visual creativity is constructed out of these assumptions and rules inherent in our brain. According to Zeki our visual brain learns about an object by studying it visually from many angles and then constructing in the brain a visual ―essence‖ of that object. So later, no matter from which angle we see that object, we recognise it. We harbour within us an</p>
<p>all-encompassing memory of the ―essence‖ of that object. It is precisely because of this knowledge of the essence that we can recognise a face from its cartoon drawings and economical line drawings without any depicted details.</p>
<p>Zeki then takes a creative leap and suggests that visual artists also search for this essence in their conscious quest of artistic creativity. So what the brain ―knows‖ but hides from most of us, is precisely what the artist searches for and perhaps finds partially. It is that search for the essence of an object that caused Picasso to paint a face from many angles and juxtapose them as one face, thus initiating the search of visual truth of cubism.</p>
<p>Another cognitive neurobiologist, Villanur Ramachandaran, has put an eastern spin to this idea. He suggests that what the sages of Indian subcontinent have described as ―rasa‖ of an object (or an idea or indeed of life) is nothing but this</p>
<p>process by which the brain computes, analyses and finally memorises the essence of things that it encounters.</p>
<p>This computation and analyses is done by the awesome power of about one hundred billion neurons linked to each other in one to ten thousand ways. Much of that computation occurs without our conscious knowledge and is an integral part of the physiology of our brain.</p>
<p>Only rarely, due to some malfunction of the brain, human beings get access to that awesome computational knowledge. Children who get that access often</p>
<p>have an impaired functional life. Many of them are described as ―idiot savants‖. They can paint like Picasso without ever consciously learning how to paint or play Piano like Mozart without ever learning to play piano. The most celebrated case of a child genius of the visual system was a three-year-old English girl called Nadia who without any lessons on painting could paint horses as though they were sketches made by Picasso himself. Autistic Nadia had this amazing ability at the age of three when she couldn‘t even speak a single word. Intriguingly, later as she was taught language and normal social skills, her ability to paint disappeared. There is increasing realization that many geniuses including probably Mozart and Einstein were afflicted by a milder form of autism called Aspergers syndrome.</p>
<p>This relationship between brain processes and art also holds for completely non- representational abstractions such as juxtaposition and arrangement of lines.</p>
<p>Abstract painters such as Mondrian appeals to the part of the brain that interprets horizontal and vertical lines. We like those abstract arrangements of sparse lines because it pleases the sense of symmetry etched in the logic of the brain. That symmetry was created in the brain so that we could interpret the natural world to our advantage but the artistic process can now use it to provide us pleasure that does not have any obvious survival value any more. This is in fact the unique attribute of the creative process; it uses a utilitarian machine within us and by stimulating it, can create a feeling of the sublime.</p>
<p>All painters, as a part of their craft, have some conscious access to the intricacy of the visual system. The really gifted ones have it as a genetic endowment while others learn it through apprenticeship of the craft. In the human society when this knowledge reached a peak, we had renaissance and Leonardo. A renaissance man thus had some access to both the processes and the content of the knowledge of the creative process without having to realise it explicitly, perhaps.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>When a painter creates a piece of art, he applies this implicit knowledge to create a painting that satisfies him. What comes out of this creative process contains in it motifs, icons, and visual clues that the brain analyses and deems to be</p>
<p>satisfactory based on rules embedded in the logic of the artist‘s brain. We the observer then relate to the visual splash, the symmetry, and the contrast, precisely because of the way our own visual system, mirrors the attributes of the visual system of the artist. By playing out these organic rules of neuronal computations we, the artist and the spectator, get connected to each other through a sense of this ―precise-yet-intangible‖ the essence, the ―<em>rasa”</em>.</p>
<p>And through this connection, in a way not yet widely appreciated among the literati of the world, the science integral to our body‘s cognitive-emotional system creates for us something that is truly beyond science and body. That is the subjective feeling of the sublime that we call art.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Synaesthesia:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Synthesis</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">senses</span></h1>
<p>Aesthetics is derived from the word aesthesia, literally meaning consciousness. Aesthetics is thus formally related to consciousness although it has acquired a more popular but restricted meaning in the artistic sense and sensibility.</p>
<p>The other meaning of aesthesia is also in use though not so popular anymore. For instance, before an invasive surgery in the body, one needs to be made unconscious, that is, anaesthetized. Similarly, when our sensory pathways are linked together, we experience synaesthesia, or linking of our senses, a neurological term mostly used by psychologists. In about one in five thousand people of the world, such linking of senses occurs in a physiological and clearly identifiable way. They report actually hearing colours, tasting shapes, and seeing coloured words, as if, dancing right in front of their eyes, when they hear someone utter a sentence. While synaesthesia is a medical condition indicating a benign brain phenotype, its properties bring up important questions about creativity and how our senses are linked during hearing, seeing, learning and thinking.</p>
<p>Many creative people, both artists and scientists, are synaesthetic. Of the most famous among them is Vladimir Nabokov, the famous novelist and a winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. He comes from a family of synaesthetics, including his mother and aunts. Painter Kandinsky, poet Baudelaire, physicist Feynmann, filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein were all synaesthetics.</p>
<p>For many others, and particularly the poets, such an attribution is more difficult as their creative use of metaphors automatically transgresses senses. Take for instance Rabindranath Tagore, one of the greatest poets of the recent epoch. The lyric of one of his famous compositions says: ―<em>When I see the world through a song, it is only then that I recognize you</em>‖ (my translation and italics).</p>
<p>This idea of seeing through a song; is it just a poetic metaphor; or did he actually see things as he wrote lyric? And if he did have vivid images flashing before his mind‘s eye as he wrote this song; would it be considered just creativity of imagination or actual physiological synaesthesia? To my knowledge Rabindranath was never reported as being a synaesthetic in a clinical sense like Kandinsky or Nabokov but his writing is full of syn-aesthetic references making one wonder if his senses were physiologically linked in a way more profound than just through trans-sensual metaphors. Poems of Jibananda Das are also replete with synaesthetic metaphors. Neurobiologists explain synaesthesia by postulating real neuronal links that connect one sense organ such as the eye with a brain region normally designated for another sense organ such as the ear. In</p>
<p>that model, actual neuronal link connects the regions of the brain, so that the synaesthetic has the subjective feeling of experiencing one sense when in reality he is receiving sensory stimuli from the other. For Kandisnky, this feeling of linked senses influenced his art. For a long period of his career, he attempted to depict music through painting. Many critics say that in that venture he was not greatly successful. His canvas is full of musical motifs, as though he was trying to make the canvas express the musical notes. Many other artists, perhaps more metaphorically than synaesthetically, make their paintings speak, or make their words come alive.</p>
<p>When we ask someone, if s/he understands something, we habitually ask, ―do you see what I mean?‖ Is this wish to make people ‗see‘, just verbal mannerism or our subconscious attempt to link our verbal sense with a visual one, which has been enshrined in our language?</p>
<p>I would like to argue that all education and learning is also an inner quest for synaesthesia. Take for instance, the process of learning music through musical notations and symbols. To someone who cannot read music, the symbols are mere gibberish and evoke no sensory response. However for someone who learns how to read music, the symbols excite the centres of hearing and as s/he reads the notations s/he can actually ―hear‖ the notes. Similarly the symbolic stimuli of reading a book are instantly translated into a sense of touch, smell and sound. This idea can be extended to all learning, including learning of new languages, whereby unknown phonetic ―noise‖ is suddenly made evocative through words creating stimuli of vision, pleasure and pain. In fact, language has the complex ability of marshalling and conjoining senses by uttering only little bytes of sound, a uniquely human gift, often linked to human consciousness. It is this ability of language to link the concrete with the abstract and also to connect various senses together makes it such a powerful vehicle of communication.</p>
<p>Why is it that so many creative people are synaesthetic? Do the novel and accidental physiological trans-linkages of sensory centres give them a unique ability of encountering the universal, the essence of all creativity? Or is it their quest for metaphoric and abstract thinking since the early childhood that creates novel physical linkages in their brain.</p>
<p>Linking of senses also have great usefulness for stimulating memory and thus could play an important role in teaching. There are two powerful avenues by which we can consolidate our learning so that it becomes an integral part of our usable memory. One of them is learning through emotion and the other is learning through sensory linkages. Learning through emotion is a broad topic that I will discuss elsewhere. Learning through linked senses is something that is entrenched in our traditional learning system. In rural Bangladesh and in small</p>
<p>towns, in the evenings one can hear students reading aloud memorizing their lines. It is thought that memory works when one reads and also hears at the same time. It is better to see, touch, smell and taste a mango in order to really know about a mango. When children learn how to write it is better if they use real objects to make the words, be they plastic blocks or be they dried tamarind seeds that I used to use in my childhood. And when a work-dictum practiced by musical rhyme, it is lives on in memory for a lifetime.</p>
<p>It is clear that traditional societies have tried to link senses through formal procedures of learning. With time we have anaesthetized ourselves to many of these practices. For many children, writing and reading have become a silent, colourless exercise. Mathematics is often much too sterile and abstract because it only involves a mind engaged with pen and paper, desensitised and silent. And listening to rain-drops fall on corrugated iron roof, or later to listen to crickets and frogs as they break the silence of the rainy night, well, is kind of reliving synaesthetically the nights of our distant past. Real, concrete, conscious senses, our aesthesia, are disappearing from our education, our lives, our thinking. We must reclaim them and consolidate them in our psyche through enriching linkages.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Science</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Poetry:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Brain</span> <span style="color: #003366;">matters</span></h1>
<p>One of the most flattering compliments I have ever received during my science studies linked me to poetry. I was a Ph.D. student in the US and was invited to speak at a scientific conference. Having been allotted only a 10-minute slot to tell my story, I used a very unconventional methodology in giving a seminar.</p>
<p>Instead of starting with the preamble and the premise and then arrive at the inference or the conclusion, I chose to work backward.</p>
<p>It was difficult on my part to convey my message within the allotted time. I delivered the talk in the unconventional inverse order and did not think much about it any more. Later in the evening, when we were all relaxing by a lakeside restaurant after a gruelling day of talk fest, an elderly person approached me. He happened to be a luminary in the scientific field of my work. Once I recognized him, I was petrified because he was known to possess a notorious streak of shredding to pieces the novitiates unmercifully. But in the mellow and the fleeting light and shade of the night, he did not seem to be severe. Shaking my hands with genuine warmth, he congratulated me on my talk. It was, he said</p>
<p>―short, sweet and poetic‖.</p>
<p>We all like compliments, although I suspected that my senior colleague was just being kind to a younger colleague. Later, I often thought of the episode and the special significance it carried for me. Because I did like to think of myself as a poet. Since my childhood, I have always fancied rhyming words and have felt the exultations and despair in crafting the lines. Maybe, I thought to myself, the way I inverted the talk and juxtaposed the logic struck him as highly imaginative and refreshing. Maybe, I daydreamed that there was a special way to be poetic in science after all. I kept thinking like that for a while, dreaming up scientific ideas along the lines of the minimalism of a haiku, the dark imageries of Baudelaire, the naturalism of Wordsworth, or the eccentricities of E.E. Cummings. It was a naïve and wishful thought. And of course I had to soon revert to more prosaic demands of writing a thesis so that I could get a job.</p>
<p>So my understanding of science in terms of poetry was put behind and perhaps was gathering neural dust somewhere in the sub-conscious. More recently I have become aware of it again, and this time through my increasing interest and fascination for neurobiology. For it is in the brain and the cognitive process that both scientific ideas and poetry reside.</p>
<p>Poetry has two meanings, one literal and verbal and the other more philosophical and inspirational. The literal process of stringing words belongs to the realm of form and prosody. A flight of birds framed against the crimson halo</p>
<p>of the evening sky is poetic, the murmur of the leaves sounding whispers in the wind in the silence of the night is poetic. Also is poetic the forlorn pathos of a flute, the visual serenity of a river, and perhaps also the juxtaposition of ideas finally coming to a novel and startling conclusion. And it is in that final sense; through a catholic journey on the path of poetry science can also be poetic.</p>
<p>It is in that sense of poetry that the deciphering of the structure of benzene by the Chemist Kekule was made from the poetic imagery of a snake biting its own tail; with a similar poetic analogy Einstein arrived at an elegant mathematical solution that linked mass and energy. In that grand sense poetry is a description of nature, be it in strings of words and be it through an understanding of a new arena of science. And ultimately both of these enterprises, science and poetry, reside in our body, more specifically in our brain.</p>
<p>Emily Dickinson, an icon among poets knew of this connection between brain and the splendours world of poetry. In a poignant poem, long before the study of the brain became a modern science, she wrote:</p>
<p>THE brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side,</p>
<p>The one the other will include With ease, and you beside.</p>
<p>The brain is deeper than the sea, For, hold them, blue to blue, The one the other will absorb, As sponges, buckets do.</p>
<p>The brain is just the weight of God, For, lift them, pound for pound, And they will differ, if they do,</p>
<p>As syllable from sound.</p>
<p>I say Amen to that.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">A</span> <span style="color: #003366;">letter</span> <span style="color: #003366;">from</span> <span style="color: #003366;">America</span></h1>
<p>For resuscitating the memory of long-forgotten faces, there is nothing like stratospheric heights. Every time I am in a plane I find myself remembering faces that I had long since forgotten. The vantage point of an all-encompassing physical vision somehow opens up the floodgates of lost water that we call memory. As the plane, poised for descent, circled over the US city of San Francisco, I suddenly remembered in vivid detail the face of my friend Paul Samoza, a Nicaraguan-American, who for me defined much that was good about America. The surname-sake of the despised dictator, and happily not related to him, Paul befriended me on the basis of what I looked like, a reassuring link in a foreign country for a newcomer. This liking in a way was like the comfort of looking at the mirror. For Paul and I, in spite of our dissimilar backgrounds, shared a visual resemblance. And this resemblance, in a funny sort of way, brings Latinos and South Asians together. For the two years that I knew him well he called me ―amigo‖ rather than by my name.</p>
<p>As my plane swooped down and I could see the Golden Gate Bridge and imagined the frothy blue water out in the horizon crashing against Highway 1, an area that Paul and I often visited together. I remembered Paul‘s last words to me as we parted, ―This land,‖ he had said, meaning northern California, ―is God‘s country. Let‘s hope, amigo, we‘ll meet again here.‖</p>
<p>Needless to say I seem to have lost touch with Paul forever. I knew him during my student days in Oregon and we often made trips to northern California together, visiting small farming communities along the California coast and inland. We saw towns called Chico, Mount Shasta. We also toured an area known worldwide for its wine, the Napa Valley.</p>
<p>Driving with Paul‘s Latin friends used to be a genuine pleasure. Quick-witted, warm and hedonistic, they personified the charm of simple affection-drenched living and what they described as the ―true spirit of America‖. They say that Americans have derived inspiration from their ancient roots —the Mayans and the Aztecs — and mixed with it the easy gaiety of Spain and her dances and music. Gaiety that was part Moorish via Andalusia and part African via the Caribbean immigrants. The festive peasant songs sung with the dazzling crescendo of the guitar reverberated through the pick-up truck as we meandered through the valley, sometimes cherry-picking in a farm, sometimes stopping by a hot-spring for a bath, but always in the end talking about history. The history of Paul‘s America, of the arid valleys of Texas merging into Mexico, of how the Latino people lost Texas to the gringos, and finally about the recent deprivations</p>
<p>of the whole of south and Central America. And, as if to exemplify all this with appropriate metaphor, Paul‘s own sister was called America, a fifteen-year-old girl who lived in a village near Managua and whose Polaroid picture Paul always carried with him.</p>
<p>As I stood in the long queue for immigration in the San Francisco airport, I momentarily forgot about Paul. A sunny but hazy day showed swaying palms in the adjoining hills. Beyond the bluish haze lay the bay area, an affluent city of sprawling homes and world-famous universities. The atmosphere in the queue was tense, passengers made rude by sleeplessness and the tension of having to fill up long immigration forms with questions including gems like ―Have you</p>
<p>ever participated, and have contemplated in participating, in genocide?‖ Unbelievable but true that one has to answer questions like that to enter the USA. Beyond the queue, the circular belt carrying the incoming luggage was being searched by a motley collection of sniffing dogs, blue-uniformed customs officials with sparkling insignia and other assorted security types. Tenseness hung in the air, making people listless and silent. This is the new America of obsessive security and impatient curtness, where the veneer of loud and vibrant bonhomie has been chipped away, removing the familiar jovial façade to reveal a tense interior of fear and distrust of foreigners.</p>
<p>Strangely, that is also the distrust that Paul used to talk about. Distrust meted out to him and his folks even though they, through their mothers, were linked to the American continent for thousands of years. America was the mother country for Paul. And yet he had encountered only mistrust and fear from the population that came much later, a population that was sometimes of Spanish extraction as in central and south America and sometimes of Anglo-Celtic heritage as was the case for the land that later became known as the USA.</p>
<p>The latest fear, instilled by the events in New York in 11 September 2001, and the old chronic fear faced by people like Paul and his compatriots, is different in many ways and yet they are linked in ways that define the human condition. For this palpable nervousness of the ―other‖, the non-self is rooted in the concept of conquest and domination and chronic and relentless subjugation of one group of humanity by another. Paul‘s family, by their example of sharing, easy music, and materially deprived but ultimately enriched life, had taught me about the other America, the America of the defeated, the soulful, and the inspired.</p>
<p>And standing besides Paul and his friends many years ago under the giant sequoia trees as blue billows crashed against Highway One, I had truly believed that the land around was indeed God‘s country. To me in those days few other places in the world displayed such vital and organic vigour, such a luxuriant mixture of fecund land and human aspiration, such overt display of self-</p>
<p>conscious dreaming and let-live freedom. But as the cynics say, ―That was then and this is now.‖</p>
<p>Later, arriving in New York after twilight, I observed the gaping absence in the skyline as the plane landed. Looking at the adjoining scintillating buildings and the space where the Twin Towers used to be, it looked as though two shining pieces of dream have been plucked out and extinguished. The resultant towers of darkness have now crossed this skyline and spread to the rest of the world.</p>
<p>After landing from the plane my memory also relented and left me wondering why I was getting so emotional. Paul for me is now as much distant history as all the sorrows of world‘s indigenous people. I have now moved to yet another continent and am here only for a week. I had urgent matters to look forward to, like finding a bed to sleep my jet-lag away.</p>
<p>I stepped out into the night with trepidation. Happily, I was soon amongst friends.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Bioinformatics:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">When</span> <span style="color: #003366;">life</span> <span style="color: #003366;">becomes</span> <span style="color: #003366;">information</span></h1>
<p>When we look around and see the living organisms around us, what we get to see is only the form or the exterior. Of animals, we see the colour of their skin, their recognizable shape and their movement. Plants are recognizable by a plethora of colour of the flowers, diverse patterns of the leaves, and a million shapes that define our landscape. For the humans, the intelligent recognition system or what is called cognition is also coloured by their preferences in terms of their instant emotive responses. We look around us and we find people whom we may like or may not like; we see faces that create diverse impressions in our mind. This impressionistic imprint of the facade of living things does not provide us with the insight of what lies beneath the surface of the living entities. All living organisms have structures, which are uniquely designed to support their life-system. Plants have an elaborate system of harnessing the energy of light, a feature that translates into the green colour of plants. Animals, creatures of billions of years of evolution, have their own internal mechanisms for survival and life-support. Their bodies are also formed by hidden forces of evolution and natural selection whereby the fittest structures survive to the exclusion of the unfit. The external morphology often hides an inner structure that become visible only through the lenses of biology and evolution.</p>
<p>And at its depth, the inner structure contains information. The information is encoded in the form of a chemical also known as bases. Like little flags attached to a string in a linear array, each base or flag is identifiable by a specific shape. The string is the backbone carrying these flags. This analogy describes the macromolecule of life, DNA, which contains a sugar phosphate backbone that holds in a linear array the four bases of DNA, A, T, G, and C. The backbone contains no information. Information inheres in the specific order of the flags, the chemical bases. The bases need to be read in threes, the triplets of life‘s chemical code. So, the triplet ATG encodes an amino acid called methionine. As a stretch of DNA is read in threes and by a two-step process transcribed and then translated into a linear array of amino acids what is slowly formed is called protein, the actual functional macromolecule of life. A discrete stretch of code, about ten thousand bases long, defines a particular protein, and the stretch of code defining that protein is called a gene. Largely it is proteins that form an eye, a hand, a mouth, a leaf, a cat, and a fly. Proteins and other chemicals that proteins catalyse into being are the constituents of life form. They are made according to the very particular information contained in the DNA sequence, the genome, of an organism.</p>
<p>The manner in which this awesome linear array of genomic code is saved, archived, retrieved, compared and manipulated is called Bioinformatics. It is a brand new area of Science, at most ten years old. It literally came into existence as the genomic codes of different organisms were sequenced. Bioinformatics inquiry started during the last decade and attained a frenetic pace as the human genome was sequenced three years ago. The sequence produced a big surprise. Although containing three billion bases, the total number of genes in the human genome is only 40 thousand, a very low number given the complexity of human life and mind. Also it seems that the vast tract of human genome contains non- coding or ―junk‖ DNA, i.e., DNA that does not do the coding for the genes .The functions of these non-coding DNA, not to speak of how 40 thousand genes produce something as complex as the human being are still a mystery. To put things in perspective, a little weed called cress contains only 25 thousand genes. So it seems that our sophistication and complexity are not related to the number of genes we have in our genome.</p>
<p>The practitioners in the emerging discipline of Bioinformatics have to solve this mystery. In the coming decades, they, together with their colleagues from the fields of molecular biology, genetics, human physiology and medicine, will need to answer these vexing questions. In these queries they have at their disposal the huge computing power that has become available due the development of powerful microchips. To bring this discipline even closer to microchip technology, genome expression analyses are also done in biochips, whereby the expression of the whole genome can be profiled readily, a prospect that was unthinkable even ten years ago.</p>
<p>There is a huge opportunity for Bangladesh in Bioinformatics. In recent years, both the government and the private sector have been trumpeting the advantage of information science for Bangladesh. We are poised to have a cyber society with e-government and other internet-based facilities. Certainly in the country there is great enthusiasm centring computer and Internet. Using this advantage and the latest development in modern molecular biology, Bangladesh could become a significant player in Bioinformatics if she combines judicious strategic planning and resource allocation. Our programmers, after being trained in molecular genetics and programming languages such as PERL and PYTHON, could become involved in analysing DNA sequences to find creative answers to problems important for human disease. The specific questions to ask of course will require collaborations and strategic partnerships with scientists from more developed nations as well as scientists from regional countries. Given our ability and enthusiasm for computing we will be ill advised to let this huge opportunity slip away.</p>
<p>I appeal to the Minister of Science and Technology to look into Bioinformatics seriously. There are a lot of scientists in Bangladesh as well as scientists of Bangladeshi origin, now living overseas, who could play an important role in facilitating this enterprise.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">ICDDR,B</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">technology</span> <span style="color: #003366;">transfer</span> <span style="color: #003366;">in</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Genomics</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Bioinformatics</span></h1>
<p>I first heard of the scientific work of ICDDR,B, known colloquially as the</p>
<p>―Cholera Hospital‖, from Professor Stanley Falkow, one of the most eminent microbiologists of modern era. I was a Ph.D. student of Bacterial Genetics in Seattle at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in the early 1980‘s and Professor Falkow used to be a Professor of Microbiology in the University of Washington in Seattle. During a chitchat after one of his seminars, Dr Falkow, knowing that I am from Bangladesh, told me of the International Centre in Dhaka and urged me to make contacts with that organisation. It was not till 1986, long after Falkow had moved to Stanford, that I was able to go to Dhaka and make some contact at the ICDDR,B.</p>
<p>During that summer, I had the pleasure of meeting Dr David Sack and his colleague Dr. Ziauddin Ahmed. I was excited to compare my own work using the bacteria E.coli as a model organism, and using such techniques as gene cloning and transposon-based methodologies with the important but technically challenging problems caused by enteric bacteria such as Shigella, and Vibrio.</p>
<p>Cholera and other enteric aetiology still remain a formidable public health problem worldwide, including Bangladesh. Although my subsequent molecular biological work took me in a direction other than microbiology, I have over the years noticed with pride and optimism the transformation of ICDDR,B into an International Centre of Research of high distinction. More recently the organization has been in the news for organizing a very important course in collaboration with two other important organizations involved in health and public health research, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute of USA and the Welcome Trust of UK. And I was happy to see that Dr. Sack, who impressed me greatly with his informality and enthusiasm in 1986, is now the Director of the Centre. ICDDR,B is one of the major success stories of in Bangladesh. Although it is not strictly a part of Bangladesh‘s scientific establishment, it could play an important role in transferring important technologies to the nation.</p>
<p>In our public health area, the challenges that we face are stark indeed. Problems such as diarrhoea and other enteric infections in the countryside is only the tip of the iceberg of huge public health problems that bedevil Bangladesh and many other developing countries. Chronic childhood malnutrition is routinely common and widespread, universal access to safe drinking water remains a dream, and a HIV/AIDS epidemic is a scary possibility. Issues of health and nutrition are also closely linked to issues of reproductive and post-natal welfare of the mother. ICDDR,B tries to monitor and address these issues as part of the same problem. Such holistic and systems approach is fortified by modern knowledge of pathogenic organisms, immunology and vaccine research, and finally an equitable delivery of the remedies to the population of the developing countries, including Bangladesh.</p>
<p>The recent course addresses important issues of modern microbial research. In recent years due to the sequencing of the genome of pathogenic organisms as well as other model organisms, modern molecular science has entered the arena of genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics. The first two are laboratory based, technically demanding, and would be harder to initiate in Bangladesh at any substantial level. However organizations such as the ICDDR,B are well placed to pursue research that monitors expression of genes in chips, a powerful methodology by which expression of all the genes of an organism can be monitored. A formidable challenge would be to monitor, with the help of reporter gene methodologies, the expression of genes that cause pathogenesis.</p>
<p>This would enlighten the ideas originally developed by Professor Falkow,</p>
<p>showing how the microbes very cleverly uses the host‘s biological machinery to further its own aim, which is to destroy the host.</p>
<p>Such biological tug of war is not only exciting phenomenon for research by the scientists, but is also of great practical value in conquering microbial pathogenesis. Genomic and proteomic methodologies, together with old fashioned genetics and gene cloning, could go a long way in getting to the bottom of these important problems. These modern laboratory tools should be made available to Bangladeshi scientists, who together with colleagues in neighbouring countries such as India, Pakistan as well as more developed countries such as USA and Australia, need to address important questions of bacterial pathogenesis in their research.</p>
<p>Bioinformatics, on the other hand, uses a somewhat different paradigm in solving problems of modern biology. Due to the whole-scale sequencing of the genomes of many organisms, the genetic code is now available as ―information‖ in the form of gene sequences.</p>
<p>Hence, understanding the biological function of these genes sequences is now also the job of computer scientists and other experts in computation. Suddenly Biology has moved out of the ―wet-lab‖ and into a computer. In that incarnation, biological problems can also be solved by computer scientists provided they understand the biological context of the problem. This aspect provides huge opportunity for Bangladesh, which historically has not been strong in modern biological research. Our computer science students and other computational scientists could collaborate with colleagues from ICDDR,B and other organizations and try their hand in one of the most exciting research projects of the modern era, that is, how to make sense of the genomes of organisms that have been sequenced. Instead of learning difficult wet-lab techniques of bacterial genetics and biochemistry, they could look at the sequences and manipulate them as text strings, comparing them, finding in them hidden homologies and structures, and extracting out of them predictive hypothesis that can be tested in the laboratory. It is a multi disciplinary enterprise requiring knowledge, collaboration and a zeal for solving important problems. Increasingly that is how science is going to be in future.</p>
<p>I welcome the participants of the current course that is going on in the ICDDR,B. But beyond the course, and on an ongoing basis, these organizations could establish and maintain links with Bangladeshi scientists. Institutions such as HHMI and Welcome Trust, together with ICDDR,B, could help Bangladesh in Bioinformatics by maintaining contact with local scientists and informaticians, linking them with laboratory scientists worldwide, initiating them into areas in which significant problems need to be solved, and providing a framework through which local scientists can feel included in the international scientific enterprise.</p>
<p>ICDDR,B is no longer only a Cholera hospital in Mohakhali. It has the potential of becoming a unique scientific window, introducing modern biological research to Bangladesh.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Science</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">higher</span> <span style="color: #003366;">education</span> <span style="color: #003366;">in</span> <span style="color: #003366;">our</span> <span style="color: #003366;">universities</span></h1>
<p>In recent years Bangladesh has seen the establishment of a number of private universities. Located mainly in different parts of Dhaka, they provide, at a hefty fee, education that is in high demand among the young people coming mainly from the affluent families. These private universities also offer outlets to various universities in the English-speaking western countries where credits can be transferred because of linkages and admissions obtained. Unfortunately, as demonstrated by the published curricula of at least three universities, NSU, BRAC and IUB, it is an education significantly devoid of any serious scientific content.</p>
<p>It is possible that learning of Chemistry, Physics and Biology is not deemed to be a marketable skill these days. The private universities, belonging to the ―user- pays‖ ethos of education, have thus responded accordingly. But while the curricula of these universities might seem reasonable in the current market- driven education such as IT, Commerce and Business studies, it does not bode well for the future intellectual health of the nation.</p>
<p>University education is not just about training someone for a marketable job, although from a pure utilitarian perspective it may be the norm. In most modern universities in the world of learning, science faculty students are at the very beginning introduced to basic sciences, including physics, chemistry and biology, irrespective of the areas of specialization of the students. Most modern designer of curricula would now find it unthinkable that someone could be considered educated without a basic understanding of chemical bond, the structure of DNA, or the theory of evolution through natural selection.</p>
<p>While science does not get much of an emphasis in the major private universities of Bangladesh, the infrastructure of science education and the faculty thereof in the public universities, such as the Dhaka University, have eroded due to a lack of funding and brain-drain. There was a time when Dhaka University was a significant player on the scientific scene. Satyen Bose did his ―Bose-Einstein‖ statistics while he was a young teacher of Dhaka University. In later years, such luminaries as Prof. Mukarram Hussain Khandaker of Chemistry, and Prof.</p>
<p>Harunur Rasheed of Physics kept up the reputation of the University. More recently, some important work has been done in the departments of Botany and Biochemistry. But overall, the university languishes in obscurity in science even in comparison with regional universities like the JNU or Delhi University.</p>
<p>We have little excuse for falling behind like this. We have to remember that we are a nation of 130 million people with established institutions and a fairly long tradition in scholastic activities. We had a vibrant education system at a time when current educational destinations of Singapore or Bangkok were not even known.</p>
<p>That those cities have now become the hubs of knowledge-based economies and we have fallen behind is a sorry ref lection on our leaders and educators.</p>
<p>And it is not a matter of material resource either. When Satyen Bose was working in Dhaka University, the material condition of the university was not particularly good r. But in those days there existed an affinity for learning and scholarly work that we seem to have abandoned since. In recent years Dhaka University has attracted attention more as the arena for pitched battles than as a centre of learning. In other universities of the nation too, it is hard to detect any genuine sign of intellectual vigour.</p>
<p>In this atmosphere, it is not unreasonable to expect that private universities with their relative calm and focus are better placed to bring about a qualitative change in higher learning.</p>
<p>But such goal will require a genuine cultivation of scholarship in areas that include science. A credible degree in environmental management should include some geochemistry and soil chemistry as well as biodiversity. After all one of our major environmental problems is arsenic contamination in water. An understanding of the problem and strategies of alleviation would require a good knowledge of chemistry. Similarly, a degree in computer science should include some knowledge in Bioinformatics. At the moment these areas are sadly lacking in the curricula of the private universities.</p>
<p>It is possible that the private universities are shying away from the sciences because it is too expensive to set up the infrastructure for their successful teaching. If that is the problem maybe there can be greater co-operation between the private and the public universities in the teaching of core courses in physics, chemistry and biology. Dhaka University has established laboratories for teaching physics and chemistry; with the help of private universities, these laboratories can be modernised and refurbished with modern instruments and the private university student can do their laboratory work in Dhaka University. In the USA, several universities such as the Bay area in California and Boston in Massachusetts, sharing of research and teaching facilities between sister universities are quite common. If sharing of laboratory and teaching resources can be shared in the USA, why it cannot be possible in Bangladesh.</p>
<p>We need an integrated plan for higher education in which the level of core competencies of our university graduates should be clearly laid down, monitored and ascertained. To develop that competence, a shared plan of action is needed through which universities can complement their strengths and advantages. Such a mutually enhancing role of universities and other institutes of higher learning will allow us to develop a skilled but broadly educated work force in a strategic way.</p>
<p>In this integration, private and public universities could come together to their mutual advantage. Instead of exclusivity, they could become more interactive and open, and thereby create a paradigm in which higher education is seen as a noble enterprise for the whole nation. A body comprising of all the vice chancellors of the universities, both public and private, could be formed to co- ordinate this venture. Such Vice Chancellors‘ committee, overseeing the quality of higher education, exists in Australia.</p>
<p>For our educators and teachers, positioned as they are in a sea of poverty, despair and illiteracy, higher education is a sacred trust and a rare privilege. Thus the uniqueness of their lofty position in society is of much greater importance than their particular obligation as a member of a private or a public university. Collectively these educators and leaders have the option of using their learned standing to create something great and enduring; a higher education that the nation can be proud of.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Is</span> <span style="color: #003366;">life</span> <span style="color: #003366;">a</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Chinese</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Whisper?</span></h1>
<p>As a party game, Chinese whisper is a popular and creative one. Many players, as much as the linear space would allow, sit side by side making a long line. One person from one end of the line reads silently from a piece of paper a statement or a poem and then whispers it in the ear of the person next to him who in turn transmits it orally to the next person. It is all done in a whisper so that only one person hears it that then transmits it faithfully to the next person. In the end after the whispered message has been transmitted all the way to the end, the last person hearing it is invited to say what the statement is. At this point s/he says it aloud and it is compared to the original written note that began the whisper campaign. And most of the time that I have seen the game played in a party the final transmitted message that survives the whispers is quite different from the original written message. Depending on the number of people playing it, their oral memory, their clarity in whispering words, their ability to listen and grasp something quickly, the words change and attain a new meaning. The uncertainty of change, the suspense and the sheer fun of expectations make this game a very popular party game indeed.</p>
<p>The way genetic information is transmitted from one generation to another has some similarity with Chinese whisper. The similarity has to do with the notion of transmission of a message via its replication. In Chinese whisper, each player is a receiver of a piece of information, and then its transmitter to the next person. As a faithful player with high degree of honesty and fidelity, they are not allowed to consciously make any change in the message; they simply hear it as best as possible and then whisper it to the next person with as much honesty and ability as are possible. Similarly in life, each of us obtains a set of codes in the form of the genes from our parents and then passes them on to our progeny. The important difference being that independent assortment and recombination of genes make it a bit more complicated than the game of whispers. But for the overall algorithm of transmission through generation, the analogy holds fairly well.</p>
<p>In life, as information in the form of genetic code is passed on from one end of the generational line to another, the information or the code changes. It changes because duplication by way of transmission is inherently error-prone. Hence, the message has inadvertent errors and undergoes changes just like in the game of whispers. However, in a game all versions of the changes, all changes in the message, no matter how nonsensical and funny, survive. Life is much more discriminating with its code. Thus when an error of transmission changes the code drastically, the resulting organism may no longer be viable. Thus no baby</p>
<p>with the altered nonsensical code is born and hence that particular version of the message gets lost.</p>
<p>In life, changes are allowed only for the purposes of novelty and variety, but those do not destroy the basic viability of the organism. This acceptable ensemble of variety is the life-blood of life‘s genetic variety. We call it biodiversity. It is the total number of organisms of an inter-fertile group, often called a species that has a large amount of genetic variety in them. This variety occurs in the genes that the organism carries. They are all acceptable but slightly different states of the genes, called the alleles. This variety is caused by replication of errors and recombinational assortments. With time this variety gives rise to newer varieties and the total diversity increases. It increases till a challenge in the environment reduces it by rendering one group more fit to survive than the other. If the organism fortuitously has a gene that endows it to survive in higher temperatures than its siblings, then an increase in atmospheric temperature would let the carrier of that random change survive better than the ones who do not carry that change. This process is the classic Darwinian selection, the survival of the fittest. So two random changes, one atmospheric and other genetic could combine to create something that is non-random and selectional. As selection continues, some version of the code disappears while others survive slowly nudging the species into newer traits. It is as though a whispered song is kept alive through slightly newer meaning attained through generations. That song is the code of life. As the song changes and gets newer meaning through infinitesimally small and viable changes, the species also change. The essence here is time. The unfathomable vista of time, measured in millions of years, accumulates these changes so much so that a new species is born. And the same game of generation of variety then continues with the newer species.</p>
<p>The changes, so important for life and its variety, are ultimately due to molecular machines. They are called replicators. They are nano-machines that copy the double helices of DNA by first opening the strands and then using one strand as a template to generate another strand. Although very accurate, they too make mistakes. These mistakes could be serious, creating mutations that render the whole organism non-viable or producing in the organism uncontrolled growth called cancer. Or the changes could be subtle and benign producing organisms with altered shape, size and character, thereby creating an infinite variety in life form. The process by which we understand the details of how these replicators work and how the code produces living organism is a fascinating part of biology. It is called Molecular Biology.</p>
<p>To understand molecular biology is to understand the process of life at the level of these nano-machines. At a conceptual level, it is similar to a word game such</p>
<p>like Chinese whisper. It is the notion of transmission and change that is similar. And because of this similarity the outcome is also similar. The outcome is the generation of variety. In the case of the transmission of songs and other words through generations, a cultural variety and diversity is generated. Languages change, generating newer meanings, pronunciations change as people make mistakes in reproducing them and slowly through time newer meanings evolve. The evolution of words through time, an important part of cultural evolution, is thus similar to genetics, or the transmission of genes through generation.</p>
<p>Life with its unfathomable variety and mystery in the end is no whisper, song or game. And the reason that it is not a game, is the constraints biology and nature put on our survival. Constraints that are partly random and partly our decisions, known collectively as our ―karma‖.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Bonding</span> <span style="color: #003366;">in</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Nature:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">It’s</span> <span style="color: #003366;">only</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Chemistry</span></h1>
<p>A friend of mine having a literary bent of mind and nothing to do with science whatsoever, not to speak of chemistry, recently told me that his personal</p>
<p>chemistry with his boss was not good. ―What kind of chemical reactions are you talking about?‖ I asked him mischievously, pretending not to know what he meant. ―Not your kind of chemistry‖ he retorted, reminding me once again that he didn‘t mean chemical bond or reaction.</p>
<p>No, he was not talking about the sort of chemistry one studies in smelly labs; rather he was talking about relationships, vibes and nuances of human interactions. To him or many others, who know nothing about chemical thermodynamics or covalent bond, this human factor denoting our relationship with another human being is some kind of intuitive ―chemistry‖ that everyone understands but cannot define. But as I would argue in this essay, in a simple way, this abstract human intuition is also a product of good old academic chemistry.</p>
<p>Indeed, to understand chemical bond is to understand life itself in all its grandeur and complexities, including human relationships. So when this specific word ―chemistry‖ is used to describe the mutuality or the lack of it in human interaction, something could as well be more profound than the function of the usage would signify. Let us try to understand chemistry, not by entering a chemical laboratory, but by venturing into chemistry at its conceptual best through analogy and metaphors, and see how its ideas, methods and processes are responsible for constructing the whole edifice of organic life, as we know it.</p>
<p>To me the central importance of understanding the nature of chemical bond came via an encounter with Linus Pauling in a small town in the state of Oregon in 1979. I had just become a graduate student of Chemistry and Biology in the University of Oregon in Eugene in the fall of that year. Two weeks after the session began; I received a letter inviting me to a dinner party in which Linus Pauling would be a guest. Linus Pauling is probably one of the most important scientists of 20th century. He received Nobel Prize twice, once for discovering the intricacies of chemical bond, and second time for peace.</p>
<p>For a scientist of his stature, Pauling was a very modest man— engaging, approachable, bursting with enthusiasm for Science. By the time I met him he had retired from active science, but then headed an organization called Institute of Orthomolecular Medicine in California and was involved in doing research on the efficacy of vitamin C. That evening was memorable for me. Pauling talked</p>
<p>about human endeavours, starting from Science as an all-encompassing vocation, an enterprise, to Chemical bond and his work as a political activist in the 1950‘s that led to his passport being seized by the US government. Here was a scientist with a deep commitment to knowledge and conscience at the same time. A person worth emulating in the confusing journey that is life.</p>
<p>How precisely did Pauling and others illuminate nature that became known as Chemical Bond, and why is it so important? Let us seek to understand it in common parlance rather than by scientific jargons.</p>
<p>In the living world everything that we see or do not see around us are, by strict definition, Chemicals. Air is a mixture of gases, individually knows as Oxygen and Nitrogen. Water is a molecule, created by a combination of Oxygen and Hydrogen. Rocks, metals, trees, mud, grasshoppers, birds, and beyond them the skies and their stars and the moon and the sun are all constructed by chemicals, either single ones, called elements or by their combination, creating molecules. So both Hydrogen and Oxygen are individual entities, both gases, but when they bond to create a molecule it becomes water. Water, two parts hydrogen one part oxygen, or H2O, is probably the most familiar chemical that we know. Let us learn about both elementary chemistry as well as Linus Pauling‘s contribution by looking at water.</p>
<p>Hydrogen is the most basic of all elements and is an invisible gas. Oxygen is also a gas, often kept in cylinders and given to patients to resuscitate them. It is a vitally important fuel of our existence. It is needed for life‘s sustenance and thus, beyond being an element of nature, it is also a popular metaphor as a preserver of life. But important though both these gases are, something remarkable happens when they combine. They create a miraculous substance called water.</p>
<p>Now water is beyond mere chemistry in all its incarnation. As we all know water is the sweeping blue expanse of an ocean, water is the autumnal white cloud of poetry, water is a lone drop of dew on a pristine morning flower, and water is the increasingly scarce vitality of our rivers. No one needs to be convinced that we need to understand water in all its incarnations. Let us then talk about the genesis of water, how out of the invisibility of two gases, a substance of life itself is constructed.</p>
<p>And this is when a chemical bond becomes important to understand. It is a matter of understanding the force that causes the two hydrogen atoms to stick to the Oxygen atom and thereby lose their identity as gases, and together become something altogether different. One can define it generally and non- mathematically as a very powerful molecular glue, a force of nature, a kind of a deep elemental embrace. This embrace is central to the understanding of nature.</p>
<p>Just like we don‘t really understand the pull of gravitation but can experience its force, we cannot really understand Chemical bond as an everyday experience.</p>
<p>But we can understand it at an abstract level through mathematics, using a tool of physics called wave mechanics. These waves are waves of electrons of individual atoms, such as Oxygen and Hydrogen. How they come together, interact and collectively become waves of a new molecule called water is really the crux of the matter. This combination gives the new substance new chemical properties, which could not have been predicted from the chemical properties of the substances that created them. Linus Pauling, using his incredible gifts combining intuition, mathematics and physics, solved this problem and provided an intellectual framework of understanding the nature of chemical bond at a mathematical level. This understanding can now be extrapolated and be used to understand the whole chemical and biological world.</p>
<p>And because of its generality and pervasiveness, chemistry also gets inside us and becomes the spice of our own interactions, our personal chemistry. When we see someone we like, chemicals are released in our brains and go to the specific sites of our brains, our pleasure centre. By being close to that person, our object of desire, we feel good not because of anything nebulous, but because the chemistry of our brain changes. Similarly when we meet someone we fear or loathe, a different chemistry sets in and our brain chemistry changes to elicit the sense of loathing and repulsion. So the personal chemistry of popular language is nothing but the deep internal chemistry of the brain.</p>
<p>As we negotiate through life, aware of our feelings but oblivious of the processes that create, nurture and sustain them, let us remember that chemical bond is the personal bond that we feel in our bones, if not what is otherwise the mathematics of the wave functions of a covalent bond. And remember that at the level of the deep structure of nature they are more closely linked than we think.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Science</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Imagination</span></h1>
<p>Conventional wisdom portrays Science as an empirical enterprise, rooted in mathematics and rational discourse and significantly devoid of imagination. Thus children who display imagination are encouraged to think of themselves as poets, painters and musicians, and children who display their ability in rational traits such as arithmetic, building of model planes, etc are encouraged to be Scientists and Engineers. Thus young people growing up and deciding on a career often become influenced by this notion of a dichotomy between imagination, on one hand, and empiricism and rationality, on the other. Because of this dichotomy in perception, many imaginative youngsters do not choose Science as a career.</p>
<p>In reality, true science is much closer to imagination than is thought of in popular parlance. Great discoveries of Science often occur, but through flights of imagination, hence insights similar to artistic insights. These insights often use examples and metaphors, and then position the empirical data in the context of that metaphor. So Bohr imagined the structure of the atom as the structure of the solar system, Kekule saw the structure of benzene as a snake biting its own tail.</p>
<p>Einstein derived his ideas of space-time by linking it to geometry. And so it goes. Even for lesser discoveries, the role of imagination and the use of creative devices such as metaphors are very important. It is not well known because often these inspirational devices, the fountainhead of true scientific creativity, are hidden from public view by scientists themselves. The scientific paper provides no opportunity for these inspirational ideas to be described. Rather the discoveries are written up in a drab and cold sort of way. This separation of inspirational aspect and the consonant emotion from science is what is often described as “Descartes error”, the mistake of the great French rationalist in not understanding the true role of emotion in the sphere of human cognition and intellect.</p>
<p>This default has caused great harm to society. First of all, renders scientific enterprise alien to human emotion, warmth and creativity. It has also helped strengthen the hands of the anti-science Luddites. Because of this mistaken perception or anti-imagination labelling of the discipline, scientific enterprise is rendered poorer, and more susceptible to banality. In fact it is a rarity to see a scientist in a significant role in public life and those that do so often stop showing their “science-face” to the public. They stop being public spokesperson of the scientific enterprise.</p>
<p>Imagination and abstraction are deeply rooted in the way our brain discovers new connections in the universe. In science, imagination is subordinated to</p>
<p>empirical knowledge of the natural law. Thus empiricism has a healthy and indispensable place in Science. But empiricism is not the spirit of Science. The spirit of Science is curiosity and imagination. Just like poetic imagination is constrained by the limitation of language and syntax, just like visual creativity is constrained by the geometry and colour of objects or even the abstract ones, so are scientific wonder and speculations in the end constrained by what is true and real in the world, as derived by experimentation. Thus, to understand the reality, to test the boundaries of imagination one needs scientific experiments.</p>
<p>People of Bangladesh are known for their imagination and artistic flair. But they are not known for their Science. This is unfortunate because even during the last one hundred years, we have produced several scientists known for their daring imagination. Jagadish Chandra Bose mesmerised the world with his discovery with wireless and did splendid experiments on the physiology of plants. In his later ventures, he showed imagination that was not shown to be correct by subsequent experiments, but nonetheless he displayed great creativity and vision. Among his closest friends was Rabindranath Thakur, the great poet who also had warm feelings for Science. Basu and Thakur discussed both Science and Poetry, creatively influencing each other. Rabindranath tried to poeticise Science but that effort came to an end with his death. No one since him has written about science in Bangla as lyrically and with such warmth. Satyen Basu, another great Bengali Physicist came up with brilliant non-intuitive ideas that later led to Bosons and Bose-Einstein statistics. The work was surely not entirely a rational derivation but must have come to him in flights of intuition and imagination.</p>
<p>Science is suffering utter neglect in our educational Institutions now. Dhaka University, once a powerhouse of Science has become a very mediocre institution even by the standards of South Asia as far as Science is concerned. Increasingly bright students are not coming to Science, a fact that does not bode well for our nation.</p>
<p>It is time we invigorated the scientific enterprise in Bangladesh by reminding everyone of the intrinsic connection between Science with imagination. In our University courses and during the public discourse in the country, we should point out the role that our youth could play not only in solving the pressing problem of our land, water and natural flora and fauna, but also of the great intellectual tradition of science as a glorious human endeavour. Till recently we were a part of that endeavour. We still can, if we want to.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Sufi’s</span> <span style="color: #003366;">choice:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">syncretic</span> <span style="color: #003366;">rural</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Islam</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Bangladesh</span></h1>
<p>Following the sermons accompanying the Friday prayers in the Canberra mosque recently, the Imam took a shot at the custom of observing Shab-e-barat in the Indian subcontinent. Without naming any countries or cultural group he attacked the ―arrogance‖ of ―innovation‖, that observed the 15th Shaban as an important day. According to the Imam, the 15th Shaban is not an important day in the Islamic calendar and people observing it is simply making things up.</p>
<p>My goal in this essay is not to protest the views of the Imam, which I do, but to point out the extent to which our traditional views of Islam are under attack not only from the Islam-bashing secular quarters but also from the ultra-zealous theocratic ideologues.</p>
<p>Till about the early 1970s this attack against Islam used to come from mainly one particular direction. Following urbanisation under the tutelage of the English colonisers our educated elite took a very dim view of traditional Islamic practices, particularly its rural variety. In popular secular Bangla literature a village Maulavi is malevolent, oppressor of women, ignorant, and comical in his beard and Islamic garb. The fact that most of our elders in fact did look like that Maulavi is conveniently forgotten by the secular progressive writers. While excesses of religious zealots did take place and are not to be condoned, the relentless depiction of the Maulavis in nefarious rather than positive roles created an image, a cultural icon which implicitly turned village Islam into something who is backward and retrograde, something to be shunned. Indeed, itself is often a subject of ridicule, and progressive writers often go out of their way to dissociate themselves from any attachment with Islamic practices.</p>
<p>This pseudo-progressive negation of religion is often selectively applied against Islam; these practioners of progress often show a disproportionate degree of sympathy for other beliefs. As agnostic humanists they should see all religious impulses as human condition worthy of notice and sympathy. Rather they often selectively turn against Islam, cleverly hiding a bias that has its genesis in the early days of urban Anglophilic Bengal renaissance. That bias was perhaps not all communal; rather it was the antipathy of the urban occident-loving sophisticate for his peasant forefathers. By lampooning the habits and beliefs of the peasants, the newly initiated sophisticate obtained not only kudos from the colonial masters but also obtained a form of complex psychological boost, a feeling of having discarded the old notions and having become truly modern.</p>
<p>This nexus between modernity and antipathy for rural Islam continued unabated for a long time till perhaps the mid-1970s. Around that time the second onslaught started on our tradition-bound Islamic practices. That onslaught is of an International Islam genre, the same genre as the one articulated by the Imam of the Canberra Mosque. In contrast to the earlier attack coming from ―secular‖</p>
<p>and ―progressive‖ quarters, this later one is coming from the foot soldiers of doctrinaire purity of ideological Islam. In their view, Islam is more akin to a sparse austere doctrine, bound by simple rules of faith in which tradition has no place. In their view, syncretic speculations, ideas of great Sufi scholars such as Al-Arabi, conjectures of great historian Khaldun, or the philosophy of the great scholars Ibne Sina or Abu Rushd have no place in Islam. In the view of these zealots, seven hundred years of patient conversion through love, culture, songs, philosophy is not worthy of respect.</p>
<p>At a time when Islam is not only a matter of spirituality but also a stratagem of geopolitics, such austere, simplistic belief is gaining ground. During the last ten years I have observed the disappearance, among devout expatriate Muslims, of many rituals and behaviours that I always considered denoted an Islamic culture, if not a pristine doctrine. They include the Milad Mahfil including the Qeyam, whereby one stands up and recites respects to the prophet in the form of a chorus, observance of Shab-e-Barat, and greeting people with ―Khuda Hafez‖. In fact, in expatriate Islamic communities in Western cities it is increasingly difficult to find a religious man who would be ready to stand up and do Qeyam, a custom that is rooted for many years in Islamic culture of the subcontinent.</p>
<p>Overzealous people who are attacking these customs forget that faith is not an austere abstraction but is rooted in the human mind through memory, affection and a hundred symbols and cues that humanise the religion. Religious faith, like language and culture, harnesses the propensity of human brain for a sense of wonder for the present life and hereafter, and turns the inherent sense of enigma into an organised belief system consisting of chores and duties, as also of rituals. When you remove the rituals and culture what you are left with is a bare bone of doctrines, dry dictates, and a form of mind-chilling and culture-destroying zealotry, which cannot in the end bring anything good to a society.</p>
<p>Thankfully the Sufi philosophers of our rural land knew of these pitfalls. Seven hundred years ago, they preached and defended Islam hundreds of miles away from their place of abode. They combined faith with imagination and through understanding and inclusive persuasion they preached their faith in our land. In their infinite wisdom they made a choice. And that choice, made by people like Hazrat Shah-Jalal and Hazrat Bayezid Bostami, defined the future of Islam in our land for the last seven hundred years. That choice was one of an organic</p>
<p>understanding of the human psyche, of understanding of symbolism of nature and rituals, and of explaining faith through metaphors of hidden meaning extant in the human body and its transience. That belief system, consonant with the culture of our lush riverine delta, generated the syncretism that is the hallmark of Bangali Islam.</p>
<p>In the current era replete with urgent choices and paradoxes, we have a pathway crafted for us many hundreds of years ago. In recent years it has been hidden from us both by our pernicious modernity and simplistic zealotry. It is the shining and enduring choice made many years ago by our Sufi forefathers.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Reclaiming</span> <span style="color: #003366;">history:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">a</span> <span style="color: #003366;">rural</span> <span style="color: #003366;">journey</span> <span style="color: #003366;">through</span> <span style="color: #003366;">time</span></h1>
<p>While we bask in the restive drama of contemporary times we often neglect our actual history, the truly formative times that shaped us as people in a hundred rural hamlets that dot our nation. The area known as Itah (pronounced ‗eeta‘) of greater Sylhet harbours in it important history and legends that have remained largely unknown in greater Bangladesh. Just like Kanihati described earlier, Itah, a place of history that shaped large areas of Eastern Bangladesh has not been immortalised in the name of any important locality and thus runs the risk of oblivion with time. It is important to recapitulate here the legend and history of Itah. It is important to see how, starting from almost the beginning of the last millennium (circa 1200 AD), the story of Itah has been an integral part of the history of a large part of our land.</p>
<p>Contrary to popular belief established written history of an area is not just an objective depiction of what happens. Often it is a selective depiction of specific events, judged to be important to the chronicler of the history. Thus what becomes official history is only a part of all the events that took place. What does not get written as official history often stays on as oral legends or in the songs and stories that become part of the folk culture of the land. But these days our oral tradition of history is also at risk as people move away from traditional rural lifestyles.</p>
<p>The notion of an all-permeating historicity, that local history as an entity can shape the psyche of a people, is now accepted in areas such as Europe and USA, but has not made much impact in the minds of our educated people. While local history is often celebrated in those developed lands we still see local history as isolated episodes, depicting the rise and fall of families and clans, and do not see in them the dynamics of human condition that shapes a place, its language, custom, and finally destiny. As true history we talk only about the most recent national political episodes, often describing conflicts, killings, and sometime, as in the case of genesis of Bangladesh, a moment of redeeming value that lingers on in our psyche.</p>
<p>But the actual dynamics of events that have shaped us in hundreds of villages, small towns, valleys and hills, over the millennia, remain unknown and invisible</p>
<p>to us. As a colonised people for at least two hundred years we remained totally unaware of the significance of our own earlier experiences as people through history, we never learnt to appreciate the formative years of the last millennia (circa 1000 AD to 1700 AD) that brought us our languages, our customs and our religions. We never learnt to see them as dynamic events with causality, as specific decisions and contingencies. Those critical time is for us almost an unfathomable pre-history, static in its obscurity, complex in its depiction of hundreds of rulers and oppressors who came and went, and finally made dim by the shining drama of more recent events.</p>
<p>Let us begin with the history of Itah. I begin with the arrival of a man called Nidhipati Sharma, a Brahmin scholar, at the invitation of the King of Tripura from an area known as Kanouz in Uttar Pradesh of India. The time was around 1190s. The Mughals would not be in Delhi for another few hundred years. The whole of Europe from Scandinavia to Naples was in the middle of the dark ages. Only in Spain, in Moorish Andalucia, civilisation was lit by Muslims from North Africa.</p>
<p>At that epoch the Hindu King of Tripura, with his capital at Udaypur, was a mighty potentate ruling vast areas of what is now known as Comilla, Sylhet and Chittagong. Udaypur and Kailashahar, sites of many historical episodes, are just across the border from Bangladeshi towns such as Kulaura. Much later, in the 18th century would the Tripura capital be moved to Agartala near Comilla.</p>
<p>In those days rulers used to observe an ancient Aryan rite called <em>Ashshomedh Jogyo </em>which needed very competent vedic Brahmin scholars. And for one of these rites the King of Tripura invited Nidhipati Sharma to the area.</p>
<p>After the <em>Jagyo</em> was over, Nidhipati Sharma stayed back. From being a religious man he was elevated to being an owner of vast areas of land obtained through the largesse of the Tripura king. His children and the children of his children would later be named <em>Dewans</em>. To celebrate the area of Etoa of Uttar Pradesh, his area of origin, Nidhipati called his new home Etoa, later to be named Ita. It is exactly like the European settlers went to USA and established a city called New York, after the city of York of old country. So through Nidhipati, a Hindu holy man from Uttar Pradesh, a clan and a name was established in 12th century AD in the eastern periphery of Indian Subcontinent.</p>
<p>With time, the Dewans also started to be known as Rajas and Itah started to be called a Rajyo. The last king of the clan, Raja Shubidnarayan, reigned with his wife Kamalarani, and they are subjects of many surviving legends. They were known to be kind and benign rulers and a lot of artisans, craftsmen, and other professionals populated the villages of the Kingdom. The village of Pachgaon</p>
<p>became very famous for its craftsmen. Later a blacksmith of that village would construct the famous ―Kaman‖ (cannon) now placed near the Gulistan cinema of Dhaka.</p>
<p>However, during those years of 16th-17th century AD trouble was brewing in areas far away from the small bucolic kingdom of Shubidnarayan; trouble that would soon engulf Itah. The name of the trouble was the tribal conflict between the Mughals and Pathans. Just like the fights between Goths, Vandals, Vikings, Saxons and Normans through millennia shaped Europe, so it is that our land has been shaped by the wars and conquests of invading tribes, often from the West. And during the time of Emperor Jahangir a vast area of what is now known as Sylhet and Comilla including areas not as well known as Taraf, Jaintia, Langla, Kanihati and Itah became embroiled in wars that had their origin in Pathan- Mughal tribal conflicts. And finally, it is in the hands of a Pathan warrior, named Khaja Osman, that end came for the Kingdom of Itah. More than five hundred years after Nidhipati Sharma had performed his vedic rites for the Kings of Tripura, Shubidnarayan was defeated and killed by the army of Khaja Osman, and the legend of the Kingdom of Itah ended.</p>
<p>Later, Osman himself was killed by an army led by Islam Khan, a general under the Mughals, in the village of Pathanushar. Shubidnarayan‘s descendents, after embracing Islam, continued to live in Itah as Dewans. Today they are scattered all over the world.</p>
<p>The tragic history of the Raja and his queen, the legendary Kamalarani, has become a topic of many songs and <em>puthis.</em></p>
<p>Osman has had a mixed reception in local oral history. While many sided with the Mughals and helped the mighty emperor Jahangir, the legend of Osman also survives as a tragic hero who dared to stand up against the Mughals. Through his actions Osman shaped the subsequent history of the area. A large number of local families, both Hindu and Muslim, helped the Mughals in their victory against Osman. Later each of these families and clans would be rewarded by the Mughals with lands and titles, establishing a powerful landed gentry, the Chaudhurys in the area. For many years, the coveted title defined a form of class system in the area. With time, loss of ancestral land through change of land tenure system and with the size of their family land area dwindling through each generation the Chaudhurys became part of the struggling middle class, often with no understanding of the historical significance of the legacy of their families.</p>
<p>Conflicts related to religion, land tenure system, and archaic notions of family glory and nobility have also been impediments in reconciling these historical</p>
<p>episodes and including them in the annals of the larger history of the region. These contradictions have robbed the people of the region a sense of continuous history, tradition and culture that is truly of the land, leading to alienation that simmers even today. In contrast to Europe where ancient feudal history has been successfully integrated into the fabric of modern societies leading to a unified inclusive version of history, in our country these events remained fragmented as family sagas and no attempt has been made to understand them in the context of their general societal significance.</p>
<p>Today the ancient kingdom of Itah is no more. Gone also are the mighty Mughals, the Pathan rebel Khaja Osman, the kings of Tripura, the rulers of Taraf, and the mystic Sufis and their descendents of Kanihati. Here and there giant <em>Dighees</em>, reservoirs of water that celebrated those fateful times, remain, but these <em>Dighees </em>too are disappearing through lack of maintenance. With TV and Bollywood reigning everywhere even the haunting songs and Puthis describing the episodes of these lands are disappearing, perhaps forever.</p>
<p>Recently I travelled through these historic lands. Driving through the mysterious light of a moonlit night and passing through Tirapasha, Rajnagar, Langla, Itah and Kanihati I could almost sense the immense vista of the history of those places that lies dormant and now faces certain oblivion. It is the largely untold history of all our forefathers. It is time we rescued that history from the creeping abyss of time.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Kanihati:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">lost</span> <span style="color: #003366;">name,</span> <span style="color: #003366;">forgotten</span> <span style="color: #003366;">heritage</span></h1>
<p>One of the most unfortunate pitfalls of our history is the process by which we have allowed our local history and local names and heritage to be lost. This loss has occurred through colonialism, urbanisation that often belittled traditional rural heritage and often saw society through the filter of Kolkata-based Bengal renaissance, which failed to understand the social dynamics that shaped Eastern Bengal and Sylhet. An area that epitomises that amnesia is Kanihati, an ancient <em>Pargana</em>, whose history dates back to at least seven hundred years, and yet whose name has officially been removed from any administrative unit that exists in the country.</p>
<p>The plight of Kanihati is tied to the plight of our traditional system of <em>Pargana</em>, the proud and autonomous unit of local government that thrived under the Mughals and later under the British. The Parganas, tied to old history, tradition and sense of belonging, were very similar to the Swiss cantons, currently seen as a model of local government in Europe, and which ironically we seek to emulate now. In Switzerland, Cantons define areas; often tied to old land tenure system that flourished as small administrative units in the old days and that were later transformed into vibrant autonomous units with their powerful elected local governments.</p>
<p>Instead of following that pathway of democratic local government in our country, power was given to career administrative officers, both police and civil, thus robbing people of their genuine drive for democracy. Parganas, areas of shared history and attachment were broken up and amalgamated into administrative units called <em>Thana, Upazilla</em>, etc, at the whim of bureaucrats sitting hundreds of miles away<em>. Paraganas </em>now only remain as historic relics, such as a whole district called ―24 Pargana‖ in West Bengal.</p>
<p>However, although the Pargana as an administrative unit was disbanded, often leading to the removal of their name from official documents, Pargana as a place of belonging remained in people‘s mind through oral tradition and folklore.</p>
<p>Kanihati, situated in Kulaura <em>Upazilla</em> of greater Sylhet, is a good example of that.</p>
<p>Its history dates back seven hundred years, to the time when Hazrat Shah Jalal with his 360 disciples came to eastern Bangladesh. Followers of Sufi brand of Islam, these mystic scholars mesmerised the local population through their piety, love and alleged acts of miracle. Mass conversion to Islam occurred, not through the might of the sword, but through preaching of a gentle inclusive version of Islam that preached love and co-existence with the local Hindu and animist</p>
<p>people. A follower of Hazrat Shah Jalal, Hazrat Shah Helimuddin arrived at an area that now includes part of Kailashahar, currently in India but also the area around what is now known as Manu and Hajipur.</p>
<p>Many oral legends as well as written history describe the key events that shaped the area and eventually gave it its name. One day‘s event is noteworthy. On that fateful day, since then forever etched in the annals of local history, when a local ruler called Asham Roy, related to the Tripura Kings, was out in the dense jungle of the area trying to kill a tiger, he came upon a Sufi mystic who, through an act of miracle brought the tiger out from the jungle with his bare hands. The ruler was so impressed that he wanted to know what the mystic wanted from him.</p>
<p>The holy man wanted from the ruler land equal to the flight of an arrow. As the ruler and his cronies watched, the mystic sent his arrow, which fell on an area called ―Tir-a-Pasha‖. The area from the jungle to Tira-Pasha was donated to the mystic, Hazrat Shah Helimuddin Yemeni. This area, defined by the legendary arrow, was later to be named Kanihati.</p>
<p>Later the Yemeni Sufi‘s son Daulat Malik married the daughter of a local noblewoman, known as Kanak Rani. To celebrate the name of the Rani the whole area was named Kanak-hati, or Kanihati. Kanak Rani‘s daughter Radharani accepted Islam and became Hamira Bibi, and became the matriarch of the Kanihati clan, which survives till today. Two family lines, one Hindu and one Muslim, both derived from Kanak Rani, settled in the area and lived parallel lives till recent times. Kanihati, a name symbolising ancient legendary history, syncretic amalgamation of people through gentle conversion and marriage, survived for hundreds of years.</p>
<p>Later the area became embroiled in one of the most fascinating episodes of power struggle between the Pathans and the Mughals. During the time of Emperor Jahangir, a rebel Pathan ruler named Khaja Osman came and settled in the area. Though he declared his independence from the mighty Mughals, Osman was a man of sword and he attacked the local Hindu ruler Raja Shubid Narayan mercilessly. His attacks lead to indiscriminate killing and forced conversion of many to Islam. Many people fled, taking refuge in the kingdom of Arakan in Burma. Later the local landowners, both Hindu and Muslim, helped the Mughals led by General Islam Khan capture Khaja Osman. Osman was defeated in a historic battle in the village of Patan-ushar, adjacent to the Manu Railway station.</p>
<p>These two encounters, one in the 14th century through Sufi mystics, and the other in the 17th century through the force of Pathan sword, were the two major episodes which brought Islam to Kanihati and adjoining areas of Langla, Ita, Taraf, etc. Through these encounters, the area was shaped, leading to its names,</p>
<p>its history, and its legends and myths. It is only natural that these names should have been parts of administrative units that subsequently followed.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the most pivotal name, Kanihati was dropped when the Pargana system was abolished. I have documents from as late as 1930s when official documents were mentioning Kanihati. After that, maybe in 1947, the name was dropped from official documents. Today the name survives only in word of mouth.</p>
<p>What has also been forgotten along with the name of Kanihati is the legend that created the name and seven hundred years of history that nourishes this name. The events of the lives of Hazrat Shah Helimuddin and the subsequent events involving the history of Ita and Taraf should be subjects of historical analyses in local centres of learning. Their names should be celebrated in local roads, bazaars, schools and other institutions that civilised people commonly use to immortalise their history.</p>
<p>As we strive to develop a new sustainable and enabling local government for our villages and towns, places such as Kanihati and other lost places of the country cry out for recognition of critical episodes that formed us into what we are now. It is time we, by embracing those forgotten history and names, fashion a new sense of identity for our nation.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Hoping</span> <span style="color: #003366;">in</span> <span style="color: #003366;">New</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Hampshire</span></h1>
<p>The only sound I hear as I wake up is the sweeping hiss of trees rubbing against each other. For miles after miles this gigantic arboreal caress creates a mega whisper that ricochets through the mountains and the valleys and, with the wind blowing faster and faster, soon becomes a rumble matching the thunder and the rain that soon follows. The giant pines and cedars and the smaller deciduous maples and oaks stretch under a blue canopy that rises like a giant shadow from the earth and spreads to the horizon.</p>
<p>This is New Hampshire, USA, the silently beautiful part that together with Maine Vermont and Massachusetts is often described as New England. It is stereotypically supposed to be populated by work-obsessed but enigmatically repressed Protestants who created small towns with their log-cabin homes with slanted roofs, and where every nook and corner suggests a shadowy Stephen King-like episode. But I am here neither for this mystery nor for the promise of the resplendent foliage colours that will soon adorn these horizons. I am here in Plymouth, New Hampshire for a scientific conference.</p>
<p>The true spirit of America is to be found in her smaller towns. Far away from the Machiavellian machinations of Washington, or the tinsel-town dream factories of southern California, here in this town what has brought us together is the intense business of focussed, incisive science. In particular, an emerging field known as epigenetics which has implications for areas as diverse as reproductive biology, crop science, mental disorders and human fertility. We are a collection of scientists, specialising in many disciplines, from maize, mice to humans, who are here to exchange ideas on how genes are expressed and how they translate into what we see in the real biological world as healthy babies or a bumper crop of maize. This commonality of the joint biological heritage of living organisms has been shown most dramatically by the deciphering of the genomes of many organisms lately.</p>
<p>We concern ourselves with what happens when genes are not expressed properly, even though they are physically there. Cutting through the complexity of it all, what it boils down to is the way genes are packaged and how they are passed on from parents to progeny. As it turns out, mothers and fathers have different roles in this process. The maternal role is a lot more important than that of the father — a biology lesson that goes well with the extant gender politics of</p>
<p>the day and the importance of the maternal legacy for the new born. Ideas coming from this branch of research link scientists from all over the world and create a healthy camaraderie that is getting scarce in international relations these days.</p>
<p>Complex issues crop up in my mind as the conference progresses. Topical issues such as the interaction of the Islamic world with USA and the future of this interaction sometimes feature in our discussions. We are housed in the dormitory of an elite residential school that is in summer recess now. The dormitories, as well as the houses made for the teachers, are now all available for the conference. In front of the giant auditorium where we meet, a poster describing the scientific achievements of past human societies attracts my attention.</p>
<p>One particular poster is noteworthy. It says, ― One of the least known contributions of Arab mathematics was their use of the decimals as space in the early 15th century, long before Europe. In 1430 in his ‗Treatise on Circumference‘ the director of the observatory of Samarkand, Al-Kashi, wrote the value of Pi as 3 1415926535898732 indicating the decimal with a space rather than a dot.‖ I found this piece of information astounding. It was a remarkable example of Islamic/Arab science finding the value of pi that used to be the yardstick of the mathematical sophistication of a society. And what was astounding to me is that I never knew it as a student growing up in Bangladesh, a self-proclaimed Muslim country. And here it is displayed so prominently for the students of this school.</p>
<p>The poster than goes on to describe the book called ‗Al-Jabr wal Muqabalah‘, the first unified organisation of algebra, by Muhammad Ibne Musa in 825 A.D. Among the 200 delegates of this conference I look for another Muslim and find a name that makes me optimistic. Azim Surani, professor of Cambridge University, meets me for lunch one day. He is ―Indian looking‖ but thoroughly British. When I want to know his origin he says he might be from Gujarat originally. I did not raise the issue of Islamic science with him.</p>
<p>I recall my days in Andalusia last year. What is happening in Western Europe and USA now is akin to the way Muslims in another century had organised their civilisation in Spain. There too, as here now, there was intellectual and mercantile vigour, and an inclusive cosmopolitanism based largely on merit. Five hundred years after Andalusia, Muslims today have moved away from science or in fact any other intellectual pursuits. There is an obsessive zeal for orthodoxy, a nit-picking propensity for increasing piety and a virtual absence of scepticism, free curiosity or honest analyses of societies‘ internal dynamics. These deficiencies, rather than actual material poverty, are truly impoverishing Islamic societies from Tunisia to Java. Muslims like to talk about Jabir ibne Hayan or Ibne Sina or Abu Rushd but they never find out what kind of society it was that</p>
<p>produced these intellectuals. They make frequent mention of the Islamic golden era, forgetting that it was not religious orthodoxy but scientific scepticism that produced the vigour and wealth of that era, a form of meritocracy that elevated the Jewish scholar Maimonides to a position of celebrity. In recent years even someone like Professor Abdus Salam incurred the wrath of the orthodox Mullahs.</p>
<p>What kind of Islam will deliver us from this cul-de-sac? Do we have the courage to call for a genuine house cleaning of the Muslim societies? I took long walks in the woods of New Hampshire, pondering on this question but not really finding any definite answers. Here and there leaves were already turning crimson, foreshadowing a time soon when giant vistas will turn into an awe-inspiring colour-fest, a spectacle that will belie the gloomy mood of this nation.</p>
<p>And it didn‘t take long for gloom to materialise. On the last day of my conference all the lights suddenly went off in New York City, plunging the whole country into deep apprehension. From New Hampshire I called everywhere in great panic, trying to make sure that I could fly out of the country in time. Fear of terrorist attacks was soon dispelled but a cloud of pessimism and dread was hanging in the air as I left the USA via Washington‘s Dulles airport.</p>
<p>Even after landing in Heathrow and looking forward to meeting friends and relatives, I couldn‘t easily get rid of the gloom that seems to have gripped the whole world. I hope biological sciences with their clear depiction of our shared but fragile organismic legacy can break this impasse. I wish religions could once again be what they were meant to be — a path to the greatest common good.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">56</span> <span style="color: #003366;">years</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">tryst</span> <span style="color: #003366;">with</span> <span style="color: #003366;">destiny</span></h1>
<p>―Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour when the world sleeps India will awake to life</p>
<p>and freedom‖.</p>
<p>Thus said Jawharlal Nehru on the eve of 15th August that saw the decolonisation of the Indian subcontinent, giving rise to two states India and Pakistan. What was known as India then was divided, thus the redemption, according to Nehru, was not whole, but still substantial. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, spoke from Karachi. He was sombre and lamented a moth-eaten Pakistan. I am not sure what happened in Dhaka on that day but I am sure there was widespread jubilation for many and sadness for others. It was a momentous event in the history of the world, sadly tainted though by rampant spilling of blood, for in the Punjab and Bengal there was widespread communal riots that saw Hindus and Muslims killing each other. It was a moment that was not perfect but nonetheless a watershed event for all of us who live in South Asia today. Let us recapitulate for a moment the events that shaped us into what we are today.</p>
<p>We the Bengalis brought the doom. 190 years earlier on 23rd June, 1757, the Nabab of Bengal was defeated at the Battle of Palassey by the English merchants and their local collaborators thus beginning the colonial rule which was to subjugate the South Asians for almost two centuries. The 20-year-old Nabab, Siraj-ud-Dowla, was murdered on the 4th of July. The new Nabab, Jaffar Ali Khan, also known as Mir Jafar, signed a treaty with the English, which said, inter alia, the following:</p>
<p>―1. The enemies of the English are my enemies whether Europeans or others.</p>
<ul>
<li>Whatever goods and factories belonging to the French in the provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa shall be delivered to the English.</li>
<li>To indemnify the Company for their losses by the capture of Calcutta I will give One Crore of Rupees…‖</li>
</ul>
<p>In this 190 years much happened that changed us all forever. In 1757 Bengal was comparable to just about any place in the world. Major John Corneille, a man who was in Bengal during the battle of Palassey, wrote about the cities of</p>
<p>Murshidabad, Patna and Dhaka ―. They were much superior in point of trade</p>
<p>and riches to any other of the European nations ‖. The budding nation was</p>
<p>subjugated, and kept under utter servitude while the rest of the world prospered. We were shackled with an alien culture, language, mode of behaviour, thinking, and when we did everything possible to ape our masters we were rewarded with titles. In 1757 Bengalis, Hindus and Muslims together, for with Mir Jafar there was Jagath Seth and others, were tainted with the sin of betrayal that eventually enslaved the whole subcontinent.</p>
<p>During these long years as enslaved people we often turned against each other, frequently egged on by our colonial masters. That trend, unfortunately, still continues in spite of decolonisation. But we also fought as one people, such as in 1857. The haunting songs of Khudiram, the ghazals of Bahadur Shah Zafar, heroic tales of Titumir and Surjo Sen are all part of our past, our cultural legacy.</p>
<p>Sadly we also learnt to hate ourselves, started to describe our own languages as</p>
<p>―vernacular‖, and for too long rejected the local and adopted the foreign. We acquired the mental habit of dividing people based on their Western education. This tendency has been permanently etched on all South Asians, irrespective of their language and religion; it is a form of a mental tattoo that differentiates us from many other people of the world. The greatest tragedy of our subjugation is that the English seem have moulded us almost permanently into something that we shouldn‘t be.</p>
<p>I will not dwell on the Hindu-Muslim problem and the necessity of dividing India. Nor do I want to go into our disenchantment and eventual war of independence with Pakistan. Each one of us has a point of view on that. It doesn‘t matter any more; the historical reality is that there now exists three independent countries, each with its unique identity and national aspirations. Let us not be divided by the problems of that recent history. Instead, let us acknowledge our common heritage and history, celebrate the decolonisation and think of building bridges of shared destiny. Not to suffocate, threaten or engulf each other, but to enhance each other. Not to remain forever hostage to our past rancour, horrific nightmares, and almost a paralysing inability to recover from them.</p>
<p>Let us all, Bangladeshis, Indians and Pakistanis, together be sombre and observe the 14th/15th August as days of decolonisation from the British rule. It would be sad to forget the thousands who struggled and perished, starting from Siraj-ud- Dowla. Let us forget controversies and remember the deeds of Maulana Muhammad and Shawkat Ali, Sher-e-Bangla Fazlul Haque, Shubhash Chandra Bose, Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy and C.R. Das. And yes, let us continue to</p>
<p>remember M.K. Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah too. No matter how much recent tragedies taint our vision let us remember that we are an ancient people with a proud history that dates back centuries. Let us teach our children the grand sweep of that history, and not just the dramatic saga of our recent times.</p>
<p>In 1947 we all made a tryst with destiny by unshackling ourselves from a foreign power. Let us now, even belatedly, redeem that pledge.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Uncaging</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">songbirds</span></h1>
<p>Are Bangladeshi playwrights about to lose the freedom to stage what they want to?</p>
<p>A recent news report from Bangladesh describes how some of our leading dramatists, writers and other intellectuals have once again met at the Shaheed Minar premises to protest against the possibility that an old, infamous law of control on theatre and drama might be revived by the government. The cultural personalities, Ramendu Majumdar and Mamunur Rashid among others, have suggested that a mass movement might ensue if this law is re-promulgated. This threat of a protest movement was precipitated by a report that such a possibility was discussed in the Parliament.</p>
<p>For those of us who live overseas but look for a substantial amount of our cultural sustenance from Bangla-speaking areas of the world, such news sounds like a bizarre theatre of the absurd. In this day and age when any information is rapidly disseminated by Internet, cheap and readily available telephone lines, not to mention the satellite TV channels, it is truly astounding that a 19th century colonial law to suppress the cultural expression of the colonised masses is being considered a valid way of controlling the creative expression in a free democratic nation. What kind of message does this send to the world? What kind of message does it give to our younger generation, and our expatriates, who are eager to receive sustenance from the artistic creativity of the mother country? What passed through the minds of our honourable lawmakers when they discussed this issue? The Minister of Information was quoted to be pondering on such a possibility. On what ground will he justify it? What precisely is the peril behind an unfettered depiction of creative endeavours through drama?</p>
<p>The British law that is being discussed in this context is the one that was used to torment and jail people like Qazi Nazrul Islam, the rebel poet, ostensibly to prevent him from spreading sedition against the British rulers. Now, after being independent twice since British rule, we are still hiding behind the contempt, the malice and the sheer stupidity of that archaic piece of so-called law.</p>
<p>I recall that, because of this law, while as a student in Dhaka I once had to go to a government functionary for clearance with the script of a little drama that I had written, trying so hard to prove to him that it was an innocuous, playful thing and not seditious in any way. I was shoved from one petty bureaucrat to another; I had to cajole the peons, smile obsequiously at a Section Officer, and was almost</p>
<p>tempted to bribe him when finally the official nod was obtained and the drama was cleared for screening. These laws were designed by the imperialists to simply show to the natives who really were the boss. It has more to do with power than any intention of cultural sanitization. Our powerful bureaucrats, our lawmakers, our Ministers unfortunately continue this paradigm of power, where the creative personalities of our nation are mere supplicants, where all zestful poems are potentially seditious against the new ruler, and where the <em>Mahila</em></p>
<p><em>Samity</em> premises, showing the latest play, is an arena of deep suspicion and</p>
<p>distrust. It is a sad old page of the defunct colonial book; news of its putative re- incarnation would simply have been treated as a hilarious hoax if this fear had not been articulated by these cultural personalities with such seriousness.</p>
<p>And serious it is. Serious enough for these personalities to once again come out to steps of the Shaheed Minar to protest. It seems that in Bangladesh we will never have an opportunity of ending these frequent gatherings of rage. As long as someone is there in power s/he will always do something to force people to come out onto the streets to threaten mass movement or to shout slogans that reverberate through the streets. It is as though deep in our national psyche there lurks a disease of chronic discord. It is as though we are systemically incapable of seeing the absurd for what it is.</p>
<p>This failure to be rational, empowering and truly democratic is costly. It creates provocations where there need not be any, enraging people and chipping away at the fabric of sanity. Provocations and counter-provocations continue in a tit- for-tat kind of way, leading to a breakdown of cohesiveness and bringing out the worst in people. We as a people are victims of this quarrel-prone bete noire of our character.</p>
<p>Controlling theatres and plays for their content should be at the very low end of the government‘s priority. In contemporary times, no forward moving nation is discussing such a thing in Parliament. Why are we hell-bent on visiting the darkened, blind alleys of history?</p>
<p>I appeal to the Minister of Information to show sagacity and recoil from this dubious enterprise. As all mortals do, I am sure he craves a place for himself in our history books as an agent of freedom and progress. Does he not realise how harshly he will be judged by posterity if he brings back from the ash-heaps of history this infamous ―Kala Kanoon‖ or ―black law‖? Has he not seen how the late Khaja Shahabuddin entered the twilight of oblivion when, as the commissar of culture in the Pakistan days, he started restricting cultural freedom?</p>
<p>Information is not what it used to be. In this era, defined as it is by information and its dissemination, freedom of expression has attained a sacrosanct, almost</p>
<p>mythical, status. People who aspire to police any form of free expression or information can only do themselves a favour by opening the cages of control. They will be amazed to see that what they free will come back to sing for them.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Acting</span> <span style="color: #003366;">locally:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">path</span> <span style="color: #003366;">to</span> <span style="color: #003366;">empowerment</span></h1>
<p>A slogan that became very popular about ten years ago and may have become a bit worn with chronic usage is: ―Think globally, act locally‖. Locally indicates a small enough area in which people are known to each other, a community, a town, a village, rather than the more populous district, city or the whole country. In certain parts of the US this idea in its modern incarnation took hold even earlier. As a student in the state of Oregon in the late ‗70s, I witnessed what was described as ―Pacific Northwest thinking‖, comprising green-liberal ideas that were a far cry from the corporatist-republican thoughts emanating from the East Coast or Southern California. Many local communities in the Oregon and Washington in the US, Tasmania in Australia, and many areas of Europe, became radically different in thinking with regard to the issues of development, business, even world affairs, compared to the publicised positions of the respective nation- states harbouring those communities. This local thinking, often based on empathy, inclusiveness and a regard for the earth and the environment, has not yet found its rightful place in the corridors of power in the national and international arena, but the situation is changing. I think a world will emerge where these concerns of people in their small towns, communities and villages will prevail to the point of becoming a catalyst of more formal changes in the power structure of the world.</p>
<p>While in developed countries the local communities derive their inspiration from ideas of people like Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, enshrining the right of the ‗little‘ people of the world, in the developing countries, comprising most of South Asia and Africa and Latin America, the influence of the local communities has gone progressively downhill. It is a peculiar inversion; while ideas coming from the most disempowered areas are catalysing changes in richer, more empowered lands, the actual lands from which these empowering personalities have emerged are lapsing into disorganisation, weakness, and ineffectiveness. While</p>
<p>activists from the USA and Australia read and take inspiration from Gandhi‘s march for the right of producing salt that galvanised people against the British, a South Asian village, in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, remains as inconsequential and powerless in the actual power-structure of the country as they were during the days of the British Raj. Disdain toward villagers remains ubiquitous. Local</p>
<p>knowledge, self-confidence and age-old traditions are rendered weak and ineffective.</p>
<p>In Bangladesh we went through a process of systematic destruction of the structure and thinking that existed in the villages for hundreds of years and led to self-sustaining resource-rich communities. This destruction occurred due to well-meaning but ultimately ignorant manipulations that changed the organisation of administrative units, the power structure and the arrangements that had organically originated from the land and the people. Often it was done in the name of combating feudalism, or implementing modern ideas from textbooks, but it was done with such callousness and implicit contempt that people in the end were left disengaged and disempowered. For hundreds of years we had our ancient <em>Panchayat</em> system, a system that was part consensus and part democracy. True, the system may be abused by the rich and the powerful to suppress the poor, but all systems have drawbacks. Instead of changing it to a more equitable one and retaining its spirit and its name, the whole <em>Panchayat </em>system was thrown away. The result is that we have a modern imposed method of governance that has not really taken root in the villages and the remains of an informal <em>Panchayat</em>-like system that wields informal power and often delegitimises the formal administrative structure. Even terms are a problem. The word union council or <em>upazila </em>does not ring a bell like the terms</p>
<p><em>Panchayat</em> and <em>Pargana</em>, or <em>Gram</em>, in the people‘s minds. UNO, an English</p>
<p>abbreviation of a Bangla administrative title, sounds as alien as translated jargon. A community needs hundreds of years to form; the land, the events the myths, the words and the legends ferment together to create a sense of place that people feel close to. Communities cannot be fashioned overnight by bureaucratic dictates.</p>
<p>Empowerment cannot be given like alms — the people need to empower themselves. In the countries of the Western world, a system of local governance is not engineered by intellectuals sitting in big cities. In Bangladesh even village governments are mapped, described and formed by people who have never in their lives lived in a village for any length of time, without running water, electricity or sanitary latrines. Dhaka is full of well-meaning technocrats, bureaucrats, social activists and bankers, NGO personalities who are proposing changes in our local government as though it is a little game of bridge or chess. Why not bring the <em>upazila </em>back again, one pundit opines, while his intellectual</p>
<p>opponent proposes something different, maybe <em>Gram</em> <em>Sarkar</em>. ―Shall we have an</p>
<p>election for these administrative units?‖ asks one pundit. His counterpart chides him for liking too much democracy — he prefers a process of selection. And so it goes. These ideas, propositions, wish flow back and forth, echoing and ricocheting in the corridors of power. Foreign thinkers, professors and think-tank</p>
<p>personalities from distant lands also join in this charade; sociology journals, textbooks and web pages get filled up with half-baked solutions and suggestions at an amazing speed. And all this time poor, hapless Salam, Zarina or Rajyonath in our timeless villages sleepwalks through life. They hardly ever realise that they are entitled to many human rights, one of them being their right to shape their destinies themselves, and that they ought to stand up and oppose this take- over of their inalienable right by professionals and technocrats.</p>
<p>How is it that Salam, Zarina, and Rajyonath can really be empowered? The professional social engineer, the well-meaning doctrinaire activist seems to think that they can be empowered only if appropriate social structures be put up in our villages. This claim is only partly true. The crux of the matter is to form a structure that is an organic part of the village and the relationship that exists in that village. Different villages might have different structures. Local communities or cantons in Switzerland are different from each other. Different areas have different priorities, different histories, different landscapes, terrains and crops. Similarly our Gram and Pargana communities have been different through millennia. They have operated as places with a lot of autonomy throughout history; they were places with a sense of self, long before local governments were discovered in the Western world. Colonialism destroyed these structures, disempowered our villagers till they became utterly ineffective and then built a structure thought up in the fertile minds of the social theorists from the cities of Europe. That, in a nutshell, is the history of the</p>
<p>disenfranchisement of our people. When we became ―independent‖ in 1947 and again in 1971 we simply continued what was there, simply because we had long before stopped believing in ourselves, not to mention in our villages and the necessity for their autonomy.</p>
<p>We can now make a new beginning. To start it the sociology scholar, the banker, the bureaucrat and the economist should all go to villages and live there for a while to learn from the poor and get the feel of rural life. A remote village without access to mobile phone or vehicles would be ideal. They need to go incognito, as knowledge of their names and positions will certainly inhibit learning because the villagers will keep them at arm‘s length. They will blend in well if clad in <em>lungi </em>and <em>genji</em>. Perhaps they remember their childhood in a village or maybe they need to learn again to swim in the village fishpond, and need to learn how to live without toothpaste, shampoo and running water. Once they do it for a few weeks and observe the seasons, the crops, the mud, the dirt and the power relationships in the villages, once they observe how the informal <em>Panchayat</em> works, the right ideas will slowly sprout in their urbanised minds.</p>
<p>Their academic knowledge and experience will certainly act synergistically with</p>
<p>this close encounter with Nature and reward them with a hundred ideas.</p>
<p>Maybe then there could a grand convention; a giant village <em>mela</em> where, in the true democratic spirit of participation, the villagers can talk and we can all listen. And slowly out of these exercises a solution could emerge that could be implemented</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Learning</span> <span style="color: #003366;">from</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Switzerland</span></h1>
<p>I recently went to Switzerland for a scientific conference. Switzerland is a country known for her stunning sceneries including a huge number of snow- capped mountains standing beside the glacier-fed crystalline lakes. From the environ of the majestic Mont Blanc to the ski-slopes of St. Moritz; from the bureaucratic Geneva to the translucent beauty of Interlaken, Switzerland is certainly a visual spectacle to behold. And much like stunningly beautiful women Switzerland is misunderstood to the core. Surrounded by her physical beauty even astute and deep philosophers become shutter-clicking tourists, forgetting that behind this façade of beauty there is a real country of endeavour, pain, wisdom and emotions. Swiss people have an undeserved reputation of being clinical watchmakers, staid country-folks almost as boring as the flat- tasting fondue that they devour night and day, and heartless bankers becoming fabulously rich by minding ill-gotten money of corrupt Third-World dictators. All these of course are stereotypes propagated by the Germans, French and Englishmen none of whom like the gutsy independence, the creative thrift, and the sheer beauty of Switzerland.</p>
<p>I have been fortunate to witness a bit of the soul of Switzerland so I can say that I love her not for her looks but for her mind. And this journey of discovery has been facilitated by Ueli Grossniklaus, a friend, colleague and comrade in Science, who is now a Professor of University of Zurich. Five years ago I joined Ueli in his village near Interlaken, an area of pristine physical beauty and a bucolic landscape of majestic snow-bound slopes mingling with lush flower-strewn plains where houses from a distance look like they have been constructed for sheer fancy and playfulness. I joined Ueli in Zurich airport, he arriving from New York and myself from Boston and we two together with colleagues and friends went over to the village of Beatenberg, Ueli‘s ancestral home. And in that village much of the stereotypical image that I had of Switzerland was wiped out.</p>
<p>First of all, the stunning beauty; no one can deny that; but beauty, just like the cliché says, is in the eyes of the beholder. And the effect of beauty is also dimmed by constant exposure. So while there are tourists ogling the landscape helped by their cameras, Swiss people aren‘t too fussed about it; they are going about their life like anyone else. They were slightly amused by all this attention, particularly the relentless barrage of Bollywood movie groups with their dolled-up damsels and heroes in funny hats, dancing away near every Swiss mountain imaginable. So while the beauty of Switzerland is liked worldwide, and particularly by Bollywood, it does not really effect in the way Swiss people see themselves, or for that matter in life in a real Swiss village.</p>
<p>And the Swiss psyche is more complex than the stereotype would concede. It was in Beatenberg that I learnt about Ueli‘s family‘s interest in Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism and their association with Sri Aurobindo. And I became aware that contrary to popular perception around the world people there were no insular automatons only interested in watches and money but were enlightened and open, and though disciplined and focussed, were also playful and mellow. And I became aware that they had true democracy in the nation, vesting a big part of the power and decision-making process of the nation to real people of the locality described as ―cantons‖.</p>
<p>Since that eye-opening trip I have come back to Switzerland many times. I have entered Switzerland travelling from Lyon of France, witnessing how the relative creative chaos of France is changed into streamlined method of Switzerland. I have travelled from Italy, straddling the Alps, watching the serene beauty of Lugano and Locarno, stopping once to view the immortal paintings of Chagal in a Locarno Museum. And I have seen the famous ETH, a university where stellar scientists such as Pauli and Einstein worked.</p>
<p>This time my destination was Monte Verita, the ―mountain of truth‖, a hill near the Swiss town of Ascona. And although Ueli has once again invited me for a scientific conference this time he has chosen a site that is replete with history. For it was in Monte Verita that an enclave, a site, an ashram was built in the turn of the century by people who were interested in theosophy and other esoteric philosophies. Ascona became a hideout of people as diverse as Lenin, Isadora Duncan, Jung, and the founders of Bauhaus, Walter Gropius and Moholy-Nagy. And the whole conglomeration was often officiated by Annie Besant, the high priestess of theosophy, and mentor of both Nehru and Gandhi. She even brought adolescent Krishnamurti, the anointed leader of the esoteric spiritual movement, to live in Monte Verita. A huge amount of memorabilia of that epoch is now kept in a museum showing anarchists mingling with nudists and dance icons growing vegetable with architecture theorists; an eclectic atmosphere of laid-back</p>
<p>creativity, cosmic chaos and uninhibited camaraderie. Not exactly traits that are easily conceded to Swiss people even by their admirers.</p>
<p>In that atmosphere of fecund history we discussed plant biology. The atmosphere was friendly though spiced by the usual competition and tension that enters all vibrant and creative enterprise. There were young and not so young scientists from all over Europe, India and USA and as far away as Australia. All linked by a common bonding of curiosity, a love for the scientific enterprise, and a sheer sense of fun that science brings.</p>
<p>Surrounded by this plenty of thought, nature, and friendship I missed Bangladesh. I missed the little village where I grew up, where nature is abundant as it is in Ascona though the hues of colours in Kanihati were more lush and included more green and red. I missed the rice fields, the fishponds, and the tall splendour of the betel-nut palms swaying in the breeze. Together with two Indian friends we discussed the problems of South Asia, our strife-ridden land, tormented by sectarian conflicts of religion, language and ethnicity. In tranquil Switzerland of many languages and true representative democracy that is immediate and local, our predicament seemed even starker.</p>
<p>I believe that we can learn from Switzerland. I have heard that our PM has already sent people over to find out about their local Government. I urge the government to look into the ideas of cantons more seriously. For a long time Switzerland, a tiny country of many languages, have gone on their own, remaining neutral of the East-West rivalry, and progressing by sheer resourcefulness, talent, thrift, and the inventive democracy of the cantons. And Switzerland has been open to ideas, even esoteric ones.</p>
<p>It is time we stopped being blinded by Switzerland‘s beauty and started learning from her.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Cultural</span> <span style="color: #003366;">self-alienation</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">urban</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Bangladeshis</span></h1>
<p>We ourselves have been part of the conspiracy that has caused us to be robbed of our pride. When modernity came to India and Bengal under the tutelage of the imperial occupiers, we were invited to participate in that modernity but only in a most distorted manner. The history and symbols of our public life were by then demeaned, if not desecrated. The traditions of both Muslims and Hindus had become mere caricatures of what they should have been and European ideas were the only ones deemed fit to emulate.</p>
<p>There was nothing wrong in that if true choices were involved; in that colonial context it was a power play designed to belittle native culture. Local languages such as Bangla were described as vernacular, and this term is extant even now. In Europe in not so ancient times there was Latin and the rest were the vernacular tongues. In Imperial India all the Indian languages became vernacular. They were often taught in schools by ill-paid pundits or mullahs who were derided and lampooned by others. Muslims claimed their breeding and nobility through a knowledge of Farsi, the language of rulers of a by-gone era. This blatant and subsequently latent demeaning of the local languages created linguistic haves and have-nots that continue even today. Even after 21 February, English still has a higher status in Bangladesh than Bangla. In offices, banks, parties, spoken English is equated with education and class. True, there is a nationalistic fervour around Bangla, but that is more of a cultural thing than a genuine acceptance of Bangla as a valid language. Even the cultural icons of Bangladesh seem unsure of themselves in terms of status and importance and attempt to speak English even with a lot of mistakes, trying to prove their status. It is important to reclaim the genuine honour of the language through deliberate habits and stopping use of terms like vernacular. How can a national language be a vernacular? After all, the word ‗vernacular‘, in its adjective mode, means ‗expressed or written in a language or dialect native to a region or country rather than in a literary, learned, or foreign language or dialect‘. (Italics mine.) Is not our Bangla a literary, learned language? How can we call it vernacular?</p>
<p>We must restore the honour of our traditions and the status of our villages. Disparagement of Bangladeshi villages was done jointly by colonialists and their imitators, the urban bourgeoisie of the Bengal Renaissance. So busy were the latter in their quest for enlightenment that was coming from London that they consigned our timeless villages to the dustbin of history. Suddenly there appeared derogatory terms such as <em>Gramyo,</em> <em>Geyo</em> <em>Bhoot,</em> <em>Chasha</em> — all showing</p>
<p>scorn for more than 98% of the people. This attitude persists even now. You hardly ever see village people or their lives given genuine respect in Bangladeshi society or literature. This must be a unique feature of the subcontinent. I have not seen it in South and Central Americans who also have a rather backward rural society. It is not there in Malaysia, or in Turkey or Iran. But it is very strong in Bangladesh. We equate village origin to lack of education and backwardness, conveniently forgetting that it is only a few generations ago that we all were villagers. This discrimination is enshrined in our language. In my opinion it is a direct legacy of the Bengal Renaissance that originated in the urban salons of Kolkata. In Kolkata you can still see it in all its ugliness. To a Kolkata intellectual, even today, being of <em>mufassil</em> origin is to be almost a barbarian, and not to have the south Kolkata accent is tantamount to being not educated properly. (They contemptuously refer to us Bangladeshis as Bangals, not Bengalis.) This city- based renaissance gave us the modern version of our culture, the written prose and all the sublime poetry and songs that we now take for granted. But behind it lurks an attitude that despises the villagers and rural culture. So the scenic Sonar Bangla as a symbol or an emblem is okay — the only problem being that they are populated by <em>gramyo chashas</em>.</p>
<p>Nowhere is this contemptuous attitude manifested with greater cruelty than in language and accent. In Kolkata and subsequently in Dhaka the urban Bangla accent prevalent in Kolkata was equated with culture and education. The situation is a bit similar to what it used to be in the English-speaking world maybe 50-100 years ago, when the King‘s English and the Oxbridge accent was a sign of breeding and education. America put a stop to it a long time ago. Now people in Sydney, Auckland and Johannesburg speak English very differently from each other — both the accent and the diction are different. However, we still have the hang-up that everyone must have the south Kolkata accent. Listen to any docu-drama or a Bangla movie from Dhaka. The educated man, the protagonist, the hero, always speaks like the Kolkata people or tries to. The servant or the maid speaks in the different dialect of our various districts. Day in and day out this disparagement of our own culture is going on. We pretend to be something we are not. In Kolkata this distinction is often true; a Kolkata hero does speak standard Bangla, but in Bangladesh this is simply not true. A Bangladeshi real life character almost never speaks the type of Bangla that is spoken in the movies. This difference between depiction and reality is a hoax that does not do us any good. I think it weakens our self-confidence and erodes our psyche insidiously.</p>
<p>This cultural self-alienation continues in our dress preferences. Take the example of the lungi. The Bangladeshi educated people have repulsion for lungi that betrays their cultural insecurity and contempt for their own roots. Most of the</p>
<p>male members of our nation wear lungi, and most women wear sari. But while the educated women wear sari without any compunction, the educated male Bangladeshi avoids lungi in public places, an attitude that verges on being irrational. In this loathing our women play a leading role. I know of many university friends who used to wear lungi as students, but once they became established and got married their wives would not let them wear lungi any more although they themselves wore sari. They somehow felt diminished if they had a lungi-clad husband. The lungi is a symbol of our village origin that we are keen to shed. This complex shows the extent of our alienation from our own culture.</p>
<p>This is not true for all previously colonised people. The people of Burma wear lungi with pride. So do the Sri Lankans. I have been in the presence of lungi-clad members of the Malay royal family and seen how proud they are of their sartorial heritage. The urban Bangladeshis have lost their way, and like the proverbial crow are pluming themselves with peacock feathers borrowed from others. They will suffer the same fate as the crow unless they learn to honour their own culture. To cut off our roots is to become a subject race and a lesser breed.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">A</span> <span style="color: #003366;">journey</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">understanding</span></h1>
<p>I start this column with both optimism and trepidation. Optimism, because I am constitutionally an optimist, and it is indeed the best of all available options.</p>
<p>Trepidation is caused by the magnitude of this task, when the goal is a coherent understanding of our raison d‘etre as a people and a society. It is a formidable goal, but also an indispensable one. For I believe that behind the chaos and belligerence that has gripped our nation there exists a systemic error of cognition, an enormous mistake of comprehension of our role and position as people. I believe that just like an individual can benefit from introspection and remedial measures, so as a nation we can change by identifying this systemic error of judgement of our collective psyche. And that remedy needs a shift of our current paradigm in thinking. It is with this belief, at once tremor-filled and resonant with optimism that I begin.</p>
<p>Paradigm defined: The term was first coined in its modern form by Thomas Kuhn in the context of Science. He defined it as a ‗constellation of achievements – concepts, values, techniques etc. – shared by a scientific community to define legitimate problems and solutions‘. The term then was generalised to ‗social paradigm‘ by Fritjof Capra, another scientist, who broadened it to ―a constellation of concepts, values, perceptions and practices shared by a community which forms a particular vision of reality that is the basis of the way the community organises itself‖.</p>
<p>In other words paradigm is a ―worldview‖, a ―theory of everything around us‖ that we carry in our head to negotiate our way around the world. It is ― a a lens that determines how we collect and interpret data, draw conclusions from them, and determine what kind of response, if any, is appropriate‖.</p>
<p>Consciousness, mother of all paradigms: The highest form of paradigm of course is our consciousness, the lofty trait in our brain that makes us human. There, in the cerebral hemispheres, resides in the one hand, dreams, aspirations, and vision, together with fear envy and disgust. They all vie for our attention; we, being the nebulous sense that is our ―self‖. These conflicting agents within us fight and compromise to create a sense of cohesion that we brand as our mental trait or ―personality‖. It is a dynamic equilibrium of sorts whereby the fight between the demons and fairies get sorted out with all the relevant sacrifices and opportunity costs. And finally there is a compromise whereby we demonstrate a persona; we become an occupier of values, exerciser of judgement, an actor in life’s drama. So our inner core is informed by this message of equilibrium, this set of values that we cherish, and that informs us and guides us. Extrapolating</p>
<p>from this individual cognition and expanding it to the collective, we attain a collective sense of self, a national character, a paradigm as a people.</p>
<p>A nation of lost paradigms: I would like to argue that as a people we do not anymore have a valid paradigm that could profitably nurture us. We have an array of assorted wishes, we have competing contingencies and we have conflicting visions. But we do not have a cohesive paradigm that defines our national self. That loss, the inadequacy of thus being bereft, is translating into the centripetal forces that always divide us as people, that quickly results into one part of us to stand against the other, that inevitably cancels us out and renders us irrelevant.</p>
<p>So what has caused this paradigm loss? In my view the beginning occurred when as a people we started to be pulled apart by a component of our history in one hand, and rooted ness of our geography on the other, in opposite directions. It began to occur when we failed to resolve satisfactorily whether we belonged more to our lore of Islam and the Middle East, or if we belonged to South and East Asia. This is not a new analyses; it is a statement that articulates well-known concerns about our cultural identity for many years. I am not interested in restating what is patently obvious to many. The point I want to make here is that while we have debated it ad nauseum, we still have not actually resolved it to the point that the resultant position can become a potent symbol of our being. We have failed to adequately deal with it and in the process have become weak and vulnerable to forces that are more definite and brutal than we are. And we are being led and pushed, rather than standing up on our feet. More about this point later.</p>
<p>This paradigm loss was made worse by colonialism. As if the two-way pull of history and geography was not enough, we were now being hijacked by another alien force. This force, a lot more powerful than the other two, overwhelmed us through time, redefined us in spite of ourselves, packaged us, branded us while we lay sometime kicking and sometimes slothful, always wondering what was happening to us but never really taking a stand worth its while. When the British came to conquer Bengal and ruled us for two hundred years, it took away a lot more than the precious gems of the Mughuls and the livelihood of our artisans. They robbed us of our nascent paradigm. That was the time when the imperial ashes of the decline of the Mughuls were producing a new era; when phoenix- like, a collection of smaller entities, kings chieftains and noblemen were asserting themselves to fill this vacuum. There was a genuine possibility of emergence of a new identity informed by changes that had occurred in the world. Left to itself this region would have slowly matured into a cohesive sense of identity very different from what it turned out to be. But it did not happen like that. Suddenly</p>
<p>hundreds of years of history, assumptions, values were thrown away. Syncretic mingling which had brought the followers of several great religions and cultures together, were thrown asunder and a totally new language and world view was forced upon us. It was paradigm desecrated. Hindus and Muslims were pitted against each other. Competition for jobs, proving ourselves as more worthy and better subjects of the Empire, suddenly consumed the energy of the best and the brightest of our land. A gaping whole generated where there was a budding identity. A lot was lost.</p>
<p>Then came the period of the decades of 1930‘s and 1940‘s. An earlier proto- conflict, one between history and geography was resuscitated, now with a brutal inducement from the colonialist. The inherent tensions were sharpened and reinforced, silly differences were made consequential and large. Instead of finding a solution based on mutual respect, division came as a harbinger of more divisions. If in 1947 history won over geography, after 1947 geography came back with a vengeance. It was a reaction, a rebellion often not informed by a coherently articulated viewpoint but a piecemeal and sullen aparadigmic struggle of response, which finally gave us another deliverance in 1971.</p>
<p>And indeed it was a freedom at last. We are now free of the historical idealism of two-nation theory, as well as the grandiose dream of ―Mother India‖. We alone among all the ―provinces‖ of Indian subcontinent became a fully-fledged nation- state thanks to two rounds of split. This historical pathway was unique and has not been repeated successfully by any other province of South Asia where two powerful unitary states still lord over several proto-states. This lineage has created special opportunity and problems for Bangladesh. Opportunity because we have a genuine chance to marshal the national energy free of troubles engendered by ethnic and linguistic tensions; problems because we have become a test case of the ―power of a province‖ that both India and Pakistan finds hard to swallow. The post-1971 subtle and chronic destabilization of Bangladesh through proxies of these two unitary states with their grandiose dreams of domination is now a feature of our national life. An essential part of the paradigm shift is to recognise this aspect, and to take remedial measures.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Desperately</span> <span style="color: #003366;">seeking</span> <span style="color: #003366;">panacea,</span> <span style="color: #003366;">our</span> <span style="color: #003366;">liberal</span> <span style="color: #003366;">democracy</span></h1>
<p>The allure of liberal democracy is its treacle-sweet name; the seductive terminology seems to promise a never-ending good time for the individual. After all, who in their right mind would want illiberal theocracy, kleptocratic banditry, or even a benign hereditary monarchy? The term Liberal, derived from the Spanish term ―Liberales‖ invokes a long history of ideas that cherishes the right of the individual over the state or any other putative agent of control or oppression, and puts the individual citizen on the pedestal as a legitimate unit on which the good fortune of rights and freedom must be vested. A brain child of thinkers like Locke, Hume and Baron de Montesquieu upholding the right of the individual for life liberty and property ―liberalism‖ later benefited from additional demands for the involvement of government agencies in education, poverty alleviation, etc. Add to it democracy, the Rosetta stone of electoral legitimacy and what you have is a heaven of the bleeding heart idealists, a rallying cry for all the decent folks of the world. This political ideology now is like morning dew accumulated on a rose bud; glistening, pristine pure, and full or promises and optimism; by now it has few detractors or enemy.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the predicament of liberal democracy in the real world is also the predicament of that rose; while it is pretty and incandescent with optimism – its fate is also hopelessly dependent on the ambience of the garden. For us it is an English rose, albeit with some exotic Athenian lineage, it blooms well in the moisturised English gardens and the sister rose gardens of Washington, and in the bucolic gardens of Ottawa and Canberra. Some other well-tended northwestern gardens of the world also have their varieties of these flowers of human aspirations and optimism. And although stigmatised with some imperfections, many say it also has taken root in India.</p>
<p>But place that rose in the jungles of Amazonia, or the acrid soil of Bulgaria, the heat of Nairobi or the flood plains of Bangladesh and it seems to wilt. Either the heat kills it, or the encroaching noxious weed smothers it to death, or it needs fertilisers that cannot be found in these lands. Meanwhile maybe there are other suitable flowers adapted to those lands, which could have bloomed. But who wants them? Who knows about them or even cares? The global arbiters of legitimacy are not interested in those lesser-known flowers.</p>
<p>Instead, experts are hired who tell us how to make this fragile rose grow in less hospitable locales. For a hefty sum often promised through aid largesse experts</p>
<p>materialise who kill our weeds, put in sprinkler systems, and moisturised chambers are imported and installed. With great fanfare we are taught the rituals of this finicky monoculture, the art of nurturing this unique flower. Election experts are brought in; we are taught how to display controlled parliamentary anger, the speaker goes globetrotting learning rituals of behaviour, ex-presidents from important countries are always available as mentors and builders of dwindling self-confidence. Meanwhile the honourable gentlemen from the left side of the isle don‘t even bother to show up in the parliament or if they do they have to endure endless indignities from their honourable parliamentary colleagues from the right side of the isle. In the grandiose chambers designed by an eminent architect they sit and they hurl abuses at each other. They pull the plug of the microphones when their parliamentary colleagues from the wrong side begin to say something. Insults are exchanged, snarling reciprocated, pairs of shoes are displayed, and bodily harm sometimes attempted or narrowly averted. Meanwhile the international parliamentary training courses continue in the name of an aspiration for a civil society; the avatars of political floriculture; the western gurus, they come and go relentlessly, now retaliating for all the Maharishis that we sent in their direction for all these years.</p>
<p>So what is to be done? This political monoculture, the husbandry of a tradition exotic to this land is what we are stuck with and while we twist and contort we cannot seem to learn this game. In our previous political incarnation through the 50‘s and 60‘s this charade continued; myriad attempts of liberal democracy were attempted and discarded, parliaments were convened and adjourned, parliaments became sites of uncivil melee, parliaments were taken hostage by gun-toting soldiers. These sideshows themselves became such spectacles that no one was even asking anything about why all these complex processes were there in the first place.</p>
<p>It is of course done in the name of the people who know precious little about these deliberations. The publicised intent is always the textbook wish list of liberal democracy. Individual’s inalienable rights for life liberty and pursuit of happiness, right to own property. And rule of law, states intervention to alleviate sufferings, rights of the minorities, women, children, and now in the 21st century, the rights of the environment, the rivers, the air, and the flora and the fauna to live in health and diversity. Who could disagree with these intents?</p>
<p>Who doesn‘t like morning dew accumulated on a rosebud?</p>
<p>I want liberal democracy. I want that flower to bloom in my land. But maybe we are tending an imported flower rather than doing some creative breeding to find one suitable to our problems and temperaments and needs. A stable system of governance must originate from the tradition and aspiration of the land; it cannot</p>
<p>be imposed from outside. We have been aping the ritual process of liberal democracy for a long time now; we must now take stock of where we stand. In our history there are ingredients of liberalism and governance with mandate. Our ancient system of village governance that pre-dated our colonial history can still be our inspiration; ownership of property was enshrined in Islamic law, and government was thought to be a sacred trust on behalf of the governed; an idea not dissimilar to that of Locke. Even with our Westminster style parliament we should still invoke our ancient electoral and egalitarian legacies as much as possible and derive inspiration from them. A budding nation needs to fashion its myth as much as it needs to surge forward.</p>
<p>In the supposed bastions of liberal democracy the rose doesn‘t smell so good either. While the political science textbooks give Joe Bloe and Rupert Murdoch the same theoretical power only a naive fool would equate Citizen Rupert with Citizen Joe. Citizen R manufactures consent, citizen J either doesn‘t vote or is too busy minding his own business to even notice that his consent has been delivered on his behalf to forces that shape his life but about whom he knows little. True, he has certain rights; he is happy that he can own guns and curse people in public but in other areas the circle that defines his rights gets narrower with time and unelected people are increasingly drawing that circle. Elected lawmakers or corporate masterminds, who is ruling the political powerhouses of the western world? I refer the readers to Noam Chomsky. And in the globalised world with long arm of corporate power dwarfing most nation states, what is the actual significance of liberal democracy anyway?</p>
<p>Meanwhile in Bangladesh we are receding into a primitive vendetta-prone, increasingly rascalised political culture. In the garden that we call home we are being swamped by noxious weeds in the form of, inter alia, theocratic thuggery, rustic-ethnic chauvinism, cronyism and nepotism. We have to find our own pristine flower, a robust fragrant one; one that will withstand these creeping weeds, will neutralise the foul stench emanating from the open sewers of our blood-lettings and fratricides and will grow profusely and boldly in our soil and flood plains. Identifying and nurturing that special flower is the challenge of our land and no foreign expert, no matter how erudite or noble, can help us in that. Finding and growing that flower is a defining minimum criterion of our coming of age as a nation and we must begin this task with unity, solemnity and the timeless tenacity that I believe still hasn‘t left us. Our own liberal democracy let us find that Bangali rose.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">An</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Andalucian</span> <span style="color: #003366;">reverie</span></h1>
<p>As the plane descended, revealing a grey denuded landscape, unmistakably Mediterranean, I felt a stirring within myself of having come back to a long forgotten land. This feeling was odd, as I have never been to Spain before. Could this longing then be cultural, steeped in my memory of having heard and read endlessly of Muslim Spain? Could this be a pang for the glory and exploits of Tarik and Musa and finally the grandeurs of Alhamra and Cordova that I heard endlessly from my elders as I grew up? As the plane taxied to a stop in Seville airport, and I watched outside at the sandy white buildings with their false minarets, I suddenly felt, anachronistically, since this is June 2002, my ancient surges of that lost grandeur and I felt almost like a historical pilgrim of medieval Islam.</p>
<p>But I did not come to Seville to dredge up old tales of reflected glory. Here in this historic European city of such complex heritage, I am an invited guest at a scientific conference. A guest coming from all the way from Australia, one of complex cultural lineage, but always associated through name at least with Islam. And as I soon I found out, in this conference of a thousand, only one with a Muslim name. In this city of such scientific mind as Abu Rushd and just a narrow strip of water away from the vast Muslim lands of North Africa, there doesn‘t seem to be a single Muslin soul representing of middle-eastern science.</p>
<p>As the conference started in the mosque-like giant convention centre, aptly named ―Al-Andalus‖, so recently the venue of Europaen Union Head of</p>
<p>Governments meeting, I was again touched by this nostalgia, of long historical memory of the collective psyche of the Muslims and a forlorn feeling of what went wrong with us all.</p>
<p>And surely much have gone wrong in the Islamic lands. This is the land that saw Tariq bin Ziad cross the water, in the 8th century, from the tip of North Africa and to land in ―Jabal-ut-Tariq‖, forever to be named Gibralter. This is the land in which Muslims created a tolerant and vibrant civilization till 1492 when the rule of Fardinand and Isabella finally removed the Muslim presence from the Iberian Peninsula and began the Spanish inquisition and the Columbus‘ expedition to India that instead discovered America. The ashes of Moorish Andalucia leading to the ashes of hundreds of native American kingdoms and tribes finally ushering the era of transmigration of colonial settlers and modernity. In a way all beginning here in Andalucia.</p>
<p>And the following day taking a very fast train to Cordova to see the famous mosque (now named mesquita cathethdral) I met a Tunisian Muslim ironically named Ziad. Ziad, a wealthy young man from Rabat spoke only French and was accompanied by a German student of Arabic language, a vivacious blonde names Ingrid.</p>
<p>We spent a day of friendship and animated conversation, the three ways meeting of itinerant minds; of sharing of Gaspacho soup and Paela in the hot Mediterranean sun. Walking inside the giant mosque so famous for its characteristic columns, one is struck by the sheer size of the Cathedral constructed inside the mosque, a striking imposing structure made to celebrate the Christian reclamation of Andalucia. But oddly in spite of this transmutation the vast image of the mosque somehow remains, and the cathedral, though imposing and glittering appears to be much dwarfed by the sweeping expanse of the original mosque. When I mentioned about this act of destruction of a mosque Ingrid said, perhaps justly, that the flip side of this is the church of Constantinople (Istambul) which has been converted to a mosque. And so it has been, the tit-for-tat, rumblings of history; the layers after layers of glory and retribution now forever etched on the stones and the collective psyche of us all.</p>
<p>And later in the final day of the conference, relaxing under a starry night in Hacienda Del Vizir, a sumptuous villa of an ancient Moorish governor, we were treated to a giant extravagnza of flamenco dancing. The songs of heart wrenching melody in Spanish sounding oddly Arabic reverberated through the night and we, touched by the sweet melancholy of it all discussed the way the world has turned out to be. We, Australians, Canadians, Americans and Israelis, members of this scientific fraternity from which Muslims are now almost completely absent. Muslims, once victors and shapers of ideas and empires, now reduced to tales of glory mixed with sullen anger and relentless zeal for purity and orthodoxy.</p>
<p>So what went wrong precisely? In fifteenth century Spain, as the sun was rising for the European mercantile expeditions that would, in the next 300 years claim much of the world, Muslim‘s were in retreat, vanquished and depopulated, forced to leave an empire that is still fondly remembered for its creativity and tolerance. As the intolerance of the inquisition took over, the zealotry defeated the urbane cosmopolitanism of the moors and Muslim and Jews together were persecuted mercilessly. The multicultural tolerance and openness that was Andalucia created art, music and dances and sheltered the gypsies in a way that has not been seen since in Europe. And with Andalucia perhaps an example of tolerant Islam was defeated, never to be resuscitated again.</p>
<p>A friend of mine, a Spaniard from Madrid commented to an American colleague about the moors, perhaps for my benefit</p>
<p>― You know Tim, it was the Muslims who were the civilised people in Spain and we (the Christians) were the culture-less brutes‖</p>
<p>I derived little happiness from this charitable depiction of ancient Andalucian history. For as recent history shows Muslims these days have little to be happy about. And by Muslim I mean not just the devout and the observant ones but the rest of us, skeptics and agnostics included, for whom being a Muslim means little more than subscribing to a sense of history and cultural more. Increasing it has come to mean almost an oxymoronic international ethnicity. In the heartland of Europe and America, the Muslim identity is continuously being vilified through association with backwardness, anger and violence and being a moderate and sophisticated Muslim is not really a refuge from this kind of name-calling. In the self-glorifying fight between enlightenment and ―barbarism‖, it is often forgotten that it is not Muslims who decimated the population of the North American continent, or lead the inquisition and the holocaust or dropped atomic bombs on civilians.</p>
<p>These are difficult times indeed. One is reminded of the adage ―Big countries behave like gangsters, small countries behave like prostitutes‖. And in the ugly melee that has become the international discourse now, we the normal people are caught in a trap of vilification, distrust and fear. Even in the enlightened chambers of a scientific congress one hears the footsteps of anxiety and tribal distrust. Everywhere we are being chased by the ghosts of ancient history and the cyclic repetition of events that are beyond control for reasons that are not clear.</p>
<p>Meanwhile here in Andalucia Orange grows in scenic groves and the blue water beyond Cadiz beckons one to the coast of Maghreb. Not far away in Costa del Sol the rich and the corrupt frolick in the deep blue water of Mediterranean, all oblivious of the dark sinister clouds accumulating everywhere. It is a time when even agnostics want to pray.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Our</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Freedom;</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Answers</span> <span style="color: #003366;">still</span> <span style="color: #003366;">blowing</span> <span style="color: #003366;">in</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">wind</span></h1>
<p>March inevitably brings memories of our legendary travails. As the warm wind swirls around us collecting dried leaves, dust and remnants of the last paddy, our collective national psyche also becomes a part of that whirlpool. Political pundits recapitulate the fateful days of March of 1971, some even going further deep in memory lanes and digging up the days of March of 1940, temporarily forgetting how hopelessly these two Marches are pitted against one another. For like the tempestuous March wind, our national mind is also cluttered with motley contradictions, the forces of history that has conglomerated us also hides within it centripetal vortexes that threaten to throw us asunder again. As we build pivots and bridges to sustain our national space we are offered yet another nor‘easter and our nation shakes like our village mud-huts quivering in the ferocious winds of <em>Chaitra</em>.</p>
<p>So why do we remain so uncertain, the anchors of our national platform kept weakened by endless dithering, the solemn congregations of our nationhood defiled by violence, uncivil insults, and a downward spiral of rascalization. Why after 31 years of independence people are still persecuted for their political actions, school history books are changed with every electoral change, and the discord over symbols and portraits are so strong that they threaten the very house that shelters those symbols. For the very well being of our young nation is being eroded by these puerile conflicts; like natures cruel calamities that often visit our nation, our self-inflicted ones seem hell-bent on destroying the very fabric of this nation. The protagonists of this shadow drama seem strangely detached from the probable consequences of their actions; it is as though they have been made fatalistic and blind by their reckless greed to be consequential, famous, and rich or all three. It is as though a genuine hope and resilient vision has also left them and they are living recklessly for their last days, collecting whatever credit they could for themselves and for their dead. They are like the crews of an endangered ship who have forgotten about the passengers and even the ocean, and are now ensconced in their cabins watching old family footages and trying, through screams and fistfights, to decide who owns the ship. Their shrill quarrel drowns both the cries of the passengers and the roar of the waves that threaten to engulf the ship.</p>
<p>Yes this is March again. It is a month to remember our countless dead, our slain comrades who perished because they valued their dignity more than their lives,</p>
<p>or simple folks who were in harms way facing an enemy so evil that the blight of their misdeeds has defaced decades of history with no end in sight. It is also a month to recapitulate and reclaim the luminous moments that lit our lives and in the end gave us hope in those cavernous days, in those months of the vultures.</p>
<p>Instead of resurrecting the true spirit of that time and thus obtaining accolades in history it is a pity that a few mortals who have assumed stewardship of our national ship are involved in an archaic battle of partisanship that assures them instead a place in the dustbin of history. It is a pity because it is a matter of choice for them to search within themselves and find more glorious and humane elements that lie dormant. It is by becoming agents of true sacrifice and dedication, and not by continuously demanding credit that they would become genuinely honourable. In fact they diminish the true glory and honour of their dead by continuously claiming credit on their behalf. Alas, they have forgotten that true glory does not lie in monuments and fading pages of books, but is sung in the melodies of this land, harboured in the huge vistas of oral memories of our peasants, and mystically, even on the shifting sands of our rivers.</p>
<p>Yes it is windy March again. In my younger days in Dhaka University I used to see 10-year-old boys and girls collecting dried leaves and twigs around this time of the year. They frequented the area around Curzon Hall squatting and talking among themselves and increasing their load of this harvest of dry March. While I was busy learning and often attending meetings where radical leftist ideas were proclaimed, these little children of March were working like scavengers of nature, forfeiting the promise of education and upliftment right in front of our eyes. I see these kids even now though a generation has passed and they must be the children of the kids that I saw in the seventies.</p>
<p>What is the meaning of our freedom for these children? If we asked them or their parents what their views were about the 10 most contentious issues of our political debate what would they answer? Is there any place in their lives for these questions that is sapping all the energy of our urban literati? Reciprocally, where is the place in our political process for the issues that concern these</p>
<p>people? For instance, why aren‘t we half as incensed about the Arsenic problem, as we seem to be about the portraits that should hang in our offices? When I think like that I feel as though I am also a member of the crew of that imperilled ship simply driven by my narcissism and vanity. I have a nagging feeling that the windy March of political change, its events and metaphors and the sense of nationhood has significantly escaped these true sons and daughters of our soil. I fear that we have insulated ourselves from their world and interact with them only when they are our servants and coolies. And as a final insult, having forgotten about their particular concerns we have mythically elevated them as</p>
<p>―people‖ and have hijacked their political agenda through acts of cunning</p>
<p>manipulation. In the international arena we pass ourselves off as their representative although we do not live the lives that they live. As I watch the shenanigans of our ministers, oppositions leaders, poets, bureaucrats, non- resident Bangladeshi patriots I cannot but think that we have lost the lyric of the proverbial song.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the March wind blows ushering in the storms of <em>Kal-Baishakhi</em>. The lyric of our song, our answers, might be blowing away in that wind.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Our</span> <span style="color: #003366;">genomic</span> <span style="color: #003366;">heritage:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">building</span> <span style="color: #003366;">a</span> <span style="color: #003366;">bridge</span> <span style="color: #003366;">to</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">future</span></h1>
<p>Most significant revolutions take place silently in people‘s minds, generating new ways of thinking, propelling life in novel directions with fresh ideas and concepts and finally combining them all with results and milestones that take us forward on the path of progress. Something very important happened this February, and while the news came and went amidst all the rigmarole of many other hyped up episodes, its effects will remain pervasive for many years and might change our lives altogether. I am talking about the complete deciphering of the human genome, reported early this year.</p>
<p>Now talk of Genes and DNA is everywhere. From obscure discussions in scientific conferences the genetic parlance has now reached the drawing rooms of our houses, spicing popular language, offering medical miracles, even feeding</p>
<p>people‘s appetite for raunchy scandals. Bill Clinton’s DNA was about to be matched with a DNA sample from Monica’s dress when the ex-President spilled his guts and made the cathartic confession. Jim Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA, often hectored about the possible adverse societal effects of gene technology, jibed “the only person who has ever been harmed by DNA is Bill Clinton”. There is no other branch of science that is more intimate or personal. Its leaping progress is something we must come to terms with quickly, and with some rigour and finesse so that we can discriminate the hype and humbug from what is true progress.</p>
<p>So what has really happened that is so important? Let me explain with the barest minimum of jargon. We humans have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, one coming from the father and the other from the mother. There are twenty-two gender-free chromosome pairs present in both females and males while one mismatched pair, X and Y, define our gender. Females are XX while males are XY. Y chromosome thus defines maleness. All this biology is of course old hat; what has happened recently is that the complete codes of all these chromosomes have been deciphered and it all boils down to about 3 billion chemical letters, of A (Adenine), G (Guanine), Thymine (T) and Cytosine, C. These four letters are the alphabets with which the code of life is written. These alphabets initially define codons, triplets such as ATG, GTC, GGT, and construct a linear array of information containing hundreds of codons called a gene. Each triplet codon of the gene defines a chemical substance called an amino acid that is joined with</p>
<p>many others to make a protein. And proteins of course are the building blocks of life. As it turns out, of the 3 billion letters of the human genome (the ensemble of all the genes in all the chromosomes are described as the genome), there are only 3 per cent DNA codes for all the information that makes us what we are. This translates into about 40,000 genes. The rest of the DNA, about 97 per cent of it, is just nonsense, gibberish, or so it seems. Finding the mechanism of how these 40,000 genes define a human being is going to be the challenge of the coming decade.</p>
<p>The most formidable challenges include understanding and finding a cure for cancer, a genome-based strategy for many intractable genetic diseases such as Huntington‘s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson‘s disease, Cystic Fibrosis, and the grandest possible achievement of the human mind — an understanding of the mind itself. For the first time in the evolutionary history a product of evolution has now deciphered the code of its own creation, completing the cycle of life‘s mind-boggling enigma. If this isn’t a revolution, I don’t know what is.</p>
<p>Are we ready to accept it, understand it, and fashion it to our needs?</p>
<p>Recently I went to Dhaka to teach a course on gene technology, especially applied to agricultural problems. The nice thing about this modern version of life science is that there is great economy in the processes; the same DNA code that defines a rice or wheat plant also defines a crocodile or an elephant or Marilyn Monroe. The difference of course is in the actual genes — the alphabets are all the same. Knowledge of DNA, its intricate biochemistry, its role as an information storing devise — all these features cut across the species barrier and offer us an opportunity of understanding and utilisation. DNA-based methodologies are tools for efficient crop breeding, arbiters of paternity disputes, detectors of crimes and genetic diseases. In Bangladesh we must learn to use these tools. If the last decade defined information technology, the current one is defining genomics and DNA.</p>
<p>In Bangladesh now we have a Biotechnology Institute. I was told that the fledgling organisation is being built rather slowly, and languishing in the marginal obscurity that we inevitably push our science into. I think we need a paradigm shift in our thinking. We must stand up, metaphorically, and declare ourselves to be a gene-savvy nation. Many new genome-based technologies are being developed right now and we can be very significant players if we want to. A very new discipline, Bioinformatics, utilises computer science to solve genomic problems. Our talented programmers could try their hands in this area. We could make our mark in the new molecular medicine, stem cell research, marker assisted breeding, and even in gene therapy if we chose to.</p>
<p>The leadership in this highly promising area has to come from the highest level and not from a junior portfolio minister. One of the finest minds in the current Cabinet, an ex-physicist, is currently the Minister of Information. With all due respect to everyone concerned, it boggles my mind to see that in this era of free flow of information a full Cabinet minister is engaged in presumably controlling the information flow while the science portfolio remains in the hand of a junior minister. The Information Ministry is a relic of a bygone era; I am not aware of any modern forward-looking country with an Information Ministry. Instead someone of the calibre of Dr. Abdul Moyeen Khan should be a full minister of a rejuvenated and bolstered Science and Technology Ministry that could also deal with Information Technology. Gene and information technologies could be the dual pillars of this modern edifice, a showpiece of our determination to be a Knowledge Nation. We should then try to generate internal funds similar to how it was done during the construction of the Jamuna Bridge, with a national science levy. This capacity building work in a key technology should not be sub- contracted to industry, nor should the ubiquitous donors be pestered for this fund. If we are to be significant players, willing to utilise our genomic resources wisely in nation building, we must show some gutsy determination and stand up and be counted as a nation.</p>
<p>Harnessing funds for this capacity building is like building a bridge to the future; it is a much grander leap than crossing the Jamuna River. Are we, as a nation, ready to build this bridge?</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">The</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Perilous</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Divide;</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Spectre</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Leadership</span></h1>
<h2>A nation hopelessly divided</h2>
<p>That the politics of Bangladesh is now hopelessly polarised into two irreconcilable poles is obvious to all. What is truly bizarre, and all bipolar disorders are strange, is an almost a total absence of any significant national platform to narrow this schism. Except for occasional international mediators and the ubiquitous <em>ferenghi</em> ambassadorial sermons, and perhaps a lone sanctimonious newspaper editor, we seem to have accepted this national malaise. This sinister silence, acceptance of this fratricidal status quo seems total – we, the local intelligentsia, the political operators, professors and opinion- makers, assorted past, present and would-be ministers, emeritus members of past care-taker governments, celebrity members of high profile NGOs, the sentimental Bangali expatriates from Manila to Copenhagen, we all seem to have accepted this state of affairs as our destiny. In fact most of us have positioned ourselves in one camp or the other. The total polarization of what is outwardly an ethnically and linguistically homogenous nation state seems unstoppable. A collapse of our civil democratic institutions seems inevitable. People who should have been active agents against this vicious rot seem non-chalant, wrapped in their little karma as the fledgling edifice of our nationhood crumbles bit by bit, by design or by neglect, by vicious thuggery, through contempt or neglect Are we so devoid of a true national aspiration that there is not going to be any call for unity, no genuine attempt to mend the fences, no attempt to somehow gather all the pieces of this crumbling nationhood together?</p>
<h2>Anybody listening?</h2>
<p>If anyone is listening or doing a proverbial search of their soul, there is no outward evidence. The BNP-JAMAT alliance seems triumphal and smug, doing provocative and outrageous things that are needless, and are even clearly damaging to their own interests. If the image of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Bangabandhu, has been on the banknotes, they should leave them alone. I am not aware of anyone in the world who looks at money for political inspiration (in fact the reverse is often true), so what difference does it make whose picture banknotes carry. Why is the BNP-JAMAT alliance worried? That scores of people will be mesmerised by the image of this man on the banknote and will gravitate</p>
<p>towards his political ideology? Haven‘t people already seen enough of his visage on everything? What can these notes add to that? What can this note-withdrawal do other than expose the paranoia of the ruling party? And in fact expose our national immaturity and ignorance of elementary mass psychology to the whole world. If this isn‘t common knowledge amongst the ruling elite in Dhaka I can safely volunteer this fact: this grotesque and gratuitous national quarrel over form and symbolism has already made us a laughing stock of the whole world. And why was it necessary to arrest and keep in the gaol a prominent journalist thus precipitating an international outcry? Not to mention the beating up of an austere-looking middle-aged respected female minister. Since when has beating up female ex-ministers become a job description of police officers? Are these actions designed to narrow the divide of our national self? Who is instigating them and in whose interest? Is this how the BNP-JAMAT force wants to give this country good governance and national development? Who are they kidding?</p>
<p>Who are Khaleda Zia‘s tacticians? What is their game plan for the next five years? The nation waits to be enlightened, lucidly and transparently.</p>
<h2>On verbal lucidity and inspiration</h2>
<p>Every nation needs an articulate spokesperson, one that would explicitly describe the national goals and aspirations at regular intervals and keep the populace and assorted stakeholders in focus about what is happening. There is a sorry lapse in the current government in this regard. Verbal dexterity, creating imageries for the future that the population can understand and grasp with their mind, are essential attributes of good governance. Even in the US the government is always articulating its points of view, the President appears publicly, briefed, primed and no-doubt coached, explaining his points of view and providing a vision. If the current Bangladesh government has a designated spokesperson he/she is significant by her absence from the collective psyche of the nation. Because of the lack of a cohesive articulation of policy there is an image of inaction hanging in the air and events are generating their own dynamics, causing the government irreparable damage.</p>
<p>An important minister, known for his honesty and no-nonsense fiscal housecleaning is often seen making well meaning but chilling statements about mass-sackings and assorted dire consequences. While these statements may well be necessary, where are the up-beat vision statements of higher lucidity to cancel the adverse PR effect of the ―wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee‖ statements?</p>
<p>Elementary public relation tactic dictates that someone with verbal abruptness shouldn‘t be given the job of giving the bad news. Or are we immune from these time-tested rules of human psychology?</p>
<p>And then there was the Shahriar Kabir incarceration. In my recent trip around the globe I have encountered a large number of non-Bangladeshis asking me as to why this government is arresting a journalist who was simply collecting information on minority abuses, alleged or real. If his claims are not real the government should simply put their case as well publicly. What gives the government the right to incarcerate a person who has not done anything criminal? While this sorry affair has died down a bit with Shahriars release, it has left ripples all over and has exposed the ineptness of this government.</p>
<h2>Vibrant politics or hereditary rot</h2>
<p>So what is to be done to tame this vicious tiger of destruction? Outwardly we have all the components of true national amity; a monolingual population of substantial ethnic homogeneity, no significant reason for any religious strife, no underworld or criminal gangs. In the fields and hamlets of rural Bangladesh one encounters a serenity verging on being bucolic. And yet this scenic young nation has managed to create one of the world’s most obdurate political legacies; quarrelsome, fractious, and chronically incapable of producing even the most minimum civil discourse between the two opposing political parties. It is a nightmare-come-true for the Westminster style political democracy that we have adopted, for that system requires that political feud be fought in the parliament and in the court of law and requires a basic acceptance of the other party as a patriotic and valid national unit. The reciprocal refusal of the validity of the symbols, essence and indeed the very body of the other side leads inevitably negates the tradition-bound nuanced culture of Parliamentary Democracy. Faced with this crudity the genteel political machine of Westminster seems hapless.</p>
<p>Faced with the relentless barrage of insults, body blows, murders, and intimidations the Parliament itself seems like an anachronism; no wonder law- makers are loathe to show their face in that grandiose but irrelevant place; for what law would they enact there that would receive the respect of the whole nation when they know in their bones that it is the lawlessness that is rife and right; that in politics it is the hereditary luck that takes precedence over brain and ingenuity, when they know that all their creativity and energy can be blown away by one imperious nod of the heir apparent. It is indeed a grotesquely regal world that two imperious women have created for us, and are perpetuating through spent symbols that they refuse to let fade; a world of childish fight for history books that no self-respecting and bright political aspirant would ever aspire to enter. So sycophants and knaves populate it. And the rot continues.</p>
<h2>And the Epilogue</h2>
<p>I could have said something positive here. Like ….‖And finally of course the people‘s will triumph and take us to a better system‖. In the old days of</p>
<p>dialectics and Marxist paradigm of history I could have ended here with some pro-people rhetoric. But in this post-modern era of infinite justice and axis of good and evil I hesitate to blithely proclaim a victory of the enlightened masses. Instead I fear for my people. I feel the chill of their forlorn fate; I feel their collective rage as opportunities are lost through cowardice and ineptness; I feel the paroxysms of their spent valour, of this proud nation of destiny, as I witness the sheer mediocrity of the people leading them to a fate lesser then they deserve.</p>
<p>And not knowing what else to do I wait for a shining moment of inspiration. When my despondent fear will lead to a new bout of frenzy and fantasy. Like a good Bangali I wait for another good moment in history for my nation. I await a Leader.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">High</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Noon</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Tryst</span> <span style="color: #003366;">with</span> <span style="color: #003366;">destiny</span></h1>
<p>Fifty-four years ago, on the eve decolonisation of south Asia, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru of India made a memorable speech. ―Many years ago we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes to redeem that pledge….‖ he declared poetically, his mellifluous Indian voice chiselled by the tonal cut glass of Oxbridge. That speech, well crafted, modulated in the appropriate cadence of emotion and history, has since become one of the most memorable speeches of all times, comparable, in many ways, to Lincoln‘s Gettysburg address. That speech, though specific to India on that fateful night, contains in it a metaphor that has become so apt in the subsequent events that unfolded in the lives of the south Asian people; the metaphor of history and destiny. However, while the post-1947 episodes of countries that became British-free that night have become sagas worthy of rapt attention, for us the Bangladeshis the trysts have been far too many, our travails so fatefully identified with destiny, and so many of our pledges remains unredeemed as the day arrives again after fifty four long years.</p>
<p>We too were the children of that midnight. We carried our own light, in that</p>
<p>―moth-eaten‖, land, tried in our own way to enlighten us from the colonial, sectarian darkness. ―Moth-eaten‖, an epithet coined by Mr. Jinnah, expressing sullenly the realities of Partition. The subsequent events that unfolded in the fifties and the sixties of the last century have now become the legends of our modern history. Those long years, replete with destiny, of promises not kept, our twenty odd years of peregrinations through history, our long night of discontent leading us to another freedom by day break, now through a eruption of blood and fire and a hundred pangs of that new birth. But destiny had many more events stored for us still. As the daybreak led to the morning of our new nation we were offered relentlessly more and more drama as events unfolded; events that are part Greek tragedy, part Western. Always destiny‘s children, we now became the chosen people of cataclysmic history. For if one August gave us that midnight of de-colonization, through a circular twist of history, we were to have another August of murder and mayhem. So now we have two Augusts, one shared with other decolonised people of south Asia, a shared august memory of deliverance from the British rule, and the other, our own August, an un-august night of gratuitous murder and then more and yet more killings. Our destiny now forever defined by this memory and the memories of other subsequent mayhems inexorably now leading us to the high noon of settling scores. Our two leaders; like two tragic heroines of a Greek epic drama, both victims of</p>
<p>monumental tragedy, now pitted against each other on what promises to be a high noon of combat.</p>
<p>Happily for us, it is not going to be a combat of blood and gore but an electoral one, dramatic though it is likely to be. And the Sheriff instead of a gun-toting Clint Eastwood is amiable Mr. Carter, not from the wild west of Nevada or Montana but from the sylvan paddocks of rural Georgia. Has history now offered us a breathing space, maybe a rope of rescue, from the eternal cycle of vanity and vendetta? Only time will tell.</p>
<p>As I labour with these words and dig within myself for metaphors for the land of my forefather‘s history is being made. We have apparently given a carte® blanche to the good sheriff, will it become the magna cart® of our national salvation? As the high noon arrives and destiny beckons us for yet another tryst we the people wait breathlessly.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">On</span> <span style="color: #003366;">National</span> <span style="color: #003366;">infantilism,</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Carter</span> <span style="color: #003366;">mania</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">vote-voyeurs;</span> <span style="color: #003366;">are</span> <span style="color: #003366;">we ever going to grow up?</span></h1>
<p>I got a light-hearted e-mail the other day from an American friend about the impending election in Bangladesh. Steve is one of those rare Americans who has a solid grasp of South Asian history and geography; a knowledge that has served us well in our ongoing banter on the regional politics. The joke goes like this: How many US ex presidents do Bangladeshis need as mediators before they stop fighting with each other. The joke then offers Reagan, the senior Bush, and even Al Gore as back-ups should the mediation of Jimmy Carter fails. Humour is notoriously subjective and in this case the joke missed its mark with me. Rather I was taken aback by its brazen assumption of Bangladesh as a quarrelsome place. I was grated by its arrogant depiction of us as an infantile nation always looking for yesterday‘s men from other shores for our salvation. I couldn‘t get involved in this light hearted exchange with Steve; I consider myself at par with him in intellectual matters; I know he is not amused when I joke with him about important matters that shape the US. I was depressed that a place that I regard so highly, Bangladesh, is being sullied by the shameful incompetence of our politicians.</p>
<p>Not that there is anything wrong with the retired US presidents. They are all very important and respected people, though as nature would have it some of them are more alert than others. And there is one, a great crowd-puller who was christened with salacious human drama recently. And the ex US presidents aren‘t even the sole occupants of the international mediation circuit. There is the ailing but gee-whiz globetrotting Nelson Mandela, several past Archbishops, the benign and maternal Queen of Spain, and the ubiquitous Australian Sir Ninian Stevens. Sir Ninian has been in Bangladesh as many times as there have been monsoon storms and I am sure his CV makes ample reference to that.</p>
<p>Curiously, this time he has been outmanoeuvred by the avuncular and god fearing Jimmy from Georgia, and in Bangladesh political life has suddenly been injected with a dose of adrenaline. Only in Bangladesh the word adrenaline and Carter is uttered in the same sentence. In the US where I lived for more than a decade Carter has the image of a moral, minutiae-loving man, who never delegates anything. As the story goes, he even used to involve himself in scheduling the White House Tennis court. In 1979 I was in the US as the Iranian Hostage Crisis drama unfolded and the rescue mission sent by Carter ended in disaster on the sands of Iran. In sullen anger Americans threw him out of office</p>
<p>replacing him summarily with ―shoot-from the-hip‖ Reagan. Carter of course has mellowed and I am sure has become more competent. I hope he will be more successful in Bangladesh than he has been with the Ayatollah.</p>
<p>But for all our leaders to suddenly wake up from the slumber and line up to see Carter to get some wisdom from him; all this betrays our sense of national infantilism in a way that shames us much more than it elevates us to any degree of international news worthiness. Bangladeshi newspaper was full of stories of how the two leaders of our nation have materialised to talk to Carter in his hotel room (a suite, to be precise), and have given him this or that assurances of behaving well in future. Are we back to the days of colonialism and Sir Stafford Cripps when our leaders were discussing home rule and how to stop fighting and start governing? Is it 1940‘s or 2000‘s? Why do we need American interlocutors to have a minimum discourse of national importance between our two leaders? And our journalists display their utter obsequiousness by waxing lyrical about Carter and saying nothing about the imbecility of the whole situation. And writing so glowingly about the red carpet welcome delivered by Barister Ishtiaque .</p>
<p>If mediation is so important why cant one of our own do it? Do we not have people of the calibre of Mr. Carter amongst us? The question we should ask ourselves and ask it with merciless clarity: Are we ready to govern ourselves in a responsible and autonomous manner? Aren‘t we proud members of the fraternity of nations? Name me another self-respecting nation whose national leaders have shown up in the hotel rooms of ex US presidents to offer commitment of good behaviour that affects their own nation. No wonder my American friend Steve is laughing. With report of this kind in the newspaper, who needs laughing gas?</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Beyond</span> <span style="color: #003366;">election:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">towards</span> <span style="color: #003366;">national</span> <span style="color: #003366;">reconciliation</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">progress</span></h1>
<p>A common assumption regarding human interactions that have inherent conflict in them is that their sustainable resolution requires a reasonable contentment of all aggrieved parties. An election, alas, does not lead to this proverbial ―win- win‖ situation. Rather it is a classic zero-sum game; in order for Rehana to win, Sufian, Zahir and Kamal must lose (The names are here to humanise the situation, similarities with names of real people are accidental). Thus managing the post-election scenario entails not only containing Rehana‘s triumphal arrogance it also requires a sustainable management of the bruised egos of Sufian, Zahir and Kamal. All scholarly discourse of modern politics aside, this dynamics of human conflict pose a formidable problem for any post-election scenario in most strife-ridden countries.</p>
<p>And surely strife is now endemic to the politics of Bangladesh. We show a remarkable appetite for sustained confrontation in every sphere of our national life. While Westminster style parliamentary discourse is supposed to provide avenues for an orchestrated parliamentary verbal bout between well-meaning colleagues, our conflict ethos lower these discourse to a level of uncivil name- calling that is reciprocally insulting and creates an image of irreconcilable animosity between the participants. Through this prism of animus election appears to be a theatre of score settling rather than a discourse on policy. In order to utilise the controlled norm of the election and the sustainable management of post-election scenario we must face the contradictions of our national psyche honestly and solve them with alacrity. That is really the first step towards fixing our national malaise.</p>
<p>So how do other nations use election, parliament and other civil discourse more effectively than we do? In countries where democracy and rule of law has taken hold over a longer period one generally witnesses a reduced amount of passion and fervour for politics than is seen in Bangladesh. Typically the person who loses an election does not immediately consider it to be a diabolical plot or an end of the national existence. He or she nurtures the bruises of the ego with friends and family and after a period of stocktaking re-engages in politics but do so constructively. It is true that election in such a tepid atmosphere also remains</p>
<p>a zero-sum game, but the difference between the winner and the loser is not so exaggerated as it is in our country. Greater the pitfall of a loss, higher is the irrational anxiety and the subsequent misbehaviour. Again, the malaise is our inability to create an atmosphere of mutual reassurance and respect.</p>
<p>So how do we create an atmosphere of national bonhomie that is imperative for the welfare of this perilous nation? How do we stop using politics as a tool of internal strife thus sapping all the energy of the nation in this destructive path? And more poignantly, why is this path of reconciliation and nation building being shunned by almost everyone in Bangladeshi politics?</p>
<p>As unfortunate individuals often do, we seem to have put ourselves into a corner through our chronic inability to mediate, accommodate and reconcile. Like an individual with a personality disorder who is interested in only having their own way, as a nation as well as groups, we have nurtured a culture of ―being wronged‖ and are resistant to seeing ourselves as protagonists of our own destiny. This cognitive paralyses of our national self dropped to a new nadir when we witnessed the humiliating saga of our national leaders lining up in front of the hotel room of Mr. Jimmy Carter, basically begging him to be an arbiter of our national dispute. Even more painful then the objective fact of those shameful acts was the realization that the individuals who were doing them saw nothing wrong in them, nor did they realize that a sense of national dignity should have stopped them from doing it and instead to find a Bangladeshi solution to a Bangladeshi problem. A nation is not only sweeping rivers, blooming flowers, and memories of collective grief and history. A nation is also a collective sense of what is dignified behaviour. Our culture of conflict has indeed made us blind to our duties of dignity. It is as though we are a pathetic quarrelling family who needs constant attention of village elders to stop us from destroying ourselves.</p>
<p>So how did we put ourselves in this corner? I think a big part to blame is our obsession with our identity and the national cult of always thinking ourselves as the ―wronged‖ people. Our definition as a nation state came, first during the division of India for religion, and later as a conflict derived from ethnicity and language. As defining features of both of these conflicts we were the aggrieved people, first as Muslims and then as Bangalis. We got into the habit of defining ourselves through our history of persecution and not as agents of change. We, the perpetually oppressed, always misunderstood, maligned Bangalis are always seething in rage. This rage defined us and now this rage is devouring us. We as a nation must come out of this culture of enraged sensitivities. We need a cathartic psychoanalysis.</p>
<p>We are not any more wronged then anybody else. The whole body of human history is full of oppression and mans humanity to other members of their species. But it is also a history of sublimating this sense of loss into springboards of national creativity, of going beyond grief and humiliation into actions that are forgiving reconciling and productive. Recent examples of this rational response are Japan and Vietnam. Recent irrational examples are a collection of nations in Africa, parts of Europe and I shudder to say it, us. In countless occasions in recent times I have encountered this conjecture about Bangladesh; that we are incapable of resolving our national disputes and are going downhill very rapidly because of that. We must initiate a dialog between our fellow Bangladeshis about the future of our nation and forgive each other in a spirit of accommodation and kindness. We must do so not because we condone killing but because we refuse to be perpetual hostages of our grief and anger. We do so because we crave normalcy of the psyche and we cherish the future.</p>
<p>We are a historical people with poetic and dramatic heritage and memories but we are also a people with big problems in hand that need to be solved. Insofar as our poets and intellectuals are creating this cult and passion for historic and artistic melancholia they are doing us a disservice. This is a phoney construct of the urban middle class, which has no relationship with realities in our villages and slums. The realities in our villages are serious problems of arsenic poisoning, lack of sanitation, decent livelihood. The relentless musical rendition of city women posing as fake village damsels might create a mind-numbing cultural euphoria, but it also masks the urgency of what needs to be done. Let us be empirical, analytical and precise about our own country rather than create a romantic miasma of phoney art. Our poor and dispossessed deserve better from us.</p>
<p>We are a religious people but we are also pragmatic, tolerant and interested in greater human welfare. Not for us are the quasi-fascist dictates of self-styled guardians of religion. We don‘t pit our ethnicity against our religion any more than we make our left hand fight the right or we try to strangulate ourselves with our bare hands. This atavistic conflict between our Bangali self and our Muslim self and its various subtexts is one of the root cause of conflict in our nation. Our pious elders and our Ulema should go back to the golden days of Islamic history; there are abundant examples of rational, progressive, tolerant Islam. A formidable challenge to their ability to do ―Ijtehad‖ is to allow this society to modernise and prosper as participating and even significant member of the global community. Alternatively we could lapse into being a bunch of rite- obsessed zealots, always calling names and being paralysed by ideas of spiritual purity. There exist examples of those nations too. Let us not be one of them.</p>
<p>And let us be educated in all possible functional areas of human endeavour that we possibly could. These are exciting days for science and technology. As the new millennium continues its early days, human genome has been sequenced, the whole world is getting wired together in information network and global migration of workforce is bringing people together than ever before. We must get a workforce, who contains not just migrant labourers and garment-workers or even data-entry clerks; we need scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and biotechnologists. We need a national policy and high-priority agenda for action for Science and technology. If necessary we need a national levy, like we did for Jamuna Bridge, to fund these initiative. This intellectual bridge is far more important than any bridge we could construct over a river. We must take responsibility for these changes and not just run to donors for funds. In sorry to say that in spite of having a President and a two senior Ministers as educators and scientists there is no visible enthusiasm for Science in the country.</p>
<p>Our neighbours India and Pakistan have much greater profile of Science and Technology than we do. Nehru who was an enthusiastic proponent of Science catalysed the pre-eminence of science in India‘s national culture. His friendship with Homi Bhaba led to Science and Technology playing an important role in</p>
<p>India‘s planning for development; Indira Gandhi maintained this tradition and later governments have maintained it to a large extent. In Pakistan, scientists such as Abdus Salam and Abdul Quadir Khan have had influence at the highest level. In Bangladesh no leader of national prominence have shown any interest in the science policy and the science portfolio is often seen as a lesser one, almost like a punishment. No wonder then we have a pitiful situation in the country in this area. I appeal to Prof. Iazuddin, the President and Dr. Abdul Moyeen Khan, the Minister of Science and Technology to come forward and be energised symbols and facilitator of this change; history will remember them as people who did something worthwhile and enduring rather than just being important people for a brief span of time.</p>
<p>English, the universal language of human interaction, has a significance that transcends its characterization of a mere language. It is now a verbal technique of unfettered human discourse, a program for facile communication. Together with our own language Bangla, we must learn English well. We must learn English in villages and small towns and not just in designated enclaves of large cities. We have a very serious crisis of representation for the country. The people who come overseas to represent Bangladesh are often tongue-tied and inarticulate in English, this is doing great damage to our country. The weak and the poor need to be more articulate than the rich and powerful in order to survive and prosper. We will forget it at our peril.</p>
<p>Elections come and go but the country and society remains, forever requiring attention and nurturing. If elections are allowed to become agents of discord then we are in for perpetual trouble in our national life. We must ensure that an enduring national consensus platform is fashioned similar to the ―bi-partisan‖ consensus present in most countries with functional democracy. What are the minimum points of agreement among our major parties? Has any pundit of</p>
<p>political science articulated it anywhere? If we don‘t have it yet I think we should consider that the enduring foundation of our nationhood is still missing.</p>
<p>We have a country of our own and we have put in place a system of democratic behaviour including periodic elections. We are better then people ruled by fascism and individual caprice. What we need now is an internal dialog unfettered by advice from any external agent. We need our two major national leaders to initiate it by embracing each other in a spirit of their desire to make this nation better. Devoid of any real ideological gulf separating them the major obstacle to that crucial embrace seems to be inertia of mind bred by a habit of conflict. And the obstacle created by assorted stakeholders with defunct ideologies and assumptions about culture and nationhood that have become irrelevant. As the world surges forward and we deteriorate the lack of this embrace seems like a colossal failure, with a very high price indeed.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">future,</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">destiny</span></h1>
<p>The future, as the cliché goes, is ahead of us. Yet behind this tautology there lurks a conundrum. For the future isn‘t simply an inevitable temporal journey, it is also an image, a vehicle, and a state of mind. It is an idealised abode of nascent dreams, a pathway to things yet-to-be, a one-way road to our destiny. And slowly but inexorably for some of us this destiny catches up, extracting a price, etiolating the vision, stripping radiant edges slowly away from the dream till there is only a ghostly shadow. As minutes slip from the razor edge of moments that we call the present, we are propelled by time‘s arrow, towards events that come sweeping in like a virtual séance, and we are taken relentlessly from tomorrow to tomorrow till the future claims us, willy-nilly, into its theatre of inevitability.</p>
<h2>Future and belief</h2>
<p>And yet, time has given us the option of being free agents of action, arbiters of our yet-to-be world, masters of our future. That future of possibilities, of the beckoning rays of a lighthouse, of dreams shimmering beyond the edges of vile darkness; a cornucopia of peace, joy and redemption; that too is possible.</p>
<p>To believe in the possibilities of the future is an idealised notion. But time and again it has worked, creating order out of nihilism and destruction. Thus this belief is akin to a belief in humanity, in the sustainability of earth, in promises that are inherent in the manifest order of the universe. I believe in that future. As a faith of organic pedigree, of a somber devoutness almost mimicking a religion, a look beyond the wreckages of past and present, and with the heart‘s expectant yearnings, I venture to dream. That to me is tomorrow.</p>
<h2>A quest for tomorrow</h2>
<p>What does tomorrow hold for us, the Bangladeshis? Timeworn wisdom says, it holds for us the accumulated results emanating from our past and present. What we sow, is what we justifiably reap. When we nurture a thorny plant with belief and husbandry surely the future will show us roses blooming; if we have been incendiary, heaps of ashes might land on our faces. If we have been reckless and vainglorious maybe a slippery slope of morbidity and decline awaits us. So here then is another cliché. The key to our future, the cake at the end of the proverbial rainbow, is being cooked here and now.</p>
<p>So maybe we need to be earnest and sombre. The fratricidal bloodlettings, real and metaphorical, need to end. We should seek in each other the commonalities of bonding, the lowest common denominators of humane aspirations. A nation, fashioned in blood and sacrifice, now hangs on a precipice, paralysed by inaction, folly and shortsightedness. A nation that has forgotten its charter of being, its raison d‘etre; A collective amnesia grips the psyche of the nation as it wonders why it is there in the first place. Peddlers of third-rate dreams push it towards a path of retrograde past of strife and conflict. It is hard indeed to orient towards the future.</p>
<p>Let us imagine a world unshackled from the histrionics of the past. Let us ask firmly but politely a whole defunct generation to step aside. A generation marked by conflict, envy and vanity; a whole bloody generation that will forever be tainted by fratricide, mediocrity, and a lazy abhorrence of hard choices. Let us imagine getting rid of them all like a bad dream. By the sheer inevitability of elapsed time, they must go.</p>
<h2>A necessary farewell</h2>
<p>And maybe then a preparation for the future could begin. First of all let us put an end to hero-worship. The days of bigger-than-life man-wonders are long gone.</p>
<p>The defunct worship of cut-out figures, the cult of super-heroes with their benevolent smiles plastered on walls, the quasi-divine resuscitation of their</p>
<p>memories as a mantra of national salvation…. It is all so passé, so ineffectual, so hopelessly incongruent in the strides that we now must take. Let us enshrine</p>
<p>them with one cathartic event and then leave them behind. We don‘t need them on our journey to the future. May their souls rest in the frozen abode of the past. Amen.</p>
<h2>A manifesto for the future</h2>
<p>We have amongst us 130 million members of this human race. This colossus of humanity is surely teeming with talent and possibilities. Intelligence being randomly distributed in our species, we harbour amongst us women and men of supreme intelligence, vigour and creativity. But, unfortunately for us, the majority of them languish in abject poverty with the minimum dignity denied them. Our Mozarts, our Byrons, are languishing in the mud huts of our lush plains, our Hillary Clintons and Nora Joneses are collecting twigs on the streets of Dhaka. While their leaders foment envy-ridden outrages against one another, sustaining their chronic fury with family tales of glory and valour, these kids break bricks so an edifice can be built in the name of someone.</p>
<p>These two worlds are now so hopelessly pitted against each other —- the fetid sterile world of the poor with their arsenic-laden water and the world of the leader and the bourgeoisie of vastly enriched privileges. That, to me, is the true</p>
<p>divide that shows up like a horrid fissure in the body of the nation. Not the pretend-conflict of secular humanists versus the religious zealots.</p>
<h2>A funny struggle</h2>
<p>We all hear about the important struggle of progressive-secular against the obscuritanists. It is all described with hackneyed regularity. The Mujibists against the Ziaists. The final existential battle that is often waged in the whisky- fumed saloons of the Press-Club-Sonargaon-Sheraton axis. The middle class is mesmerised by this conflict, almost as though one is watching a spectator sport. I am often invited to gatherings of the Bangladeshi Diaspora to hear about the verbal bout, in the pages of our dailies, going on between Mssrs. Gaffar Chaudhuury and Badruddin Umar. Presumably these two gentlemen represent polar extremes of our current ideological divide that has gripped the nation. But this verbal struggle, gripping though it might be, is unrelated to what essentially are the priorities of this nation.</p>
<p>Bangladesh is a very small sick fish in the whirlpool of the international sea. Our sickness is not inevitable or a foregone conclusion; we have 130 million of very resourceful people. But there lurks in our psyche a tragic trait, a propensity and appetite for relentless discord. This discord more than anything else is destroying us slowly, chronically, as our national energy is sucked out of us. If we are to prosper at all, if we are to even come near to fulfilling the tryst with our destiny, we have to fashion a consensus platform of national salvation and a charter for the future.</p>
<h2>A charter for what future?</h2>
<p>First of all, we must agree on the basis of our nation and its symbols. We must accept, mainly on a bipartisan basis, the critical roles of two national leaders, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman. To do otherwise is to succumb to the temptation of chronic discord and to keep the nation divided forever. In this venture we must suppress our urges of absolute right and wrong and take a rational, pragmatic decision. Politics, after all, is the art of what is possible, not what is desirable. Having established their roles in a symbolic way we must then fast-forward to our current problems and not quarrel endlessly about periods that we have passed through. For what lies ahead is formidable and challenging, threatening the very viability of this nation- state. History is now a luxury; resuscitating historical animosity is almost a crime.</p>
<p>The current world situation throws enormous challenges at us. A world of</p>
<p>―might is right‖ is emerging; in this world disunity will be akin to national suicide. No ideological difference of any substance separates our two major parties; they cannot justify a strife amongst them that weakens the country.</p>
<p>While it is undignified and unacceptable for our leaders to go to foreign lands and badmouth the country, it is equally unacceptable for the party in power to torment and persecute people for their opinion. Both are activities that diminish the nation.</p>
<p>We have a huge crisis in representation. National leaders who visit foreign countries have one hackneyed mantra. Take our skilled people, give us aid for this and that, and help us. In relentless monotony this appeal for help is eliciting ennui and disdain. We do not exist as a nation to export manpower in every corner of the globe; woe to us if we are out there to plead for external helps for every conceivable thing on earth. We must become autonomous and take charge of our nation. We can scout the world for ideas, resource and technology; we could seek partners for a joint enterprise of progress; but we should not demean the nation by being a passive and moaning member of the international community forever displaying our helplessness and never showing any sign of take-charge optimism. We must send overseas articulate, energetic and eloquent people who can provide a vision for the nation.</p>
<p>We must embrace science and technology. Too often we define ourselves through art and poetry and never enough through science and technology. Our scientific infrastructure lies in a shambles as we go from one cultural festival to another. Our technological prowess is non-existent as we allow our best minds to vanish in the black holes of a Diaspora. We as a nation make this inevitable by creating a horrible atmosphere of partisan politics in the institution of higher learning. Dhaka University, once a formidable institution of learning, has declined to the point of becoming irrelevant even in Asia. In spite of all the bombast that our academics might muster, this sad fact is the reality. For what has Dhaka University done in science since the days of Satyen Bose? It has produced a huge number of very capable scientists and technologists for many universities and institutions of the USA, but has it put the country on the international map vis-à-vis science and technology? If India can do it with her</p>
<p>IITs, why can‘t we do it? What on earth are our ministers of education and science and technology doing? How can they sleep at night or accept their fancy houses and chauffer-driven cars? Year after year, what are the milestones that measure their efficiency as ministers?</p>
<p>We must create a multi-party platform not for fomenting more discord for this and that but for charting a course for the nation. We need a citizen‘s revolt on</p>
<p>behalf of national dignity and opportunity for the nation. We should refuse to be led by people for whom politics is merely a sport or an endless quarrel. If we do not do this today and get the country out of the brink, the future will do it for us in a way that will be endlessly painful for us.</p>
<p>What we have ahead of us are choices. To either stay in the pathway of conflict and destruction or to fashion a charter of the future through enshrining ideas of lasting unity for the nation. We do not need pundits or charismatic leaders to show us the way. The path of rationality, pragmatism, mutual acceptance and unity is self-evident. Let us fashion an alternative vision, form a common bond in the name of the poor, let us for once conquer our base urges to become something bigger than each of us in the name of our nation.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Our</span> <span style="color: #003366;">UN</span> <span style="color: #003366;">blunder,</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">mayhem</span> <span style="color: #003366;">in</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Manhattan</span></h1>
<p>The UN building stands elegant and tall, its glass of greenish hue scintillating by the East River. Often in New York for my work I stay not too far from this building; every time I am there I feel optimistic, energised by the grand scale of the building, by its bleeding-heart promises; sometimes with naiveté, but often with genuine optimism I mingle among the people who frequent the Plaza in front of the UN building, feeling the pulse of the whole globe descend on this already thriving city.</p>
<p>A few years ago my adopted country Australia tried hard to become a non- permanent member of the UN Security Council, a cherished honour for any nation. Our diplomats posted in New York lobbied hard, lubricating the Byzantine machine of international reciprocal favour dispensation, a process for which the UN has become r famous. Finally after must trepidation when the votes were counted Australia had not made it to the Security Council. It was a great disappointment for us all and in anger villains were sought and blamed by the Australian Press, and fingers were pointed at an important Australian Diplomat, and his acerbic and snooty style that was supposed to have antagonised some countries that in the end did not support Australia.</p>
<p>Happily, the country of my birth Bangladesh became a member of the Security Council twice, and is currently a member. I heartily commend our diplomats for bringing this honour to our nation. In March 2000, two months after becoming a member of the Security Council Bangladesh for a while had the presidency of the council. Bangladesh is a very small fish in the lake of international deliberations, much smaller than Australia. It should be a national pride for all Bangladeshis, a bi-partisan cause for celebration that a country often known for poverty and disaster has the wherewithal to perform this important international duty.</p>
<p>Irrespective of politics we should be proud of our bureaucrats who are performing this job on behalf of our nation. And in dealing with a diplomat who has been responsible for our UN mission for a while and who only recently has</p>
<p>been a president of the Security Council on our behalf, our government, of whichever political persuasion it is, should be discreet, diplomatic, and civil to a fault. As a Bangladeshi citizen that is what I would expect from my country.</p>
<p>I am sorry to have to say that the recent episodes involving the Permanent Representative of our mission in New York does not make me proud as a Bangladeshi. Irrespective of what the allegation against Mr. Anwarul Karim Chowdhury is, the decisions originating from Dhaka clearly did not derive their inspiration from the manuals of the Fletcher School of Diplomacy. The events are still much too raw to assess them clearly but in the gossip-prone corridors of the UN tongues are wagging and the image of our Nation is getting a battering. It is difficult to see the logic of these peremptory action only days before some very important UN conferences requiring vital Bangladesh presence. Mr.</p>
<p>Chowdhury was involved in many of these deliberations for years and only a very grotesque misbehaviour on his part could warrant his summary removal at this critical time. In a straw poll that I did among people I know, including some diplomats, most were left unconvinced that Mr. Chowdhury deserved this treatment at this time.</p>
<p>It is indeed a sad episode and sooner it is resolved to everyone‘s satisfaction, the better it is for the image of the country. Mr. Shafi Sami the new Chief of our department of foreign affairs has the job cut out for him. He has a good reputation as a soft-spoken methodical man. Maybe he can reverse the negative effect of this debacle. It will require adroit and bold decisions. The sessions of general assembly are about to begin; Bangladesh needs to participate in numerous important deliberations in various UN committees. Our national elections are less then a month away when an entirely new set of people will come to power and will appoint people in key positions such as UN. It is only logical that Mr. Anwarul Karim Chowdhury should be allowed to stay on till the election. This will stop this embarrassing jostling and point scoring that is publicising the fractiousness of our nation to the whole world. I appeal to the honourable chief adviser and to Mr. Shafi Sami to display discretion and sagacity and to resolve this issue at once.</p>
<p>The skyscraper with sparkling green glass by the East River is a beacon of hope, co-operation, and of coming together with forgiveness. Let us all, in the name of our nation, show that we belong in the hallowed corridors of this building.</p>
<p>Postscript: As I sat on my computer writing these paragraphs about the events that were unfolding in our UN mission two hijacked planes rammed in succession into the World Trade Centre building, eventually destroying both buildings in eerie implosion that sent showers of metal, glass and sand and literally burying lower Manhattan in a thick layer of debris. The definite human</p>
<p>toll has already exceeded 1500 and is expected to rise to many thousands. I could almost feel the awesome connectivity of this inside me, so familiar to me is the urban landscape of Manhattan although I was writing this sitting in Canberra, Australia thousands of miles away. My writing about a human drama of a few Bangladeshi protagonists being acted out in a building in midtown Manhattan, framed against a staggering sudden event on my TV screen that probably forever changed the psychology of America‘s relationship with the rest of the world occurring in downtown Manhattan. I observed it like a surreal fantasy, almost like an orchestrated event of a stunt movie with two planes with benign signs of passenger airlines written on their fuselage suddenly becoming winged cruise missiles of wanton destruction. The human carnage that is still hidden by the unfathomable rubble and fire is bound to scar America forever.</p>
<p>Many remain missing including some professional colleagues and in all likelihood many people of Bangladeshi origin.</p>
<p>A protagonist of my earlier story, Mr. Anwarul karim Chowdhury, by now having transferred his charge to the councillor of the mission writes to me from New York about the calamity ― there is now an eerie total silence in the city that never sleeps‖</p>
<p>I leave my article as it is, though it is now rendered somehow irrelevant by the whirlpool of events. Who knows if the general assembly will even convene in Manhattan this year, and the UN subcommittees seem like a moot, obscure point in the face of this rapid-fire drama? Be as it may, I nevertheless let my article stay like this, as a testimony to the turbulence of our times.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Our</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Diaspora;</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Nation</span> <span style="color: #003366;">beyond</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">shores</span></h1>
<p>I met Fawzul Azim on the platform of a Parisian metro station. A repair was going on in the St. Michel station not far from Sorbonne and as I descended from the train we were ushered into an alternate route. Soon a queue developed which backed into the platform. Moody French nerve took over and soon people were shrugging, gesticulating wildly, and hissing annoyances and expletives like</p>
<p>―C‘est folie‖, ―C‘est Bizarre‖ and ―Merde!‖… In the middle of this entire melee a brave young man was standing, hoping to sell bouquets of white flowers. He noticed a Bangla book I was carrying with me and called out. ―Bhaijaan‖ is what he said, tugging me somewhere in the heart. In no time I was out of the exit queue and he gave up on the idea of selling flowers to the demonstrably irate French. We sat on a bench of the platform and chatted for about an hour, oblivious of the trains that came and went, and ignoring the edgy morning crowd of students, the chic literati, and the suave looking women that seem to populate this part of Paris.</p>
<p>What we talked about had nothing to do with France, Europe, or the ambience of this crowd and this life. We were talking of a faraway land; of silted rivers and verdant fields of mustard; of songs and poetry, dispossession and Diaspora.</p>
<p>Azim turned out to be a very sensitive soul; well informed, infected with a sadness and melancholy that only a self-exiled knows, and angry. Angry with himself for leaving the job of a journalist in Chittagong, for traversing a complex route that took him to Cyprus, Bucharest, Vienna, and then sitting through the night along with stinking cattle, while the truck rolled into France. I tried to lighten the burden of his soul, quipping light-heartedly how the English and the French once came to our shores without proper visas and stayed on for hundreds of years. Although they came to trade they were soon ruling us, I quipped and maybe one day your children will populate this land; that would be an apt pay- back. I told him about how the French and the English fought tooth and nail over India and our conversation digressed into Chandannagar, Sri Aurobindo, and Pondicherry. And then to more recent and racy topics: Taslima Nasreen, Begum Zia… the shenanigans of our land.</p>
<p>This is Bangali Diaspora; the nostalgic conversation on Paris railway platform, Hasan Raza songs emanating from $80 two-in-one cassette players in a Chicago suburb, the afternoon ―adda‖ in a house smelling of asafoetida and garlic in Canberra; from Manila to Copenhagen, from Sydney to Seattle this is how an</p>
<p>self-exiled inchoate identity is being fashioned into a potent force that is destined</p>
<p>to influence Bangladesh in coming years. No one knows for sure what the number is because no one is counting but the number of Bangladeshis living overseas swells and swells and now spills into whole neighbourhoods, suburbs and even townships of certain cities of UK and US.</p>
<p>I was recently talking to Sunil Gangapadhaya, who along with his wife Swati G. recently visited us in Canberra. Sunilda had just been to New York for a book fair. He thought the New York book air is soon going to be the second largest Bangla book fair in the world, second only to Dhaka and bigger than the Calcutta Book fair. A popular writer in Bangla, he was ecstatic about this development and described his obvious excitement and pride when he saw people reading US styled tabloid-thick Bangla newspapers in the New York subway or when he dialled a wrong number in the Jackson Heights suburb in NY city, and got an error message in Bangla! This chutzpah-filled Bangalization of the American urban landscape is not being engineered by the sleek literati of Calcutta, or for that matter by their cohorts in the upper echelons of Gulshan Baridhara enclaves, rather it is being gleefully done by young men from Sylhet and Barisal, Magura and Chapai Nababgong. You can see the audacity and the pedgree in the sheer brashness of the action and the syntax and spelling of the bangla written in the public spaces and the newspapers. It is an apt example of the global village- empire striking back, with the advantage of sheer number, unabashed enthusiasm for trade and business, and the rustic glee whose Sicilian and Irish variety once transformed the inner cities of Chicago and Boston. This is how it ought to be; not by the whispered imitated consonants of the urban educated class, nor by the wanna-be genuflection of the pampered rich; the Bangali nation in Diaspora belongs to the ―Mufassal‖ boys and girls and the reflects the truly indigenous energy of Bangladesh.</p>
<p>I salute this emerging, fledgling Bangali identity in Diaspora. It is in the process of claiming its rightful place in this global village and the word Bangali will soon mean something much wider than what is now between Nilfamari and Cox’s Bazaar. Like the Irish, the Italian and the Jew the wandering Bangali will be a truly global citizen; creative, resilient, post-modern, and ultimately a welcome gift of history to its ancient geographical land.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Future</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Diary</span></h1>
<p>This year celebrated 50 years of the discovery of DNA and also the year when the whole human genome sequences were described with clarity and with all the gaps filled. This is also roughly sixty years since the atomic bomb. For a person who is around 60 now, a lot has happened in his lifetime. In the time scale of civilised history of human beings, thought to be at most 60,000 years if we include the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, it is a mere wink of an eye. In one thousandth blink of elapsed time of our civilised history we have travelled from a sense of self-cognition to a form of a molecular self knowledge, but also have leaped from being stone throwing hoardes to thermonuclear sophisticates. If 60 thousand years ago we could only crack a few skulls in our anger, now we can potentially destroy everyone and hundred times over. However we still carry in us that same primeval skull, that same hate-lust-fear-curiosity infested mind.</p>
<p>Suddenly we are beyond gradual and incremental steps and a defined future; now we are being fast-tracked in milliseconds of history in a direction that we cannot even comprehend.</p>
<p>This exhilarating journey of human species is a given condition now. It has been a result of many accidents, many events that were unique and salubrious, while others were reprehensible and loathsome. Many fine minds are involved in cataloguing and thinking through these calamitous changes that shape us.</p>
<p>However we as a nation do not have this luxury. In order to keep pace and prosper, we, the 140 million members of the 6 billion member of human community must find a formula for cohesive, peaceful and prosperous existence.</p>
<p>My own point of view is informed by a science-based optimism, a belief in human ingenuity. I believe that a nation of 140 million is potentially very strong by definition. Intelligence being randomly distributed in human species irrespective of lineage and race, we have a huge pool of talented individuals in our nation. Our challenge is to unfetter their future from assorted mixture of negative traits such as poverty, conflict, and a lack of vision. We have no option but to make our politics very simple. We have no choice but to be optimistic, driven by a tradition that harness the past but one also informed by science and a set of pragmatic skills that will quickly help realise the potential of our people.</p>
<p>These are not idle vague and general statements. For Bangladesh this incantation of the obvious is indispensable. Just a cursory look at our political landscape</p>
<p>would convince even the most mellow observer that our politicians and ruling elite are not interested in taking even the first steps. A platform of national consensus comprising of core values and intent is missing. The very fabric of national existence is woven every few years; we are like year-to-year spiders spinning transient cobwebs, never wanting a home, an edifice that will endure time. We are shy of boldly proclaiming who we are.</p>
<p>Bangladeshis, comprises a unique brand of people distinguishable partly by our language and ethnicity, but also by our religion and unique history, a people comprising the aborigines of the timeless alluvial delta but made hybrid through transmigrations through millennia. A people informed by streaks of animist, Buddhist, Hindu ideas but then modified and reinvented through a Sufi syncretic version of Islam. And in this modern era a people that are creative, poetry-infused, spiritual, tolerant and democratic. We do not need to be inspired any more by the urban anglophillic Bengal Renaissance of Raja Ram Mohan Ray and Bankim Chandra; core values of that movement do not resonate with the people of east Bengal with their peasant heritage; we do not need to endlessly pay homage to those pathfinders. Important though they were in that historic epoch. For they advocated a kind of urban, occident-inspired exclusiveness and intellectual snobbery that is still rampant in our educated class and is in fact an obstacle to true democratisation of our society. It branded the traditions of our villages as ―Gramyo‖ caricatured and lampooned our wise elders of both religions and it nucleated a version of xenophobia against Islam that has not served us well. Our nationalistic educated class still does not have the courage to say that we reject those traits and assumptions totally and categorically, that we have fashioned a set of newer assumptions that serve us better. We do not yet have the courage to say that we carry in us the legacy of what happened in Sylhet and Chittagong, Comilla and Narsingdi and Barisal and Pabna. We have not learnt yet that the history of those places together is our history; the events that resonated through those places through millennia are our fountainhead of inspiration. 35 years of independence and our intellectual literati are still giving us the old hackneyed doctrine of Bengal renaissance, the ―Prothom- Alo‖ that dazzled our eyes for the first time. We are still like poor peasants looking at a gilded glass into a house where history is taking place; where we are mere vicarious spectators encountering our enlightenment through others eyes.</p>
<p>It has been long time that the world has moved from this kind of second-hand experience and have learnt to accept every place as a valid unit of history. In European countries every village, every hamlet is celebrated for its unique contribution to the nations history. In USA every small town is celebrated for its uniqueness. In Bangladesh, we make no such attempt. Our school students memorise lores of Ibrahim Lodhi or Vasco-da Gama, Our university students</p>
<p>wax lyrical about RamMohan Ray, yet we do not know or study why our cities are named the way they are; we do not know the history of our villages, the stories behind the ancient parganas. No acceptable intellectual investigations are ever made of these things. Somehow they are devoid of glory, they are only our history, and therefore not important. We still behave like colonised people where our history comes bottled from somewhere else. We copy others history and pass them as our own.</p>
<p>Of course we celebrate our war of independence as uniquely ours. We pretend as though we did not exist as people before 1971; that suddenly out of nothingness we came into being through this war. We pretend that we only existed as agents of struggle before that forever marching, chanting slogans. We have turned ourselves into cardboard caricatures of history. In reality for millennia there was creativity in our land, our people were shaped by ancient ideas that proliferated in the landmass of what is Bangladesh; old primal animist ideas that mingled with those of Buddhism, Hinduism and then was transformed and incorporated by the Sufi version of Islam. In agricultural innovations, artistic pottery and craft, maritime ventures people of this delta have left a legacy. They bred better crops, were custodians of the genetic heritage of our flora and fauna. And through their actions they have left behind names of our villages and towns, sometimes enormous reservoirs of water that celebrate their name and they have left us, carriers if those hybrid genes and those songs poems and stories that enrich our mental lives. If the conglomerations of that legacy cannot be my renaissance then I do not want one borrowed from Florence or Kolkata.</p>
<p>Part of forming a Bangladeshi identity is to develop a genuine and comprehensive attitude of unshacklement of the official history of our genesis and to recognise that the latest chapter of our history is a recent chapter of a very long journey. A national psyche cannot be fashioned in 33 years. The dumping of our earlier history and an inability of blending that with our present is creating a form of amnesia in us, which is reflected, in the puerile conflicts and confusions. By robbing our land of value that could have resonated in our minds we render our people feeble and breed in them a slothful habit of thinking. By failing to reinforce the close linkages between our scholars and our peasants we develop a latent culture of snobbery. We are making every mistakes that the Calcutta based sophisticates made in last century. In our mindless imitation of them we are dismembering the soul of our nation. We must wake up and put a stop to that.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Death</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">a</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Titan</span></h1>
<p>I have two lasting images of Golam Mustafa in my memory. The first one is of his cerebral portrayal of one of the central characters in Grihodaho, that famous tale of triangular and tragic love. I still remember his acting; a strong visual memory still retained in my mind in striking and flickering light and shadow, since I witnessed the drama in the black and white TV of the seventies. The second memory is an aural one, of a poem recited in the stentorian but delicate violin of a voice that only he was capable of producing. For Golam Mustafa won hearts with his voice. In spite of his physical presence — imposing, even formidable though it was — what mainly remained in most people‘s mind about him was his voice. Calibrated, poised, and brimming with a cultured refinement that we seemed to have lost long ago.</p>
<p>In the late ‗70s I left the country, and the visual stimulations of Dhaka streets, the vistas of our undulating rice fields and familiar faces, all became memory; strong and vibrant and readily recollectable at first, but then dimmer with time. And with all these visual images in the memory basket went songs, poems and so many other signatures of our culture that we take for granted when we are constantly immersed in them.</p>
<p>But strangely, once in a while I‘d remember Golam Mustafa‘s voice reciting a poem. Maybe it would be during a stop-over in Denver airport, or during a class I was taking in Eugene, Oregon; suddenly it would be him, urgent, mellifluous and cajoling, maybe saying something like</p>
<p>―Freedom, you are the poem of Rabindranath, his timeless songs…‖ a celebrated poem of Shamsur Rahman, or ―Here lies Shorojini, but I know not if she is even lying here‖, a perplexing line from Jibonanondo. It would come in the mind abruptly and incongruously and claim me for an instant, proving to me that in me there is a process that I am not even aware of — a silent tug by the factor of a past life, showing that aural memory is in fact a subterranean but living agent of the soul.</p>
<p>And often it would come in the form of Mustafa‘s voice. He was the agent, the factor, the oracle. Relentlessly pronouncing words that nourish us, playing with rhythms that define our hearts, and pathos that well in our eyes with tears of nostalgia. And by doing these he became something of an organic entity inside each of us who were living abroad. People like that are genuine titans, defining by their uttering the parameters of culture, providing repose for souls that fight alienation, and always linking memory with cultured sustenance. People like that are oracles of this post-modern world of lost psyche, arrangers of lost artefacts, serenadors of passion-poems.</p>
<p>His death after a distinguished and creative life is nonetheless a tragic loss. I am sure much will be said of him in Dhaka and other cities and in expatriate enclaves and saloons of the world wherever Bangla-speaking people live. People who knew him well, scholars of our cultural history, his family members will all join in remembering him. But beyond these remembrances and acceptance of loss and grief, surpassing the formalities enshrining his death, there will remain the magic of his voice especially in those of us who have lived mainly in memory for a long time. His image will continue to create spells in a hundred splash of words and laughter, and in the pathos of characters that define our culture, and the aural memory of his recited poems, forever soothing, forever resonant.</p>
<p>May his departed soul rest in the refuge of eternity.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Remembering</span> <span style="color: #003366;">JR:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">a</span> <span style="color: #003366;">life</span> <span style="color: #003366;">well</span> <span style="color: #003366;">lived</span></h1>
<p>I fly over dark clouds over Arafura Sea where the giant Australian island ends and the coastlines of assorted archipelagos beckon from down below. Here and there, at this stratospheric height, dark behemoth clouds form, full of a splendour that is at once riveting and sinister. They are bathed by the inferno of crimson light as the day‘s last rays colour them. It is a scary world, lit by sudden uncertain lights, poised for wars and confrontations. As I sit by the window memories flood my heart — those of this world and those of me, and a face that has so recently become only memory epitomises the mood of the sadness that now grips the world.</p>
<p>I am once again coming home to grieve, as is often the wont of those of us who have made a diasporic existence the very essence of our lives. To us memories are sacred, of lives left behind long ago, and since lived only in snippets of transient returns. And faces that parade in our hearts with deep pathos, with memories of dead and living mingling as freely as shadows meet light. As I sit watching these fickle clouds I grieve for Jahanzeb Rasheed, dear cousin, brother- in-law, and, transcending age and generation, a very close friend, a man whose memory will now be cherished by many.</p>
<p>Who was he, whom I now mention with a sly humour that only he would have understood. For Jahanzeb Rasheed was a man of sudden mischievous humour, of quick childlike outbursts, simple, generous to a fault, and he lived with an openness that was at once disarming and salutary. An obituary in an English daily mentions him as the youngest of the famous ―Rasheed brothers‖ of Sylhet, youngest brother of late Humayun and Kaiser Rasheed Chaudhury. But JR was much more than that. At one level he was a man dedicated to growing tea, a magnanimous friend to many, a man of heart often bewildered at the depredations of our society as it became more and more heartless and complicated. In this competitive world his mental faculties were only affection, directness and a simple dignity. And yet I would not pigeonhole him as someone who basked in the reflected glory of his family‘s illustriousness or the fame of his late brothers. Beyond these characterisations he was a man of his own kind and, as his quiet generosity and dignity now pervades many hearts as people flock to his home to grieve over his death, I am suddenly aware of a facet of his character that has become so poignantly relevant in this increasingly uncertain world. But of that later.</p>
<p>While looking at these clouds of the approaching South China Sea a question gnaws at me unrelentingly. Why must people die? What are we to do with</p>
<p>memories of the easy gaiety of people after they are gone? What are we to do with the certain prospect of our own demise, of obliteration of memories and our links with the world that surrounds us. We take shelter in religion and in the grandeur of poetry, look for solace in quiet remembrances, and in enduring art as time slips out of our cognitive psyche and we grasp for motley symbols to resuscitate our humanity and dignity. In this existential struggle what should we celebrate, what qualities should we nurture, which personalities should we exalt? Our human history of struggles prompts us to reward aggression, ambition,</p>
<p>take-no-prisoner attitudes that scorch the earth and convert everything in sight into matters of consumption. We reward successful people and do not worry about the means by which they achieved success, we remember them when they die and we deify them. And sometimes we send the best amongst us into oblivion, let them languish with their serenity of heart; we let them play with children with their infectious laughter.</p>
<p>My nine-year-old boy Sami in Australia exhibited an unexpected burst of grief when he heard of JR‘s death. He remembered his totally exciting time in Dhaka a year ago when JR played with him as though they were buddies for life. One of Sami‘s most favourite sports with JR was body-slam, which consisted of Sami running towards JR and jumping on him as though he, JR, was a mattress and then both breaking up in howls of infectious laughter. A year later this memory ignited in this nine-year-old an anguish that was heart-rending. I do not know of too many adults who can occupy a child‘s mind like that. A man who touched a child‘s memory with such ease and gaiety has definitely lived with illustriousness.</p>
<p>So let us not grieve but pay homage to and rejoice for easy childlike affection, acts of generosity, and just naïve wonder that was JR. Let us emulate his innate altruism, and his disdain for relentlessly chasing self-serving goals. And his penchant for helping those who actually need help and not go after the bottom- line all the time. As I approached Dhaka, with my plane about to land, I thought I was at peace with myself, having overcome my grief for him.</p>
<p>And later in the night, visiting his muddy grave in Banani, I was soothed by the genuine warmth that people felt for him. It is clear that he gave lots and took little. And now people were reciprocating with tales that would nourish his memory. And remembrances in the end are all we have got against the oblivion that is death.</p>
<p>In that half-lit graveyard, under that grass-carpeted mud, a man now sleeps. I will not weep for him any more. Even with all the phantom shadows of darkness around me I could see him starting to live again. As tales of his life pile up in the</p>
<p>collective memories of many who loved him, he was coming alive in each of us. And that in the end is a life well lived.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Country</span> <span style="color: #003366;">as</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Mother:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">global</span> <span style="color: #003366;">reach</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">an</span> <span style="color: #003366;">old</span> <span style="color: #003366;">idea</span></h1>
<p>Patriotism, a sentiment that is becoming more and more important in current era is derived from the word Patria or fatherland (Latin: Patria, French: Patrie, or German: Vaterland). Paradoxically for this etymology, in our country patriotism has a distinct maternal flavour. In ancient Bangali lore, land, nature, and rivers are imagined as mother, whether it is Mother Bengal, Mother Padma, in the pre- partition days, Mother India, or even the all-encompassing geological mum, the Mother Earth, now known world-wide as Gaia. During the beginning of the last century leading to the current era, this notion of river-land-country as mother has undergone some radical transformations leading to its current secular and universal acceptance.</p>
<p>It is indeed a very old idea derived from people‘s relationship with nature, land, and river as a preserver and nourisher. In the newest incarnation, during the last century this idea began with Bankimchandra and the novel Anandamath, when Indian patriotism got its quasi-religious slogan, Bande Mataram, or Hail Mother, where mother is a composite of a deity and the motherland, which could be either Bharat or Bangla. While this slogan gained strong fervour amongst the Hindus as a battle cry for independence, the Muslims stayed away from it, afraid that it will weaken the monotheistic Muslim belief of ―Tawhid‖, or worshipping just one God. To Muslim sensitivities of those days this slogan appeared too much immersed in Hindu idea of a deity. So in the 1940s the fractious communalism produced two different religion-infused slogans, one celebrating maternal religio-patriotism of Bande Mataram, and the other championing the glory of Allah in the form of Nara-E-Takbir. Due to this polarisation the idea of nature and country as mother did not gain popular currency amongst the Muslim masses in the 1940s.</p>
<p>However, starting from the 1950s and ending in our war of independence of the 1970s the notion of country as mother made a strong comeback. With increasing secularisation of culture and a strengthening of identity based on language and ethnicity rather than religion made people realise that there is nothing anti- Islamic in the symbolism of country as mother. Nor was this notion particular to</p>
<p>Bengal only. In Pakistan itself, particularly in Sindh, Mother-Sindh is a very popular concept probably going back to very ancient times. The reawakening of this powerful symbolic idea occurred in East Pakistan in the 1950s and 1960s, leading to the popularisation of the songs that celebrated the land and the country as mother, including the song that later became our national anthem.</p>
<p>Recently in Sydney a cultural group ―Protitee‖ organised an evening of songs and discussion to celebrate this idea of land and motherhood. ―Protitee‖, a</p>
<p>Bangla word meaning Faith, is the brainchild of Sirajus Salekin, a leading singer of Rabindra-Sangeet, and the son of the revered music composer Janab Abdul Latif. Protitee has made a solid reputation of organising evocative, punctual and disciplined programmes in Sydney, the current hometown of Salekin. The evening, divided between discussions, reminiscences, interviews and songs, tried to deconstruct this mythology, of land-mother connection that is now deeply ingrained in the Bengali psyche. What came out in the end was a spell-binding mixture of nostalgic memory of the biological mother, stories of the national struggles for the motherland, and the powerfully evoked dreams of future of the sons and daughters, now boys and girls growing up in Australia, a land not associated with any maternal mythology. It was a sentiment-infused evening when musical renditions mixed with personal memory and where the nostalgia of Bangla poems touched the vibrant but sparse stanzas of English poems creating an admixture that is as hybrid as the expatriate Bangla culture that is being constructed in the major cities of the English-speaking world.</p>
<p>Sydney is increasingly a hub of Bangla culture. In this metropolis of many millions, where Bangla-speaking population now runs to tens of thousands, there are now two weekly newspapers published in Bangla, and about half a dozen cultural groups routinely organise literary-musical programmes that run throughout the year. Because of our location of thousands of miles south of the equator we have inverted seasons of the southern hemisphere. In December, winter in Bangladesh but Sydney‘s summer, we are looking forward to a whole host of programmes including trips by the Kolkata novelist Shamaresh Majumdar and the expatriate singer Quaderi Kibria. There is talk of organising a</p>
<p>―Bongo Shommelon‖ a la New York or London. With an increase in population the restless Bangali cultural spirit is asserting itself in this Antipodeans metropolis, giving it a distinct South-Asian colour.</p>
<p>The cultural evening organised by Protitee was a part of that attempt of introducing Bengali ideas in Australia‘s culture. At the moment these attempts are tentative first steps, too feeble to resonate in the mainstream culture. But as the younger generation growing up here enters the mainstream culture and starts to write in English about these ideas, a synthesis is going to occur. The</p>
<p>synthesis will lead to a new kind of Bongo-Australian culture in which old-world ideas from Southern Asia will mingle with aborigine and European pathos and create syncretic motifs and symbols in which all Australians will be able to participate.</p>
<p>The pathos of Mother/Country linkage has come a long way since the days of Ramayana when Ramchandra, in a bout of nostalgia, bemoaned his expatriate status in the island of Lanka and cried for his Ayodhya by saying Janani Janmabhumishcha Shargadapi Gorioshi (Mother and Motherland is better than even heaven). In contrast to Ramchandra, today we can hop on a plane anytime we like to change this melancholic state.</p>
<p>But beyond personal sadness of migration this pathos today has taken an altogether different dimension. Today we are living in an era when we increasingly see the whole earth as a nourishing eco-mother, or Gaia, an idea reminiscent of the old idea of land as mother. Thus this old South-Asian idea suddenly has an urgent global relevance. And who is better to articulate it than the Bangalis living in English-speaking countries such as Australia?</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">History</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">heritage:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">learning</span> <span style="color: #003366;">from</span> <span style="color: #003366;">our</span> <span style="color: #003366;">villages</span></h1>
<p>The word ‗village‘ does not carry a lot of prestige in Bangladesh. It is a common experience in Dhaka or other cities to hear derogatory comments about villages from many of our educated people. Often these city people are very fond of villages and our ―grameen‖ culture and heritage as an abstract concept, but they have little respect for the real village or its real people. So if someone is not attired properly or speaks perhaps in a non-urban way, the offender is often</p>
<p>described to have come from a ―gram‖ or that he is a ―gramyo‖. Gramyo is a derogatory term in Bangla, and much as we have tried to hide our sub-conscious dislike of village by using more palatable terms such as ―grameen‖ or ―palli‖,</p>
<p>more desirable synonyms of village, the ―gramyo‖ epithet displays the deep anxiety that a modern Bangali feels for his village origin. In contrast, terms such as ―nogor‖, ―nagorik‖ etc. are positive terms indicating erudition, culture, and other desirable attributes.</p>
<p>The dislike of villages and its people is rooted in a very complex way in Bangladesh. In its modern incarnation it began with the Bengal Renaissance which was initiated by rich landowning class in the city of Kolkata. To these city people villages were full of ―uncouth‖ characters devoid of education or wealth. They were often tolerated as simple people adorning the pristine landscape; for instance, a lot of poetry was written about the village damsels and the rhythms of their body as they carry water from the river, or about the farmers toiling in their rice fields. But we have never seen any genuine attempt to understand the people of the villages, without using any external urban yardsticks, but simply in their own terms.</p>
<p>This failure is one of the cardinal errors of our national and cultural life. The renaissance that we claim is the initiator of modern intellectual Bengali in the 19th century had in it that giant mistake. Since then the mistake has been continued through the days of the British, through years during which we were part of Pakistan, and finally through our years as an independent nation. And that mistake was to substantially ignore the history and knowledge of our rural population, their habits and practices related to dresses, beliefs and language. An educated person in Bangladesh now is almost totally uninformed of the actual local history of our land-mass as it unfolded in many villages, its indigenous knowledge-base such as knowledge of local lores, traditional food and medicine, and finally its poetry often sung by vagrants and beggars, only a fraction of which has been collected and made urban by people like S.D. Barman.</p>
<p>Traditional dresses such as ‗lungi‘ or ‗gamcha‘ has no place in the body of a modern educated Bangali; traditional belief systems, often tinged with Baul and Sufi ideas, though adopted by a small section of the educated intellectual community, is not a part of the mainstream. The traditional rural Islam is now being increasingly replaced by a modern theocratic brand and the teaching of inclusive tolerance that the Sufi teachers nurtured in the villages is disappearing very quickly.</p>
<p>Regarding Bangla language we the people of East Bengal have always been at a disadvantage. The dialect of Nadia-Shantipur area of West Bengal was originally chosen as the standard spoken language. I do not believe that people of East Bengal and Sylhet had any say about this matter. Suddenly the bulk of the population found themselves quite unequipped to speak the language that is supposed to be their standard language of communication.</p>
<p>People of Kolkata and adjoining areas had a huge advantage in this, and even today in our radio and TV an ability to speak Bangla like Kolkata and adjoining areas is considered to be a very desirable trait. In the English-speaking world they have solved this problem in an intelligent way. So although Oxbridge English was originally considered to be the ultimate standard, these days English as diverse as from New York, Sydney, Auckland or Joahansberg are all considered equally valid.</p>
<p>We, in contrast, continue to strictly adhere to the ―Nadia-Shantipur‖ model of pronunciation, and describe even some our educated people as having a Chittagong or Sylheti accent, thereby denigrating our true local linguistic heritage. I have never heard US Presidents Clinton or Carter being denigrated because they had a southern accent.</p>
<p>Our failure to accept the local pronunciations and accents as a valid speech leads to subtle anxieties and exclusion of many of our young people from our rural hinterlands and their linguistic and other creative talents are not assessed properly because they do not have the right pronunciation, which their geographical origin prevents them from learning. They carry this stigma when they go to the cities and it hinders their genuine development as people of self- esteem. It is time for us to be relaxed about this and follow the English-speaking world. In English one now finds many different voices enriching the language and the culture. The great Jamaican Rastafarian poet Bob Marley and an Oxford Don of English literature are barely intelligible to each other and yet they both belong to the great tradition of diverse voices of English language.</p>
<p>The time has come to remove the timeworn constraints of our cultural space. And central to that spirit of liberation should be our unconditional acceptance of</p>
<p>our rural heritage. Our culture has been fashioned through millennia in hundreds of rural hamlets of Bangladesh. In those seemingly insignificant</p>
<p>―gramyo‖ places an identity has been formed through a syncretic amalgamation of ideas that belong to, chronologically, pagan-animist, Sino-Tibetan/Keerat, Budhist, Vedic, Sufi-Islamic, Western traditions. Our rural customs, languages, seemingly insignificant habits and words all carry the history of that chronological journey. We have to understand this transforming history with respect, solemnity, rigour and dedication. And the places to study and understand this process are our villages.</p>
<p>Time is running out for us. Many of the elders who could teach us of this fertile and hybrid legacy have already died. Before the last remnants of many of this oral knowledge disappear forever, we the city sophisticates must go to those carriers of that timeless knowledge and collect them for us and the posterity, and through this process of apprenticeship discover our own self that for many reasons have so far been hidden from us.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Celebrating</span> <span style="color: #003366;">victory</span> <span style="color: #003366;">in</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Canberra</span></h1>
<p>Sometimes, inadvertently, nature reflects the deepest symbols of our mind. As I drove towards the Bangladesh High Commission premises in Canberra for a Victory Day celebration I saw the red disc of an evening sun framed against the eucalypt green expanse of Australia‘s landscape –– a visage resembling the flag of the nation whose birth I was about to celebrate. As I saw that stunning crimson sun, poised precariously above the deep green hills of Canberra, I felt in my bones the fragility and transience of this particular evening; and perhaps metaphorically the travails and tragedy of my nation thousands of miles away. On this day thirty two years after her genesis, Bangladesh remains mired in both victory and tragedy, her flag of independence, resembling this landscape, flying far and wide in the globe establishing her victory against odds, and yet her holiest aspirations, the stability of her politics and the hopes and dreams of her</p>
<p>people, remaining as unrealised as a mirage. As I approached the building, flying the flag of our proud independent nation, and the venue of the Victory Day festivities I became sombre and introspective, asking myself the inevitable question: ―Why is it that after attaining independence after so much blood and tragedy we remain as a nation hopelessly divided?‖</p>
<p>In the back of the High Commission building the decorations reflected the flag and the nature around us. Long stretches of green framing a red scintillating sun, erected on one side, formed the backdrop of a stage. Around us were symbols of bucolic Canberra; birds were chirping merrily, Kangaroos frolicking in distant hills, two doors away in another Embassy premises Iranian women clad in chador were playing volleyball. On the manicured grass in front of the stage we sat with our warm and able High Commissioner Lt. Gen (Retd) Harun-ar- Rasheed, a freedom fighter and erstwhile chief of Bangladesh Armed Forces. The competent and amiable members of the High Commission conducted the programme and the Bangladeshi students of the Australian National University put up a fine patriotic performance combining drama, songs and dances. As the afternoon progressed bringing in cool air and darkness of the night from the adjoining hills we were caught up in the shared national bonhomie, our precious memory of having gained a country, and the inevitable trepidations about our future as a nation.</p>
<p>Four official messages were read aloud during the programme. The messages were from the President of the republic Professor Iazuddin Ahmed, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Foreign Minister Morshed Khan and from the Department of the Foreign Affairs. The messages were of the official kind, a mixture of ardent</p>
<p>homilies and bureaucratic jargons but nonetheless imbibed with solemn calls for nation building and aspirations for a non-partisan patriotic future. However, the call for unity and non-partisan patriotism of these four messages was compromised because of a significant omission. And that omission is the failure of naming Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, as the pivotal figure in our fight for independence. Listening to these messages one after another, describing the role of Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman but without so much as the mention of the name of the Sheikh, I felt a deep sense of unease; I felt as though history is being manipulated to the detriment of the nation.</p>
<p>There is no question that Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman played a stellar role in our War of Independence and his name should be pronounced with due prominence on every 16th of December. But anybody even with a cursory knowledge of independence of Bangladesh knows Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the lightening rod of the thunder that was Bangladesh. Just like one cannot talk about independent India without Nehru, or Indonesia without Sukarno, just like one cannot utter Ghana without mentioning Nkrumah or talk about Algeria‘s independence without mentioning Ben-Bella, so it is that history inevitable demands that the name of Sheikh Mujib be uttered when one discusses the genesis of Bangladesh. To utter his name is not to succumb to fear or favour; it is simply to accept the alchemy of Bangladesh‘s genesis.</p>
<p>Sometimes silence speaks the loudest. And so it was that during that programme a certain un-uttered name became like a heavy brick in everybody‘s mind.</p>
<p>Inevitably, the officially unspeakable name leapt into memory. The nation was not served well. The sombre and appropriate call for unity and nation building beyond partisanship, present in each of the official messages, took a hollow ring of truncated credibility.</p>
<p>I urge the government to think again about this issue. It is not as though the lustre of the name of President Ziaur Rahman will diminish if Bangabandhu‘s name is uttered. Indeed, mentioning both of these names should become the charter of our reconciliation. A nation can have a number of founding leaders. In India, there are Gandhi and Nehru; in China, there are Mao and Zhou-en-Lai.</p>
<p>Pragmatism demands that we put an end to this infantile bickering about one and only one supreme leader. It is time we learnt that delineating the role of founding leaders is not a zero-sum game. Both of our major parties should come to a compromise on this issue quickly.</p>
<p>I end this with a positive note. There was a touching presentation by a student of ANU known informally as ―Josh‖. As Josh described, through dramatisation of a Humayun Ahmed story, the transformation of a razakar into a MuktiJuddha</p>
<p>most people felt a lump in their throat, finding in them the tear and the blood that was December 1971.</p>
<p>And finally, as the programme ended through a beautiful dance of hope and optimism we all basked in the youth and exuberance of our talented students, our untainted future. And we all hoped that next year, perhaps through the uncomplicated exuberance of our future generation, we will be a step closer to a genuine platform of nation building.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Seed:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">technology</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">heritage</span></h1>
<p>I recently came across three interesting articles in popular bangla newspapers discussing agricultural biotechnology. Writers of the articles, one an economist and a Professor of Economics of a Bangladeshi University, and the other, a leading writer and activist on women’s issues have diametrically opposing views on the appropriateness of biotechnology for the agricultural development of Bangladesh. Their debate brings out important issues that need to be discussed dispassionately and objectively so that a national consensus can be arrived at on this important topic.</p>
<p>Indeed, a discussion of biotechnology in agriculture often leads to controversy in Bangladesh these days. This trend is most unfortunate. On the one hand, we are an agricultural country; and developments in agro-based efforts and initiatives must be the foundation stone of our national development. On the other, biotechnology encompasses a whole group of vital technologies that have immense promise for the improvement of crops. These technologies include modern breeding methodologies, such as molecular marker assisted-breeding, clonal propagation by tissue culture, and other DNA based methodologies, including recombinant DNA-based methods to create genetically modified organisms. Biotechnology covers the whole gamut of these technologies and not just one specific technology. Polarised controversies on these general terms, agriculture and biotechnology, are likely to create confusion in the minds of the policy makers and in the end may make it very difficult to devise any sensible policy in this vital area.</p>
<p>It all started with a seminar in which two personalities of International Rice Research Institute described the usefulness of a line of genetically modified rice with a high level of vitamin A. This rice line has been generated by a group of Scientists in Switzerland and is recently being touted as a success story for alleviating vitamin A deficiency in the developing world.</p>
<p>The first article, written by Professor Abdul Bayes, an economist, describes the GM technology in a positive way and urges the policymakers to come forward and be more pro-active about utilizing biotechnology in agriculture. Farida Akhtar of UBINIG and Nayakrishi opposed this point of view, suggesting that Biotechnology is in fact bad for agriculture. However she diluted her opposition a bit by saying that she would not oppose any technology that is good for the welfare of the masses. Since Ms. Akhtar did not make clear what her definition of</p>
<p>Biotechnology is, I was left wondering which specific technology, coming under the broad umbrella of Biotechnology might be acceptable to her.</p>
<p>She then suggested that since Dr Bayes and Dr Mahbub Hussain of IRRI were not farmers they, would not understand all the ramifications of Biotechnology in Agriculture. Professor Bayes then published another article as a reply to Akhtar’s article. By then the authors entered into personalities. Dr Bayes attacked Ms.</p>
<p>Akhtar of grandstanding, of being a mindless populist, and of exploiting the poor by opening a shop in Mirpur Road. This discussion, which should have been a very important one on policy vis-vis agricultural technology, in the end degenerated into virtual name-calling.</p>
<p>But beyond the personal rancour is a clash of paradigms. Professor Bayes is coming to the debate with a pragmatic rationalist paradigm of an economist and is seeing the GM technology as a benign agent of progressive change, a change that is mostly for the good of the world.</p>
<p>But the issues raised by Farida Akhtar deserve to be looked at and debated in the society. Those issues raise questions that are central to the acceptability of the new technologies in agriculture. Those are questions of trade-off or the cost- benefit analyses of the usage of the technologies, autonomy and right of the farmers of the developing world, and issues related to monoculture and biodiversity. Indeed the views raised by her are in many ways being articulated by many other people in the world and those require to be addressed by policymakers, economists and politicians, without trying to silence them by name-calling.</p>
<p>A major issue to be discussed in this regard is Bangladesh’s lack of technological capability in this area. Akhtar has made some positive statements in her article that are also shared by a large number of activists in the world. That has to do with the empowerment of the poorer countries in all areas of technology, including biotechnology. Often the criticism of these activists has to do with the manner in which this technology is being “forced” on the poorer countries.</p>
<p>Indeed in Bangladesh we have seen a progressive decline in human resources over the years in these vital areas of technology. It is imperative on the part of the government to devise sensible policies of technological empowerment including a science levy, whereby seed money can be generated for research and development in modern biological science</p>
<p>What we all need to understand is that the most dramatic technological development in agriculture occurred in the world during the Neolithic times when most of the current cereals were engineered by unnamed pre-historic breeders, often thought to be farming women. They created modern maize out of teosinte and modern wheat by combining three grass genomes. They bred indica</p>
<p>and japonica rice lines of mind-boggling varieties. These improvements made civilization possible in the Fertile Crescent and other areas, leading to the history and heritage that we now take for granted. In a very important way, those historic changes in plant biology constituted very important revolution in agricultural biotechnology, lifting us from the vagaries of our Palaeolithic existence and catapulting us into the trajectory of modernity. In a way, all these innovations belong to the realm of biotechnology.</p>
<p>All the subsequent changes such as modern breeding, and DNA-based methodologies still stand dwarfed by those major ancient mutations. As we debate these important issues of technology amongst people with different paradigms, albeit mutual respect and openness, we must pay tribute to our ancient farmers and make sure that we do nothing to damage the shared biological heritage that we hold as trust.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Iftaring</span> <span style="color: #003366;">elites,</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Maulana</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Bhashani,</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">third</span> <span style="color: #003366;">force</span></h1>
<p>With breathless expectancy newspapers have been reporting that an Iftar party, recently held in a five star hotel would be important in injecting a crucial ―third force‖ in our moribund political life. The privileged members of that presumptive third force, based on the names that have been proposed, consist mainly of unelected NGO personalities and serially unelectable members of the political community of the country.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, these events are also occurring at the same time when the grass- root political leaders of the country, such as union parishad chairmen have been banned from attending even seminars without taking explicit permission from unelected Zilla bureaucrats such a Deputy Commissioner. Similarly they are banned from going overseas for any work-related seminars, workshops etc without going through a tedious process of obtaining permission, again from unelected people. The positive frenzy surrounding the ―third force‖ of unelected elites, and the humiliation meted out to the genuine elected representatives of the people are occurring around the time of the death anniversary of a great leader whose political life was centred around this paradox of populism and elitism in our politics.</p>
<p>Throughout his whole life Maulana Bhashani fought political elitism and stood out for the dignity, habits and dress of common men against those elites who wanted to exploit the poor for political gains, but really had nothing to do with the plight of the disenfranchised. With his lungi, Topi, and simple Kurta, with his simple place of abode in a village, the Maulana represented the peasant soul of Bangladesh. But beneath that mellow and rustic exterior there was steely bamboo of alluvial Bangladesh. Often the sharp whip of that bamboo would be directed at the wealthy, the powerful and the callous. Those fearless protests, those relentless expressions of defiance were the devise of the Maulana‘s politics.</p>
<p>Even Mr Jinnah, almost a demigod of Muslim politics encountered a bout of that populist lashing as early as in 1930‘s when the Maulana berated Mr. Jinnah for not agreeing that a proposed convention of Assam Muslim League be held in a village in Assam. Of course people like Mr Jinnah, with their Saville Row Suits, and anglicised monocles were not ready to come to those rainy villages without proper facilities! When they predictably filibustered Maulana‘s proposal, he, the Maulana, wasted no time in reminding the mighty and the sophisticate of the Muslim League about this colossal hypocrisy, about how the urban sophisticate, including ones with socialistic leanings, liked the poor for their vote and their</p>
<p>political symbolism but never really loved the mud-hut, the paddy fields or the lungi of the poor.</p>
<p>Today the Maulana is gone but the paradox lingers. Today we have a Finance Minister, an urban sophisticate who does not know what the word ―Monga‖ means although the whole north of the country is gripped by it. Today we have unelected members of the country, many of them travelling overseas, are cooking up a new political direction of the country while the elected representatives of local governments are deemed incapable of deciding which seminar to attend, and which country to travel to, without permission of unelected people. This unceremonious humiliation is being meted out to the true representatives of the people, while a motely collection of unelected power brokers busy themselves with renegotiating the power structure through tact, guile and deception. And in of all places, a 5 star hotel during Iftar!</p>
<p>Dr B Chowdhury, the proposed architect of this new political force has talked at length about the number of Deputy Prime Ministers, and the numbers of Ministers in the proposed changes. But he has not mentioned anything about food security in the face of Manga, the ravaging problem of arsenic, or the persistence of sub-human living conditions a few yards from where he lives. His is the age old talk of elitist political salon, the type the Maulana detested, where the structure and political power sharing take precedence over action and substance. Dr Chowdhury has talked about nepotism when he himself is a perpetrator of it, making sure that his son, and not another deserving member of his constituency obtained his parliamentary seat. For instance, why was not the seat allocated through some sort of competition?</p>
<p>There is no doubt that politics need to change in Bangladesh. There is no question that third, forth, and fifth forces must emerge over the ashes of the defunct and charred bodies of the first and second forces. But those proposed forces must come from the paddocks and the fields of the country. That force must carry with it a manifesto of more power to the UP chairmen, and less to the Deputy Commissioner; that manifesto should propose that Ministers do not go around ruling their constituencies like virtual fiefdoms, scolding the local elected people, even riding elephants in obscene displays of profligacy.</p>
<p>That manifesto must carry with it an undertaking that politics of heredity will simply not be allowed and leaders will not be allowed to patronise their children even if they deserve. For the sake of appearance and propriety, children of prominent politicians should not be allowed in prominent positions of politics.</p>
<p>The country will not suffer because of the loss of those few even if they deserve; with 140 million people we have so many deserving candidates waiting. Given</p>
<p>what has happened in Bangladesh, this undertaking alone will be hugely popular. In the manifesto of third force of Dr. B. Chaudhury, I would love to see such an undertaking.</p>
<p>It has been many years, since the great Maulana passed away and the real people of Bangladesh lost a true friend. Today in our politics virtually no legacy remains of the grass-root politics of the Maulana. With his death many of his erstwhile disciples lost their way; confused and disoriented they found solace in actions unworthy of them. Failing to emulate the simple spartan life and affection-laden politics of the Maulana they lost their popularity and were easily seduced by power and corruption.</p>
<p>At a time when Dhaka-living elites are trying to centralise every aspect of our politics, even that of the Union <em>parishads</em>, the empowering politics of Maulana Bhashani is needed more than ever before. In fact that politics, coming from thousands of our villages, should be the real third force.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Science</span> <span style="color: #003366;">vs.</span> <span style="color: #003366;">science</span> <span style="color: #003366;">fiction:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Choosing</span> <span style="color: #003366;">our</span> <span style="color: #003366;">priorities</span></h1>
<p>Science fiction sells well in Bangladesh. During the Ekushey Mela this year, which I attended briefly, a large number of colourful books on science fiction were on constant display and virtually all the publishers I talked to indicate that science fiction books are hot items as far as sale is concerned. In contrast, the best books on science were duds as far as commercial success went. In fact they sold so poorly that hardly any are published and even the ones that are published have to compete with the colour and allure of the fantasy-ridden science fiction books. In Bangladesh the words ―Science‖ and ―Fiction‖ have become widely entwined in the people‘s minds. A common comment I get about a science book on human genome that I have written recently in Bangla is that, it looks like a good book except that there should have been more fiction in it. Although written in racy Bangla prose and embedded in human-interest story, the book nonetheless is constrained by what is scientifically feasible and credible and seeks to describe real experiments. It even has an introduction written by a very popular writer of science fiction books.</p>
<p>This excessive zeal for science fiction over science is not serving our people well. Science is about being excited about the wonder of the universe and nature. It recruits human qualities such as curiosity, wonder, even astonishment and channels the human imagination into a path that respects limitations imposed by natural laws. The universe is vast and interesting and tangled up in myriad webs of interesting interactions, the natural world is woven into the fabric of time and patterns, whose unfolding drama is more interesting than any story conceivably crafted by human mind. But these wonders must be fathomed through an understanding of the natural laws, some grasp of mathematics and some understanding of what is feasible and what is outlandish.</p>
<p>Understanding science thus requires some diligence and the job of early education in any nation is to train the mind of the children with due diligence. Early schooling is meant to instil a sense of wonder into their minds about the natural world, about the seemingly commonplace events like the growth of a seedling or a tadpole, about the drama of thunder or storm, or of the interplay of colours in a fabric. Those can educate our young mind in such a manner that they become curious about botany, zoology or chemistry later as they grow up. It</p>
<p>is hoped that through this process of sustained stimulation the children‘s interest in science could be kept alive and they would not thus lose their curiosity or fascination about the natural world. This sense of wonder, curiosity and interest are the common traits among the children in any country where science has taken root. It is essential to keep these traits alive if we are to be successful in the fields of science and technology.</p>
<p>The excessive zeal for science fiction and a tepid response towards the natural sciences in Bangladesh suggest two things. One: our children are fascinated by the enigma and wonder of the scientific world. Two: they are not finding the avenues to fulfil this sense of wonder through science and thus becoming hooked to the fantasy-ridden allure of science fiction. The problem with science education is that it has to describe nature, as it exists; it cannot make up outlandish events that are not scientifically credible. It cannot make people travel forward in time, make robots dream like men, or have a game where kids fly around. However, science can describe the drama of a cell dividing and becoming an organism, the physics of a spectacular sunset, or the mystery of a nebula or a galaxy. In order to compete with the raciness and allure of science fiction, scientific ideas and concepts must be presented with drama and gloss.</p>
<p>For that we need planning, colourful teaching materials and good teachers all of which are sorely missing in our country, particularly in the villages.</p>
<p>Recently I visited a few primary schools and Madrassas around my village in Sylhet. I was amazed at the sloppiness with which the science book of year 9-10 has been written. Complex and interesting concepts have been written in obscure and elliptic Bangla conveying neither the true meaning nor the sense of wonder behind the concepts. The books are printed in bad quality papers and accompanying pictures are often too boring to attract the eyes of young people. If the science textbooks of high school were bad, the Madrassa books left me gasping in wonder. They were all devoid of any pictures of anything living!</p>
<p>Pictorial concepts where a picture (lets say of a frog) was described with the picture of the frog absent creating blankness, which is at once real and metaphorical. I was stunned by the sheer callousness and the contempt displayed towards our valued students by the so-called scholars of our nation who have written those books. I found both the School and Madradassah students curious and mentally agile. The young people are very eager to learn but did not find in their environment or the textbooks even a modicum of inspiration that might help them in their natural quests and curiosities. The situation in the Madrassah is particularly painful given how important it is for us to instil scientific and progressive ideas and concepts into these students.</p>
<p>Similar neglect of science curricula exists in the schools of our smaller towns and the city schools except perhaps a few elite schools. Primary and High school science books are archaic, drab looking, and cannot possibly compete with the racy allure of science fiction books.</p>
<p>I appeal to our popular science fiction writers, especially, the ones with science background to do something about this urgently. I think, because of their immense popularity, they can make a difference in this area. I can see a bit of this happening in our cities through the efforts of Dr. Zafar Iqbal and others in Mathematics but it needs to happen in our villages and our Madrassas and it needs to happen not only in Mathematics but also in crucial subjects such as Chemistry and Biology.</p>
<p>Making science as popular as science fiction is a challenging but an achievable goal. Let us rise up to this challenge for the future of our nation.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Math</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Olympiad:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">A</span> <span style="color: #003366;">rural</span> <span style="color: #003366;">perspective</span></h1>
<p>A piece of heart-warming news from Dhaka stands in contrast to the litany of malaise that seems to originate from Bangladesh these days. An Olympiad of Mathematics, inaugurated by luminaries of Science and Technology of the nation, seems to have excited a large number of our students. This nationwide math fest includes speeches, participation of students from many districts, and finally opportunities to test the skills of the talented students. If this effort can be expanded to galvanize the majority of our students, a formidable cerebral power can be harnessed in the coming years.</p>
<p>There is little doubt that Mathematics is a central pillar of any education system. Nations attempting to leapfrog into a higher level of science and technology, such as China, Malaysia, and India, are putting a huge emphasis on mathematics education. In Singapore one notices almost an obsession with Mathematics with spectacular results. If Bangladesh is to realize her true potential, a good curriculum of Science and Mathematics must be put in place in our schools.</p>
<p>While I am heartened by the Math Olympiad, my recent travels in a number of villages in Bangladesh leave me sceptical about how much this enthusiasm can be spread widely. And this widespread dissemination is critical for the success of this effort. Mathematical ability like all other cognitive ability is partly innate and partly acquired. With same opportunity children show dissimilar aptitude and ability in mathematics. The innate genetic ability is randomly distributed in the population. Thus the bulk of the innate merit of our children resides in impoverished villages where most of our people live. The general increase in the enthusiasm and opportunity engendered by the Olympiad will only reach its full potential if it can be spread widely so that the large number of talents in the villages can benefit from it. Nations that have unleashed the true creative potential of their people, such as China, have in fact done precisely that. Through policy and political process they have taken opportunity to the widest possible sections of their community.</p>
<p>In our country while educational opportunities are reasonable in Dhaka and District towns, in the villages where majority of our people live the situation is depressing. While attending a Primary School Teachers convention in Sylhet, I heard stories of widespread absenteeism, low status and pay of teachers, and of curricula that fail to create the necessary enthusiasm for learning among the students. Millions of our students in their formative years languish in this</p>
<p>pitiable condition. We must find a way to tap this huge reservoir of talents. Slow improvement won‘t do; we must find a way of leapfrogging into future.</p>
<p>The enthusiasm generated by the Math Olympiad is a very positive beginning. We now need to find a way by which this enthusiasm can be spread into our villages. Historically villages of Bangladesh have been strong in Mathematics. Many village riddles, and aphorisms, chanted in rhymes suggest quantitative aspects of our culture. The rural people‘s passion for mathematics abounds in</p>
<p>such puzzles as challenge one to find out the time a monkey takes to climb up a slippery pole or the length of the stem of a lily that has a certain portion of it below the water, while another portion above the water, and it moves on the surface of the water to a certain distance before it sinks if pushed by the wind, etc. Our traditional societies demonstrated their computational skill in the form of rural accounting. They did it even for astrology and the practice was integrated into their life style. Much of those traditional practices have disappeared leaving a ―number-less‖ vacuum in the village culture. A challenge for out Mathematics Teachers and thinkers would be to come up with appropriate paradigms for teaching Mathematics that is appropriate for our village life.</p>
<p>The Madrassahs of our rural areas also need special attention. In Madrassas the curricula is sadly lacking in attractiveness or rigour. The theological side of education is obscuring a harsh reality. The Madrassah students must find gainful employment after their graduation. The national enthusiasm for Mathematics education must be somehow introduced among Madrassa students as well.</p>
<p>Professor Jamilur Reza Choudhury, a man with impressive credentials in Science and Technology has joined the popular writer and teacher Prof. Zafar Iqbal in launching this new initiative in mathematics. I urge both of these public figures to incorporate the interest of the millions of our villages into their strategy. By widening their efforts outside the cities, they might find a more impressive number of talented youths eager for education in Mathematics.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Education:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">overcoming</span> <span style="color: #003366;">the</span> <span style="color: #003366;">barrier</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">formalism</span></h1>
<p>During my recent trip to Bangladesh I visited a number of village schools. Accompanied by teachers I talked to a number of students at different levels of study, trying to assess their needs and understand the extent to which the existing curricula were being taught and understood. These experiences are, by their very nature, anecdotal; and yet I felt that there are general lessons in what I had learnt from those visits.</p>
<p>I feel that a major barrier to successful learning on the part of the student is some needless formal structures through which bits of information are parcelled out to them. These formal structures of education are partly the dictates of our old society and partly a refusal to innovate even within the boundaries of the curricula.</p>
<p>So for instance, there was much talk about water and its role in life and agriculture without anyone saying one sentence about the ponds adjacent to the school or the irrigation canals that were so obviously visible. In the class the topic</p>
<p>―water‖ was like a formal ossified tablet to be prescribed, and subsequently swallowed. It was not a substance that could be seen, felt or breathed. I saw students memorizing aspects of water as written in their book, without showing any passion or curiosity about the real substance, water that abounded in their reach. They had no knowledge of the local water distribution system, nor they had the desire to ask the obvious question as to why the waterways are always clogged, or even why shallow tube-wells were dispensing water poisoned with arsenic. The topic water in the curriculum was utterly removed from the real life drama surrounding water.</p>
<p>This formalism did extend to the language as well. When I asked a grade two boy what the word ―dog‖ meant in Bangla he answered with ―Kutta‖, the local word rather than ―kukur‖ the more formal Bangla term. I could see the teacher becoming very agitated about this, scolding the boy as though he had committed a crime. In reality of course every one uses the informal term ―kutta‖ and the boy is correct in automatically uttering that word as the Bangla translation for the word ―dog‖. When pressed he also used the informal word for cat as well, demonstrating that the brain was operating correctly but ineffectually at an informal level; while the need for formal articulation was becoming a barrier to quick and intelligent learning.</p>
<p>Thus I discovered at least two levels of sensory invalidation; one, a refusal to use the direct sensory experience, such as sight and sound of water as a trigger for learning; two, a refusal to allow the words that are used as second nature, as a valid tool of discourse in learning.</p>
<p>I see both of these attitudes as serious impediment to true learning in our villages. Topics such as the natural world, basic ideas of science, arithmetic etc are much easily learned through experiences that are obvious in the surrounding world. The incredible natural variety obvious in nature can be used to teach biology, visible real objects can be used to teach kids how to count or to introduce them to basic ideas of set, or the mathematical operations like subtraction, division and multiplication. Recent ideas of neurobiology suggest that it is by experiencing real objects that the brain can count comfortably and those who learn to inter-relate numbers as life-like characters develop a quick emotion-laden attachment for numbers. In old days, problems in arithmetic books were full of those life-like situations—things such as the spectacle of a monkey going up a slippery pole. Such examples abound in rural life; teachers can easily convert those arresting experience into numerical knowledge only if they would frame the questions properly.</p>
<p>One of the important ways through which these reforms can be achieved is by freeing education from the Byzantine bureaucracy. At the moment, local people, the parents, the main stakeholders of education are mere spectators; education curricula and method of teaching are all dictated by forces that live far away and in fact have no direct interest in good quality rural education. The days when people such as ministers and top bureaucrats had their children attending rural schools or even urban schools run with public money are long gone. These days’ children of people who matter in our society are typically taught in expensive private schools often influenced by good ideas coming from foreign lands. The public school system, in both cities and villages, but particularly in the villages, remains mired in the past when discipline and formal structures were thought to be more important than lucid dissemination of knowledge.</p>
<p>What to do, then? A major development would be to give more autonomy to teachers and local educators to design curricula with local content and context. The nature, geography, flora and fauna of the locality can and should be used as a powerful trigger of experiential learning. Local stories and events can be used as stimulator of language and narrative. A high degree of initial tolerance for</p>
<p>―dialects‖ will only stimulate creativity; more formal language can then be acquired slowly later. At the moment, the strict adherence to formal speech is impairing both the actual learning and the skill in the formal language.</p>
<p>In the early days of schooling, language, numeracy and manual dexterity, all could reinforce each other in a synergistic way. So for instance an attempt to make a boat out of clay from a field adjacent to the school could trigger a verbal and literary discussion on boats and the quantitative number of boats, which could be used to teach numeracy. Such interlinking holistic experience leads to memory consolidation and a greater conceptual foundation in learning.</p>
<p>It is time we rescued our education from the dual clasp of formalism and sophistication and made it available for curiosity and innovation. As the quality of education plummets across the country, and particularly in the villages, we urgently need such creative rescue.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Sylhet’s</span> <span style="color: #003366;">day</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">infamy</span></h1>
<p>What happened in the shrine of Hazrat Shahjalal Mujarrad (RA) recently marks itself as a day of infamy in the 700-year-old history of Sylhet. Never since</p>
<p>Srihotto‘s transition in the 1300s from an obscure kingdom of Gaura Gabinda to a symbol of peaceful and tolerant Islam has there been an episode so recklessly violent. The grenade, apparently intended for the Sylhet-born British High Commissioner, missed its mark and to our great relief Anwar Chowdhury is alive and well, although unhappily three others have died because of this wanton act and the District Commissioner himself has been wounded. Splattered blood and human tissue spilled on tiles of that holy place have now been scrubbed away and reciprocal dispensation of blame, so familiar in our puerile politics, has accompanied the indignation and shock of people all over the country. However, the bruise on the psyche of Sylhet will take a long time to heal. After that event Sylhet has witnessed one of the lowest turnouts in Jumma prayers in the Darga in recent memory, indicating the sense of utter fear that has been instilled in people. A sanctuary, spared even by the marauding hordes of Generals Tikka and Niazi, has become a theatre of apparently indigenous evildoers, indicating the depth to which we have now sunk.</p>
<p>I think there is a special lesson in this for Sylhetis. Traditionally Sylhet has been a bastion of peaceful and tolerant politics; tolerance between religious communities has been a legacy of Hazrat Shahjalal (RA) and his 360 Aulias who taught a serene and civil brand of Islam. In that kind of Islam, originating from Quaderia and Chishtia Sufism, people of other religions were accorded respect and dignity, even a degree of inclusiveness; in their turn devotees of other religions visited the Darga on a day-to-day basis as well during the festival of Urs. This is a proud display of Islam‘s universal appeal. One observes the same degree of human and humane devotion in the Dargas of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia and Hazrat Mainuddin Chishti. This rapport, based on common lineage, links people through devotion and love and has been widely seen as Islam‘s unique gift to the whole of humanity. Sylhet, because of Hazrat Shajalal (RA) and his 360 followers, became a part of that humane legacy of Islam. And it is because of this non-sectarian appeal that Hindus, Muslims and Christians sing a</p>
<p>touching hymn penned by poet Dilwar of Sylhet: ―You are the river of Rahmat, Oh Aulia Shahjalal, please pray for me.‖ And it is because of Hazrat Shahjalal‘s total acceptance by people of all religions that even Hindus sing the triumphal song — ―It is Baba Shahjalal who first gave Azan in Sylhet‖ — another very popular Sylheti song penned by Giasuddin Ahmed of Chhatak.</p>
<p>The Aulias of Sylhet and other parts of Bangladesh initiated the syncretic code of civil life that we have so far taken for granted, and about which we have become dangerously complacent. Now that unique covenant, the charter of our civil but religion-infused life, is being destroyed and alien, puritanical ideas are being introduced in the name of true Islam. Take for instance the idea of the acceptability of music as an instrument of devotion and love for the creator. The great Baul of Sylhet, Hasan Raja, has sung ―Ogo Maula, Tumar lagi Hasan Raja Baulya‖, meaning ―Oh lord, for you Hasan Raja has become a Baulya (Baul)‖.</p>
<p>The word <em>Baulya</em>, or Baul, is derived from Ba-Aulia (with <em>Aulia</em>); so a Baul is literally someone who follows the <em>Aulia</em>; thus the whole tradition of Bauls derive its inspiration from the deeds and teachings of the <em>Aulias. </em>These teachings</p>
<p>include ―<em>Deho</em> <em>Totto</em>‖, the symbolism of body being a cage and seeing the events</p>
<p>of human life and its rituals, such as marriage and bridal congregations, as metaphors of life and death. Deconstructing the Baul songs of Hasan Raja and others is a sheer delight and a pious spiritual journey back to our roots. To me Sylhet is amalgamated with spirituality, Sufism and the unique covenant of civility and a form of pious humanism. What is striking is that these symbolisms are also deeply rooted in the brain, a product of our evolutionary history linking love, devotion and myths.</p>
<p>The current purveyors of pristine Islamic zeal, who do not like Mazaars, of course have no idea or tolerance for Sufis or Tassawwuf, the philosophy of the Sufis. Nor do they like Hikmah or Ijtehad. They scoff at Al-Beruni or Ibne Khaldun; they are oblivious of Ibne-Sina; they would have happily exterminated Abu Rushd if he were to re-appear in the world now. It is not surprising that they take a dim view of Sylhet‘s unique traditions, and the influence it has on the whole of Bangladesh.</p>
<p>When a bomb explodes in the <em>Darga </em>of Sylhet during <em>Urs </em>or a grenade is thrown in the <em>Darga’s </em>sanctified enclave, it is not just another wanton act of violence — it is an attack on that resonance that guarantees a civilised inclusive Islam-infused code of existence. That code belongs to Sylhet as well as to the rest of</p>
<p>Bangladesh. But for Sylhet, it is the very essence of her 700-year-old history, her raison d‘etre. So while the whole country undergoes anguish for this gory event, Sylhet should take a good look inward and do something proverbial.</p>
<p>Sylhet should search for her soul.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">In</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Diaspora</span> <span style="color: #003366;">our</span> <span style="color: #003366;">people</span> <span style="color: #003366;">have</span> <span style="color: #003366;">created</span> <span style="color: #003366;">a</span> <span style="color: #003366;">post-modern</span> <span style="color: #003366;">identity</span></h1>
<p>A recent flurry of Bangla cultural programmes in Sydney, the emblematic antipodeans city of Australia, signals a qualitative change from previous years. Starting from February till April of this year Sydney has been literally deluged with cultural programmes and personalities originating mainly from Dhaka, offering this city and this country a face of Bangladesh that can only help bolster our image. In recent years Sydney has emerged as one of the most visible outposts of expatriate Bangla culture, rivalled perhaps only by London and New York, but this year, perhaps surpassing even those two mega cities.</p>
<p>This rise of Sydney from a genteel and obscure place, as far as Bangla culture goes, to its familiar vibrancy has been occurring slowly over the last 10-odd years. Sixteen years ago when I first landed in this city after perhaps the longest plane journey of my life I was struck by the sheer distance and unfamiliarity of this place. We landed in Sydney in early morning hour after a sleep-deprived peregrination, which initially took us from New York, flying all the way over the American continent, to San Francisco and then over Pacific Ocean to Honolulu where we landed for refuelling. Before us now lay the last great stretch of the mighty Pacific, the crystal green waters off the coast of Tahiti and then the international dateline, which would suddenly make us, lose one more day from our lives. The staggering distance was mind numbing, time obscuring, where altitude and fatigue conspire to produce a form of euphoria. And thus in that euphoric state of a colossus journey completed we had landed in Sydney.</p>
<p>Outside sun shimmered in a hazy olive green, and unfamiliar trees swayed, creating an image never seen before. That green, now so familiar to me, belongs to the Acacias and the eucalypts, the famous gum-trees of Australia. On that morning, 16 years ago, there were few people of Bangladeshi origin living in Sydney and a vibrant Bangla culture was as much a nice dream as the blue shadowy waves of South Pacific.</p>
<p>But how things have changed. Sixteen years later almost to the dot I arrived in Sydney again, this time in a small plane from Canberra, the bucolic village Capital of Australia. In this morning I was in Sydney to attend a vibrant Bangla New Year festivities where I was lucky to receive an award. Standing under a giant Banyan-like tree and seeing multitudes of colourful people, many in resplendent saree, it was easy to think that I was in the nourishing womb of the eternal Bangla culture, that in fact, I had never left home. Standing under that scintillating green tree of Ashfield park I was buoyed and elated beyond belief. For here was a place literally transformed in front of my eyes; out of the tyranny of distance a place refashioned by the love of memory and culture and warmth of</p>
<p>human soul that can defeat distance as easily as a melodious song or a poem can make a river flow on a desert. Such is the power of human imagination and adherence of culture that Bangladesh now lives beyond her borders in a hundred enclaves that dot this globe.</p>
<p>This particular morning in Sydney was organized by Protitee, a cultural organization mainly celebrating music, and led by the noted singer Sirajus Salekin. Protitee‘s meticulousness and quality remind one of Chhayanaut. Other Sydney organizations include Shammelan Parishad, two different Bangabandhu Parishads, and many others.</p>
<p>Later, I was back to Sydney again for a Baishakhi Mela organized by Bangabandhu Parishad, led by Drs. Abdur Razzaque and Ejaz Mamun. This mela has become an annual defining feature of Sydney‘s cultural landscape. This year two <em>melas, </em>organized by two <em>Parishads</em>, took place in tandem weekends offering people options and opportunities. The daylong mela, attended by thousands of people, ended with a virtuoso performance by folk-song maestro Himangshu Goswami, flown over from London for this occasion. Last year it was Quaderi Kibria, the Rabindra sangeet veteran, who came from the US.</p>
<p>And I have not even mentioned yet of the hugely successful cultural programme of Arati Mukherjee, the popular Kolkata singer, and the visit of Shomoresh Mojumdar, the literary luminary also from Kolkata, through the efforts of Shammelan Parishad led by Mr. Mustafa.</p>
<p>And as though this was not enough, there were the performances by singers Abida Sultana and Farida Parveen. They came as part of the officially organized Bangladesh Trade fair, a friendly cricket match, a kabadi match….. Very soon one gets tired of counting, one takes things for granted, one forgets that this is not Dhaka or Kolkata but a distant city of the southern hemisphere, beyond the equator and even beyond the Malay seas, Java and Sumatra, the legendary spice islands described by Jibanananda Das.</p>
<p>And all these events and happenings are regularly reported in two Australian weekly Bangla Newspapers, Shodesh Barta (Editor, Lutur Rahman Shaon) and Sonar Bangla (Editor, Sheikh Shamim and others) and the popular website (webmaster: Anisur Rahman), bringing these activities to the cyber-era. A new Canberra-based portal (Webmaster: Shahadat Manik) has now connected Bangladeshis of Canberra. Popular writers include feature writers Ajay Dashgupta, who also writes regularly in Dhaka papers, Dr. Qaiyum Parvez, and Ashish Bablu who is also a gifted painter.</p>
<p>Never since ancient King Vijaya took Bangla culture overseas to Lanka and named the place Singhala, have Bangalis done something so spectacular. In diaspora our people have created through their tenacity and zeal a post-modern identity which will surely inspire and enlighten the coming generations of Bangalis, both at home and overseas. While strains and discords remain in this work, like it is in any enterprise, the main thrust of this cultural journey is positive. Till now this cultural journey has not entered the psyche of mainstream Australia but with time and persistence it is going to occur. Slowly and irrevocably the images, motifs and pathos of our timeless alluvial delta will inseminate the cultural icons of this southern mighty island; slowly but</p>
<p>inevitably Bangladesh will become a part of Australia‘s trans-migrated hybrid culture.</p>
<p>I salute the architects and emissaries of this transmigration. What they have created in the last 15 years in an unofficial capacity is much more than what can ever be achieved by the orchestrated, minuet of official formal diplomacy. As the cultures fuse and enrich each other in this rapidly inter-connected world, the Bangla nation beyond the shores of the Padma will create a virtual mighty river in every corner of the globe and Bangladesh will live beyond what is now contained between the Sundarbans and the Himalayas.</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Baishakh</span> <span style="color: #003366;">in</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Canberra,</span> <span style="color: #003366;">joy</span> <span style="color: #003366;">of</span> <span style="color: #003366;">an</span> <span style="color: #003366;">imaginary</span> <span style="color: #003366;">year</span></h1>
<p>Mr. Jainal Abedin is a quietly spoken man precise with his words, and faultless in his humility. But what he did last week in Canberra spoke loud and clear. In a cold windy day he presided over a Baishakhi mela, signaling the arrival of a new year in distant northern land of Bangladesh. As current president of Bangladesh Australia Association (BAA) he, together with his colleagues, arranged a daylong festivities in this capital city of Australia –– festivities that showcased, with the help of our many students in the campus of Australian National University (ANU), the rich and vibrant face of Bangladesh.</p>
<p>Baishakh, derived from <em>Bishakha,</em> a star (and also the fiery-tempered sister of Radha), heralds the arrival of the time of Aries, the fabled start of a new season in eastern Asia including Bangladesh. This is 1411 of <em>Bongabdo</em>, of a calendar that carries in it the legacy of Hindu roots, but made hybrid through the involvement of Emperor Akbar in 1584, or 963 Hijri when he linked the Bangla year to the Hijri lunar calendar. Baishakh was also chosen by Akbar (rather than the existing <em>Chaitro</em> as the first month) as the first month since on that year Baishakh coincided with the month of Muharram. Since then reverted back to a solar calendar, our Bangla calendar is partly a brainchild of Muslims, Tarikh-i-Elahi, as it was called in the beginning. That is why the Bangla year is 1411, it approximates the time of Hijrat of the prophet; since its reversion to a solar counting the years have deviated from Hijri but the temporal linkage is obvious. I hope this history will mollify the Khatib of Baitul Mukarram who seems to have taken a dim view of the observance of the New Year festivities of this calendar.</p>
<p>In Canberra, a land of deep southern inversion of seasons, these festivities are strongly cultural –– a search for and observance of our Bangali roots. So every year in Australia, so far in Sydney, Bangalis observe the new Bangla year and sing of fiery Baishakh even as they are bathed in the mellow light of winter. This year the festival came to Canberra and the result was spectacular. Chilly wind could not dampen the Bangali spirit. The artistic flair of Priyanka, the multitalented cultural secretary of BAA, found natural synergism with Josh, a drama talent and Avijit, a popular singer. The result was daylong songs and poetry recitals followed by a full-length drama called ―Narak Gulzar‖ in the evening.</p>
<p>There was no shortage of enthusiasm among Bangalis for this programme. Scores of people drove over from Sydney braving chilly winds. Nehal Bari of Boimela</p>
<p>Parishad came with his car full of Bangla books and set up a small book fair. Nehal Bari has been arranging book fairs in Australia for a number of years. It is about time Bangla Academy noticed his activities. To already existing Canberra institutions led by Ehsanullah (Bangla Radio), Zillur Rahman (Bangla School), was added the insignia of cyber age, the brand new website (Shahadat Manik). To add a modern cyber drama mimicking a virtual Kalbaishakhi, the web site was destroyed by unnamed hackers within a few hours of its inaugural. Now restored, the site describes the full range of activities that can now be browsed by people from all over the world.</p>
<p>The Bangladesh High Commission played a positive role during the occasion. The High Commissioner was present during much of the day and his wife, Mrs. Laila Haroon, led the singers in the morning in the rendition of Esho-Hey- Baishakh. Food stalls, bookshops, mini grocery-marts all mingled in a narrow corridor of an ANU building. The mainstream Australian population, particularly those associated with the University, was fascinated. One student marvelled at our raucous spirit at the imaginary year of the inverted season until I pointed out to him that much of life in fact was about things that we could neither understand nor fathom. That celebration of imponderable in fact is the essence of human spirit and I am happy that it has not yet left the Bangalis.</p>
<p>There has been much talk recently of using culture as a stimulator of trade, particularly during the recent visit of a trade delegation from Bangladesh to Australia. The warmth and spirit displayed by the events in Canberra tell me that cultural events are as emblematic of Bangladesh as tai-chi is of china or champagne is of France. Trade, diplomacy, and such other serious business can easily be energized by a shot of good old Bangla culture.</p>
<p>Mr. Jainal Abedin, together with his colleagues, has opened a door. By making a day vibrant, unseasonably, purely by the power of human imagination, he has displayed that Bangalis can achieve just about anything they want. It is the will, not the ability that is lacking</p>
<h1><span style="color: #003366;">Sleepless</span> <span style="color: #003366;">in</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Sylhet:</span> <span style="color: #003366;">and</span> <span style="color: #003366;">a</span> <span style="color: #003366;">Mathathon</span></h1>
<p>Never before in my life have I passed a sleepless night over Mathematics. Mathematics, at once an enigma and a fright for many, and a matter of excitement for a lucky few, somehow passed me by. I accepted it as an unpleasant but necessary fact of life, a body of knowledge to be acquired by rote and chore, to be repelled when possible and to cram when necessary. Although a student of Science including Physics and Chemistry, my Bangladeshi formal education never adequately showed the link between the language of nature and its fascinating mathematical foundation. My Math education was often in the form of rote learning, but never as an intellectual excitement. It was only later, after I went to the USA and came in touch with some Scientists who were using mathematics creatively in their work in the natural Sciences that I became aware of the true significance of Mathematics as the creative language of the natural world. And it is only after I became aware of neurobiology and how the brain perceives number and mathematics that I finally saw the link between mathematics and our most basic sense of self and cognition. And still, even after that, mathematics to me did not seem exciting enough to become a day-long festivity.</p>
<p>That miracle finally happened in Sylhet, after a sleepless night. And the instigator of that amazing transformation is Munir Hasan, part bureaucrat, part writer, and utterly and completely a Mathophile. He is the main force behind the recent events of Math Olympiad that is sweeping the country. Other more well- known personalities associated with it of course are the Physicist and popular writer Professor Zafar Iqbal, popular writer Anisul Haque, singer Mahmuduzzaman Babu, mathematicians Prof. Kaikobad and Prof. Gaurango and the indomitable Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, affectionately and popularly known as JRC. But Munir Hasan is the main maestro orchestrating the complex set of events that has the sponsorship of two unlikely bed-fellows, a bank in the form of Dutch- Bangla Bank and a newspaper, Prothom Alo.</p>
<p>I joined the group recently during my stay in Bangladesh and we travelled together to Sylhet through the night for a daylong congregation that was part fete, part political rally and part Mathematics. To be precise, I had a bed to sleep in the train as did the others but the rapid undulation of the train brought back memories so strong that I was sleepless through the night often wondering what I was doing, with this group of people who seemed positively crazy.</p>
<p>We arrived in Sylhet in the early hours. Thick fog hung like an opaque curtain and chilly wind blew from the north making every afflicted person look like a</p>
<p>hooded assassin in their monkey-caps. In our site of assembly, the Blue-bird school of Sylhet, an unbelievable sight awaited us. Never before have I seen such raw zeal for something as reputedly fearsome as Mathematics. A well-adorned stage, more befitting a political rally, was resplendent in bright colours. In rows after rows sat kids and adolescents with faces showing excitement and gaiety more consistent with the anticipation of a film-star. And amidst this populist zeal we began our day of Mathathon.</p>
<p>Munir Hasan had it all figured out. The day was divided into speeches, Q&A sessions, and a sit-down examination to determine the winners. And throughout all this there was a lot of mingling and signing of autographs. I felt hugely elated by this heart-warming, exuberant sign of love for learning. For the first time in my life I encountered the mass appeal of learning in the form of an organic force. For in this programme the most powerfully emotional human faculties have been harnessed not in the cause of empty slogan-mongering populism, but for Mathematics, a potent tool of our future as a nation.</p>
<p>I could not but think that maybe learning, or the main impetus of learning was always meant to be like this. In ancient human societies acquiring of knowledge was often linked to hunting and gathering, harvest, celebrations etc. In these gatherings in front of kith and kin people used to display their intellectual and physical skills often instantly deriving pleasure from the attention and accolades. With the advent of civilisation education became more specialised, organised and relatively more solitary. There was not enough opportunities to congregate and celebrate for learning. Celebrations became just song and dance, entertainment removed from the impetus of learning. And slowly through this separation learning acquired the status of a solitary chore, a necessary but undesirable exercise for many people.</p>
<p>So in Sylhet that day I thought that maybe this celebratory route is a way by which some ancient and human nature-driven fun can be brought back to learning and particularly Mathematics. In my day-long banter with school students I encountered many laughter-filled questions that are actually very astute. ?Is Science more dependent on mathematics or the other way around?? and ?If men descended from apes, why didn’t all the apes become human??.</p>
<p>Although derived from the raw curiosity of giggling 10-12 year olds these questions touch on the core of scientific curiosity and enterprise. I had the feeling that positive force of the congregation was bringing out positive energy for learning and enquiry that normally would have sat dormant. Slowly through the day I became a believer in such congregation-induced learning.</p>
<p>Bangladesh is certainly encountering tough days. Violence mars and disfigures the whole national psyche in a way never seen before. People seem anguished, uncertain about the future. Amidst this nihilism the math Olympiad stands like a potent force of human spirit. By nurturing its strength from the collective zeal inherent in human nature, and making it available for the specific goal of</p>
<p>mathematics education Munir Hasan and his colleagues have created a new paradigm of how education ought to be. I hope this grand transformation of thinking will be a topic of many sleepless nights of our planners and pundits.</p>
<p><strong><u><span style="color: #003366;">An</span></u></strong><u> </u><strong><u><span style="color: #003366;">e-mail</span></u></strong><u> </u><strong><u><span style="color: #003366;">to</span></u></strong><u> </u><strong><u><span style="color: #003366;">Jimmy</span></u></strong><u> </u><strong><u><span style="color: #003366;">Carter</span></u></strong></p>
<h2><a href="mailto:achaudhury@hotmail.com">From:</a> <a href="mailto:achaudhury@hotmail.com">achaudhury@hotmail.com</a> <a href="mailto:Jimmycarter@usa.com">To: Jimmycarter@usa.com</a></h2>
<p>Dear Mr. Carter:</p>
<p>I am afraid you wont have the foggiest idea as to who I am; I, on the other hand, know a lot about you. More recently you have become a man of paramount importance to my troubled country, Bangladesh; I write this letter with a sense of memory, nostalgia and in recognition of your role as a peacemaker and election watcher of my nation.</p>
<p>I feel like I know you well; I spent a whole year of my life, the last year of your presidency, listening to you and watching you on TV just about every night. It wasn‘t just an idle couch-potato routine; it was high potency real life drama. The year was 1979 and you had just become embroiled in one of the most dramatic episodes of your life and presidency, the Iranian Hostage crisis. It was also the time when I left Bangladesh for the first time. To escape from the homesickness I spent every waking hour watching you and your colleagues on TV trying to deal with that dramatic crisis.</p>
<p>My TV was my window to the world in those days and while I watched you, Walter Mondale, and others come and go in TV sound bites I remembered the green fields and crimson sunset of my land that I had just left behind. And when Teddy Kennedy challenged you for the nomination of the democratic party I too, along with my new-found American friends chanted boisterously in your</p>
<p>support ― Carter is our man; Better Dead than Ted!‖.</p>
<p>Twenty-one years ago I gatecrashed into your politics with my naïve slogans; and to day you have been invited into mine like a born again messiah.</p>
<p>Asymmetric though this reciprocal intervention is, I find it like a bizarre post- modern story being played out inside my head where memory, fantasy and reality are juxtaposed. Except that it isn‘t an exercise in literary creativity; it is lot more serious. For you, Mr. Carter, are now the designated shrink of my schizophrenic nation.</p>
<p>Mr. Carter, it isn‘t only through Tehran drama of the fall of 1979 that I feel I have known you. I remember your family well; though only virtually. Your kind wife Rosalyn, your affable simple-minded brother Billy, your daughter Amy; and more over your mother, the altruistic Miss Lillian, did so much for the poor and the dispossessed of the subcontinent. I also know well the rural hamlets and rolling hills of rural Georgia, your land. I have never been to Plains but I have frequented the land around Macon and Savannah and Athens of your State and have grown to like your food; food that only the American south knows – grits, hush-puppy and fried Okra; and let me confess to you: I just love watermelon.</p>
<p>Beyond Georgia, I have criss-crossed your giant land of the USA; from the coast of Carolinas and Kitty Hawk to the snow capped mountain Rainier of Pacific North-west, from the flaming fall leaves of Maine to the tinsel-town of Southern California; I have peregrined your ―land of shining light‖. Today as you take the role of a mediator, a counsel, I feel like I know you well enough to spill my guts to you. For although I am a citizen of Bangladesh where my forefathers have lived for hundreds of years I have no confidence that anyone there will listen to what I have to say as much as you would. On the other hand I am convinced that whatever you will tell them, they will listen with alacrity. Such is our paradox, our peculiar inverted xenophobia. I do not know how to characterize this affliction. So I am better off talking to you, in the name of memory, nostalgia and a familiarity of your land.</p>
<p>Mr. Carter, Ours is a land of giant sylvan stretches and rolling hills much like your rural Georgia. Our country folks are also very simple god-fearing people like yours although they don‘t have the hunting rifles and the Cherokee wagons, or the German Shepherds. However they too chew tobacco and eat fried okra and watery rice not unlike grits. However, while your folks are confident, cheerful people basking in health, success, and their global manifest destiny our land has been going through a lot recently. I am sure you have been briefed and, being a quick study, you must have learned a lot about the chequered history of our nation.</p>
<p>But let me tell you this honestly. Although I respect your morality and altruism I have been depressed that we have become so dysfunctional as a nation that we had to call you as a election watcher, extractor of promises, and mediator. Many of us, though respectful of your achievements would have been happier if we didn‘t need you for this.</p>
<p>For your information Mr. Carter, our land wasn‘t always like this. Long before the vendetta-stricken fractious rascalization that you are now observing, civility and decorum prevailed in this land and gracious patience is still the main characteristic of this nation. We are the descendants of people who carried</p>
<p>Buddha‘s message to China and started the spread of Buddhism to all of East Asia. Our forefathers sent expeditions to Sri Lanka. We fought the Mughals, the British and in hundred rural hamlets for hundreds of years our forefathers developed arts, crafts, poetry and music. All through history we survived and prospered as successful people and gave to the world a lot. And we were together, through our toils and our travails, resisting the invaders; fashioning our identity and always triumphing in the end.</p>
<p>So Mr. Carter, when you mediate, please tread carefully; you are not dealing with the Hottentots of Asia; we are not the mental pygmies of the eastern hemisphere. You are dealing with a proud dignified people of a long history. We are not infants amongst people although we are displaying a ludicrous bout of infantilism. Irrespective of how our leaders behave I am telling you this of our people; do not judge them by the behaviour of our leaders. Look beyond the gilded facades of Dhaka into the soul of Bangladesh if you can. You will find resilience, pride and an age-old wisdom. Which knows when to fight and when to stop. I don‘t know how you might do it; but please, if you can, harness that wisdom; package it in your American bottles and give it back to our leaders as potions. Our leaders will like it because it is coming from you, but it will be our good old Bangali medicine and therefore it will work for us. Talk to the rickshaw puller, the little girl that breaks bricks the whole day under scorching sun, the man ploughing his quarter acre land through the evening into the night. These people can tell you what our recipe for salvation is much more than the conflict- resolution consultants ever could.</p>
<p>I have great faith in you, Mr. Carter. My country is on the couch now to be counselled and psychoanalysed by you and your colleagues. Instead of applying the conventional Jungian or Freudian routine learn if you can the ancient wisdom of our land and then whisper it in the ear of the patient. And then keep it as a secret and give it a complex corporate sounding name; we‘ll keep coming back to you for it again and again.</p>
<p>As a very well known political pundit put it, we have given you a ―Carte®</p>
<p>blanche‖. Destiny has given you the job of being the scribe who will scribble our future on that piece of blank paper. Collect, if you can, the tear, the sweat and the blood of my nation and then write with it, on that carte blanche, a covenant that our fractious leaders will accept forever. If you can achieve that, we will be grateful to you. We will call that document our Magna Carter.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image2_1.jpeg" alt="Image2 1" width="781" height="519" title="Paradigm Shift" /></p>
<p><strong>Abed Chaudhury </strong>was born in a village called Kanihati in Northern Eastern Bangladesh. As a child studied in a rural primary school, and later studied in Dhaka University, University of Oregon, USA. He did research in molecular Biology and Genetics in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA,Ecole Normale Superieure , France and CSIRO, Australia Where he is now senior principle scientist. He has done seminal work in seed Biology and epigenetice, an emerging area of Biology. He lives in Canberra, Australia and Sometimes in Kanihati, Bangladesh.</p>
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<title type="html"><![CDATA[Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?]]></title>
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<updated>2026-02-13T15:44:35Z</updated>
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<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from? Nusrat Sultana (Ph.D.) Associate Professor Department of Botany Jagannath University Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from? Objectives of the research work 1. To characterize the bacterial communities colonizing the rhizosphere of Panchabrihi rice roots. 2. To evaluate the plant growth–promoting potential […]</p>
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<content type="html" xml:base="https://krishanfoundation.com/annotated-draft-genome-assemblies-of-the-nine-bacterial-isolates-from/"><![CDATA[<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #002060;">Nus</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #002060;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #002060;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #002060;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #002060;">Sul</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #002060;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #002060;">ana</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #002060;">(Ph.</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #002060;">D</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #002060;">.)</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Associ</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">at</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">P</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">essor</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Departme</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">of</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bo</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">y</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Ja</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ann</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">th</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Uni</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">v</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">sity</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image1_1.png" alt="Image1 1" width="720" height="928" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">Objecti</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">v</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">es</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">of</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">the</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">esea</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ch</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">w</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ork</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">1.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">T</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">cha</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">eri</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">z</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">the</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">bac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">erial</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ommunities</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">olonizing</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">the</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">rhi</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">z</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">osphe</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">of</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">P</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">anchabrihi</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">rice</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">oots.</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">2.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">T</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">v</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">alu</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">the</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">pla</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">wth–p</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">omoting</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">po</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">tial</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">of</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">the</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">th</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ee</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">isol</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ed</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">bac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">erial</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ains.</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">3.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">T</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ide</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ti</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">y</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">and</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">anal</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">y</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">z</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">the</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">tibiotic</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">esi</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ance</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">enes</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">associ</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">at</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ed</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">with</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">these</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">bac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">erial</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">isol</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">es.</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bioi</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">orm</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tics</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Pipeline</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">used</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">or</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">this</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">esea</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ch</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">w</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ork</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">F</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">s</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tQC</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">on</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">k1-</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">C_S15_R1_001</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">.f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">st</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">q</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">k1-</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">C_S15_R2_001</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">.f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">st</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">q</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image2_1.png" alt="Image2 1" width="1261" height="615" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image3_1.png" alt="Image3 1" width="1364" height="610" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">2.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">st</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">q_pai</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ed_end_joiner</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">k1-</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">C_S15_R1_001</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">.f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">st</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">q</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">k1-</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">C_S15_R2_001</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">.f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">st</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">q</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><br></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">k1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">(112</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Mb)</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">3.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">F</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">s</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tp</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">on</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">k1</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Condition:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ada</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">p</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er_trimming</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image4_1.png" alt="Image4 1" width="470" height="176" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Enable</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">v</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ep</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ese</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">nt</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ed</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">anal</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">y</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">sis</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">quality_fil</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ering_o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">p</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tions</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Enable</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">w</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ompl</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">xity</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">fil</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Global</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">trimming</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">p</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tion</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1-20</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Assembly</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">with</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">M</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">E</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">GAHIT</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Condition:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Minimum</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">len</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">th</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">of</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tigs</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">output</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1500</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">bp</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">5.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Q</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">U</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">S</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">T</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">on</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Assembly</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Condition;</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Assembly</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">of</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">the</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">m</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enome</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image5_1.png" alt="Image5 1" width="475" height="401" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">6.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">M</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">B</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">T2,</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">an</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">au</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ed</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">m</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enome</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">binning</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">soft</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">w</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ool</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">w</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">used</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">on</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">s</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">truct</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">single</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enomes</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">om</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">mic</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">obial</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ommunities</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">or</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">su</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">seque</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">anal</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">y</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ses</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">of</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">unculti</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">v</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">at</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ed</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">mic</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">obial</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">species.</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">7.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">CheckM</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">v1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">s</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tim</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">at</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">es</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enome</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ompl</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">eness</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">and</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">amin</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tion</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">on</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">v</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ery</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">single</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enome</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">based</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">on</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">the</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">p</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">esence</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">or</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">sence</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">of</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">mar</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">k</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enes,</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">i.e.,</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enes</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">th</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">typi</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ally</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ubiqui</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ous</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">and</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">single</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">p</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">y</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">.</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><br></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">D</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ault</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">pa</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">am</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">D</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ault</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">pa</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">am</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">8.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Q</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">U</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">S</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">T</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">on</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Assembly</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image6_1.png" alt="Image6 1" width="1169" height="583" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">9.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">BUS</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">C</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">O</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">on</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">assembly</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image7_1.png" alt="Image7 1" width="517" height="318" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">10.</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Ba</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">k</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Assembly</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">anno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tion</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">on</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enomes</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">using</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Ba</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">k</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image8_1.png" alt="Image8 1" width="989" height="368" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K1-2:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Acin</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">obac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">schindleri</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image9.png" alt="Image9" width="1356" height="831" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K2:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Pseudomonas</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">aeruginosa</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image10.png" alt="Image10" width="1356" height="831" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">KK3-1:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Mangrovibac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">phragmitis</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image11.png" alt="Image11" width="1356" height="831" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">KK3-2:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Exiguobac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">erium</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">m</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">xi</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">anum</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image12.png" alt="Image12" width="1356" height="831" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K4-1:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ereus</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image13.png" alt="Image13" width="1356" height="831" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K6-1:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">sa</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ensis</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image14.png" alt="Image14" width="1356" height="831" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K7-2:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enclensis</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image15.png" alt="Image15" width="1356" height="831" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K8:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">vel</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">z</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ensis</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image16.png" alt="Image16" width="1356" height="831" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K10-2:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">C</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">y</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">obacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">firmus</span></u></em></strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image17.png" alt="Image17" width="1356" height="831" title="Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?" /></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">T</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">able</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Genome</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">cha</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">eri</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">s</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tics</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">of</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">nine</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">bac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">erial</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">samples</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">(K1-K8</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">and</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K10)</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">SL</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">No</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Sampl</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">O</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">anism</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><br></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">CheckM</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Genome</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ompl</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">eness</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><br></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Compl</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bus</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">(%)</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><br></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Number</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">of</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tigs</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><br></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">T</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">al</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Co</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tig</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">len</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">th</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">N50</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">(KB)</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">(MB)</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">(%)</span></u></em></strong><u> </u></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K1-2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Acin</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">obac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">schindleri</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">100</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Pseudomonas</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">aeruginosa</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">83.33</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">3</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K3-1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Mangr</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">vibac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">phragmitis</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">100</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K3-2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Exiguobac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">erium</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">54</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">m</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">xi</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">anum</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">5</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K4-1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ereus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">100</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">6</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K6-1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">sa</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ensis</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">100</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">7</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K7-2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enclensis</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">100</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">8</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K8</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">vel</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">z</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ensis</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">100</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">9</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K10-2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">C</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">y</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">obacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">firmus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">100</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><br><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">99.4</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">66</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">3.1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">80</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">98.2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">38</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">6.2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">426</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">99.8</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">52</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4.9</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">164</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">82.9</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">21</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">2.5</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">226</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">99.3</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">51</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">5.5</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">355</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">99.6</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">25</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">3.7</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">238</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">90</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">535</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">3.9</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">12</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">99.3</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">15</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">3.9</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">580</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">91.8</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">701</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4.5</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">8</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">A</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">d</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">nom</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">ss</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">mb</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">li</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">h</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">n</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">b</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">i</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">so</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">l</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">s</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">om</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #ff0000;">?</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">T</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">able</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">2:</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Genome</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">cha</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">eri</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">s</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tics</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">of</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">nine</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">bac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">erial</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">samples</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">(K1-K8</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">and</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K10)</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">SL</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Sample</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">O</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">anism</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">No</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><br></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Anno</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">the</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">g</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enome</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">sequence</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">with</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">P</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">r</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ok</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">k</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">a</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">CDS</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tmRNA</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">tRNA</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">rRNA</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K1-2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Acin</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">obac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">schindleri</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">3070</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">65</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">5</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Pseudomonas</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">aeruginosa</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">3070</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">65</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">5</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">3</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K3-1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Mangr</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">o</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">vibac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">er</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">phragmitis</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4505</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">71</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K3-2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Exiguobac</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">erium</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">m</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">xi</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">anum</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">2650</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">36</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">5</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K4-1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">c</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ereus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">5556</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">50</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">9</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">6</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K6-1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">sa</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">f</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ensis</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4362</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">0</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">59</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">5</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">7</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K7-2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">enclensis</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">3845</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">0</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">49</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">8</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K8</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">Bacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">vel</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">e</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">z</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">ensis</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">3800</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">55</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">5</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">9</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">K10-2</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">C</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">y</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">t</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">obacillus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">firmus</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><u> </u><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">435</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">1</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4</span></u></em></strong><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">4</span></u></em></strong><u> </u><strong><em><u><span style="color: #000000;">7</span></u></em></strong></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com/annotated-draft-genome-assemblies-of-the-nine-bacterial-isolates-from/">Annotated draft genome assemblies of the nine bacterial isolates from?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://krishanfoundation.com">krishan Times | krishan foundation</a>.</p>
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<title type="html"><![CDATA[The Genetic Basis of Altruism and Cooperative Behaviour in Human Societies]]></title>
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<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>The Genetic Basis of Altruism and Cooperative Behaviour in Human Societies   Muhammad Muzammal 1*, Abida Bibi 1, Maria Shafiq 2, Hunza Malik 1, Shafiqua Istiaq 1, Sabeeha Asad 1, Harris Khan 1, Harmain Saba 3, Umar Raoon 1, Muhammad Ismail 1, Nazia Farid Burki 1, Hamna Batool Hashmi 1, Hadia Gul 4 and Muzammil […]</p>
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<content type="html" xml:base="https://krishanfoundation.com/the-genetic-basis-of-altruism-and-cooperative-behaviour-in-human-societies/"><![CDATA[<p>The Genetic Basis of Altruism and Cooperative Behaviour in Human Societies</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Muhammad Muzammal </strong>1*<strong>, Abida Bibi </strong><strong>1</strong><strong>, Maria</strong> <strong>Shafiq</strong> <strong>2</strong><strong>,</strong> <strong>Hunza</strong> <strong>Malik</strong> <strong>1</strong><strong>,</strong> <strong>Shafiqua</strong> <strong>Istiaq</strong> <strong>1</strong><strong>,</strong></p>
<p><strong>Sabeeha</strong> <strong>Asad</strong> <strong>1</strong><strong>,</strong> <strong>Harris</strong> <strong>Khan</strong> <strong>1</strong><strong>,</strong> <strong>Harmain</strong> <strong>Saba</strong> <strong>3</strong><strong>,</strong></p>
<p><strong>Umar Raoon</strong> <strong>1</strong><strong>, Muhammad Ismail </strong><strong>1</strong><strong>, Nazia</strong> <strong>Farid</strong> <strong>Burki</strong> <strong>1</strong><strong>,</strong> <strong>Hamna</strong> <strong>Batool</strong> <strong>Hashmi</strong> <strong>1</strong><strong>, Hadia Gul </strong><strong>4</strong><strong> and Muzammil Ahmad Khan </strong><strong>1</strong></p>
<p><em>1</em> <em>Gomal</em> <em>Centre</em> <em>of</em> <em>Biochemistry</em> <em>and</em> <em>Biotechnology, Gomal University, Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan</em></p>
<p><em>2</em> <em>Gomal Medical College, Dera Ismail Khan, </em><em>Pakistan</em></p>
<p><em>3</em><em> Government</em> <em>Degree</em> <em>College</em> <em>no</em> <em>1,</em> <em>Dera</em> <em>Ismail</em> <em>Khan, </em><em>Pakistan</em></p>
<p><em>4</em><em> Institute</em> <em>of</em> <em>Biological</em> <em>Sciences,</em> <em>Gomal</em> <em>University,</em> <em>Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan</em></p>
<p><em>* Corresponding </em><em>author</em></p>
<h1>ABSTRACT</h1>
<p><em>Altruism and cooperative behaviour are selected characteristics of societies that range from private to public ones. Though such commu- nal sacrificing seems to go as far as being not in congruence with the principle of natural selection, evolutionary science offers some expla- nations about how altruism persists. Theories like kinship selection, reciprocal</em> <em>altruism, and</em> <em>group selection</em> <em>suggest that prosocial</em> <em>behav- iours develop because they have had evolutionary benefits in terms of survival</em> <em>of</em> <em>genes</em> <em>and</em> <em>group</em> <em>cohesion.</em> <em>Advancement</em> <em>in</em> <em>genetics</em> <em>and</em></p>
<p>Recommended citation: Muzammal M. <em>et al</em>. The Genetic Basis of Altruism and Cooperative Behaviour in Human Societies. <em>Social Evolution & History</em>, Vol. 24 No. 2, September 2025, pp. 103–117. DOI: 10.30884/seh/2025.02.05.</p>
<p>© 2025 ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House</p>
<p>103</p>
<p><em>neuroscience enables showing the biological basis by which altruism has specific genes and neurochemical pathways’ effects on empathy, trust, and co-operation. Studying oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, and the MAOA gene bring the genetics of altruistic behaviour into focus, and</em> <em>epigenetic</em> <em>research</em> <em>shows</em> <em>how</em> <em>environmental</em> <em>factors</em> <em>shape</em> <em>altru- istic</em> <em>tendencies.</em> <em>However,</em> <em>altruism</em> <em>is</em> <em>not</em> <em>only</em> <em>a</em> <em>product</em> <em>of</em> <em>biology;</em> <em>but also cultural, social, and economic factors go along in reinforcing or curtailing cooperative behaviour, and altruism within societies is well maintained by moral systems, social norms, and institutional frame- works,</em> <em>but</em> <em>at</em> <em>the</em> <em>same</em> <em>time</em> <em>it</em> <em>is</em> <em>increasingly</em> <em>threatened</em> <em>with</em> <em>new</em> <em>types of challenges – like economic inequality, anonymity on the digital platform,</em> <em>and</em> <em>global</em> <em>collective</em> <em>action</em> <em>problems</em> <em>–</em> <em>confronted</em> <em>in</em> <em>the</em> <em>mo- dern</em> <em>era.</em> <em>The</em> <em>essay</em> <em>concentrates</em> <em>on</em> <em>the</em> <em>genetic,</em> <em>evolutionary,</em> <em>and</em> <em>cul- tural foundations of altruism, emphasizing how biological predisposi- tions interact with environmental influences to mold human coopera- tion. Such an understanding will enable us to develop strategies that could enhance cooperation toward the response to some of these con- temporary global dilemmas.</em></p>
<p><strong><em>Keywords:</em></strong> <em>genetic,</em> <em>evolutionary,</em> <em>cultural,</em> <em>foster.</em></p>
<ul>
<li>INTRODUCTION</li>
</ul>
<p>Altruism and cooperation form important categories of human social life, dictating interpersonal relations between individuals, families, and whole societies. These can range from the smallest acts, like shar- ing food or helping a stranger, to some of the largest-scale humanitari- an efforts. Humans build a life of prosocial acts in ways that benefit others, sometimes at their expense. In this regard, one question be- comes interesting: if natural selection favors traits underlying individ- ual survival and reproductive success, why is it so often that humans act against such biological inclinations? (Alexander 2017)</p>
<p>The answer to why we have developed altruism has historically interested biologists, psychologists, and anthropologists. If one accepts classic Darwinism, it should be clear that Darwin stated that individu- als acted in a way that is beneficial for them. There is a trade-off be- tween costs and benefits. Darwin realized that in social species, indi- viduals cooperate with each other, mothers risk protecting their off- spring, <em>etc</em>. More recent frameworks of evolutionary theory have sug- gested that cooperative behaviour can be an adaptive benefit in certain instances. Kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and group selection theo- ries support the notion that cooperation and altruism have survived evolution because they promote the survival of genes on an individual</p>
<p>level, as well as the family, social group, and population levels (Api- cella <em>et al. </em>2012).</p>
<p>After the introduction of genetics and neuroscience, some re- searchers have ventured into the biological basis of prosocial behav- iour. Genetics of the twins, neurotransmitters, and hormonal influ- ences have proven that the propensities towards altruism, in very gen- eral terms, have been mediated by particular genetic and neurobiologi- cal factors in a person. Thus, genes regulating the synthesis and release of oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin play a crucial role in determining how humans’ bond with others, develop empathy, and cooperate. One of the many discoveries of recent epigenetic studies is that environmen- tal factors, what one experiences in their youth, the surrounding so- cialization mechanisms, and cultural training, influence the expression of genes correlated with altruistic tendencies (Bowles 2006; Butov- skaya <em>et al. </em>2020a, 2022; Yadav <em>et al. </em>2024).</p>
<p>Altruistic behaviour is evolved genetically, but is by no means naturally obligatory. Different factors – social, economic, and techno- logical – can have diverse influences on human behaviour, some con- tributing to prosociality, others fostering selfishness or competition. For example, economic inequality, ambiguous identity on the internet, and large collective action dilemmas such as climate change challenge altruism in modern society. Understanding the genetic basis of altruism and cooperation is of more than scientific interest. It is increasingly required in practical terms as the world faces problems of such as scale and complexity that the levels of cooperation required will be unprec- edented. Such research can illuminate the biological and cultural foun- dations of prosocial behaviour and, hence, move toward a more com- passionate and cooperative world (Krebs 2011; Darwin 2023). This review will discuss the evolution and adaptive advantages of altruism, genetics and neurobiology of cooperation, cultural and environmental influences, and the major challenges facing altruism in contemporary society. Through this lens, we may gain a better understanding of hu- man cooperation and how to encourage pro-social behaviour for the benefit of individual and societal welfare (Bowles 2006; Clutton- Brock 2009).</p>
<ul>
<li>THE EVOLUTIONARY FOUNDATIONS OF ALTRUISM AND COOPERATION</li>
</ul>
<p>The evolutionary roots of altruism have been proposed to explain why organisms, including humans, sometimes cooperate instead of com-</p>
<p>peting with one another. This behaviour is understandable and forms part of the most important theories regarding prosocial-human behav- iour persistence. Key theories are shown in Table 1.</p>
<p><em>Table</em> <em>1</em></p>
<h2>Key Theories Explaining Altruism and Cooperation</h2>
<table border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>Theory</strong></td>
<td><strong>Proponent(s)</strong></td>
<td><strong>Core</strong><strong> Principle</strong></td>
<td><strong>Examples</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>Nature & Human Society</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Kin Selection</td>
<td>William D. Hamilton (1964)</td>
<td>Altruism is directed toward genetically related individuals to enhance shared gene</p>
<p>survival</td>
<td>Parental care, family support, eusocial in- sects (bees, ants)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reciprocal Altruism</td>
<td>Robert Trivers (1971)</td>
<td>Individuals help non- kin with the expecta- tion of future recipro-</p>
<p>cation</td>
<td>Food sharing in pri- mates, cooperative hunting, business</p>
<p>transactions</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Group Selec- tion</td>
<td>Darwin,</p>
<p>E.O. Wilson</td>
<td>Groups with coopera- tive individuals outper- form less cooperative</p>
<p>groups</td>
<td>Religious communi- ties, cooperative mili- tary units, collective</p>
<p>farming</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Strong Reci- procity</td>
<td>Fehr & Fisch- bacher (2003)</td>
<td>Humans enforce coop- eration by punishing cheaters, even at a</p>
<p>personal cost</td>
<td>Legal systems, whis- tleblowing, social ostracization of rule-</p>
<p>breakers</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Cultural Evolution</td>
<td>Richerson & Boyd (2005)</td>
<td>Altruism is reinforced</p>
<p>by learned norms and cultural traditions</td>
<td>Charitable organiza-</p>
<p>tions, ethical systems, moral education</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><em>Note: </em>Trivers 1971; Fehr <em>et al. </em>2002a; Lieberman <em>et al. </em>2007; Leigh 2010; Birch and Okasha 2015; Birch and Heyes 2021.</p>
<h2>Kin Selection and Hamilton’s Rule</h2>
<p>One of the earliest explanations for altruism, which is still widely ac- cepted, is kin selection, which was proposed by the British evolution- ary biologist William Hamilton in the 1960. Hamilton’s rule states that altruistic acts evolve under conditions when:</p>
<p>rB > C</p>
<p>Where:</p>
<ul>
<li>r stands for the genetic relatedness between individuals,</li>
<li>B is the reproductive benefit to be realized by the recipient, and</li>
<li>C is the cost borne by the altruist at the very instance.</li>
</ul>
<p>This can explain why people are more likely to help close kin than those who are unrelated. Those relatives share incredibly high propor- tions of genes, so the survival and reproduction of relatives indirectly benefit from the altruistic actions of their genetic lineage (Emlen 2001).</p>
<p>Some natural examples include eusocial insect species such as bees and ants, where sterile worker castes renounce their own repro- ductive potential to serve their queen and colony of genetically related individuals. Among mammals, including humans, there are investments in children who can be too expensive even for parents because they preserve their genetic inputs through avenues of offspring (Abid <em>et al. </em>2022; Ali <em>et</em> <em>al.</em> 2022; Hussain <em>et</em> <em>al.</em> 2022; J. Alsalman <em>et al.</em> 2022a; N. Alhashem <em>et al. </em>2022). Kin selection among humans is found in fami- ly support, inheritance, and caregiving activities (Hussain <em>et al. </em>2022). For example, people are generally more willing to perform more for their children, siblings, or even close relatives than other people, which indicates a cross-cultural and cross-generational access pattern (The age of empathy: nature’s lessons for a kinder society, 2010).</p>
<ul>
<li>RECIPROCAL ALTRUISM: COOPERATION BEYOND KIN</li>
</ul>
<p>Kin selection explains why individuals help their relatives, but not cooperation among unrelated individuals. According to Robert Triv- ers’ reciprocal altruism theory of 1971, cooperation can evolve when individuals are helped with the expectation that something will be re- turned in the future (Trivers 1971; Muzammal <em>et al. </em>2019; Gul <em>et al. </em>2021; J. Alsalman <em>et</em> <em>al.</em> 2022b; Khan <em>et</em> <em>al.</em> 2022; Mohaini <em>et</em> <em>al.</em> 2022a; Muzammal <em>et al. </em>2022; Ahmad <em>et al. </em>2023; Ayaz <em>et al. </em>2023).</p>
<ul>
<li>RECIPROCAL ALTRUISM KEY PRINCIPLES:</li>
<li>They should meet each other at least many times in future to form a possible reciprocity.</li>
<li>It is necessary to identify cheaters and punish them for accept- ing without returning favors (Trivers 1971; Emlen 2001; Leigh 2010; Gardner <em>et al. </em>2011; Bourke 2014).</li>
<li>Cooperation must have a positive and greater payoff over the long-term than the cost incurred through cooperation over the short-haul.</li>
</ul>
<p>For example, human and animal behaviours include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Consider chimpanzees observed to groom non-relatives and later return that by sharing food,</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>In hunter-gather societies, food sharing is an activity where everyone contributes to the very group during a time of plenty and then expects help from that group during times of short- age.
<ul>
<li>It has spread its roots into the most modern economies, and in principle, it is considered a positive factor in most modern economic theories: trust and mutuality in economic transac- tions (Birch and Okasha 2015).</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>GROUP SELECTION AND CULTURAL EVOLUTION</li>
</ul>
<p>Co-operation benefits not only individuals but also society as a whole. The theory of group selection suggests that cooperative and altruistic groups are more likely to outcompete less cooperative groups. Geog- raphers were previously discontent over the idea of group selection, but have gradually come to accept the fact that cultural evolution in- deed plays a significant role in promoting prosocial behaviour (Cohen 2013; Author 2013).</p>
<ul>
<li>Examples of cultural reinforcement of cooperation:</li>
<li><strong>Religious and moral systems </strong>encourage altruism and often frame prosocial behaviour as a moral duty. Many religions promote charity, kindness, and community service.</li>
<li><strong>Legal</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>institutions</strong> enforce cooperation through laws, contracts, and norms that discourage selfish behaviour (e.g., tax- funded welfare programs, anti-fraud regulations).</li>
<li><strong>Nationalism and collective identity </strong>foster cooperation on a large scale, as people tend to act altruistically toward those they per- ceive as part of their ‘in-group.’</li>
<li>THE GENETIC BASIS OF ALTRUISTIC AND COOPERATIVE BEHAVIOUR</li>
</ul>
<p>Genetics and neuroscience have advanced to the point where they re- veal that altruism is not simply acquired behaviour, but rather a bio- logical phenomenon. Various genetic, hormonal, and neural mecha- nisms have been linked to prosocial tendencies in individuals.</p>
<ul>
<li>Twin Studies and Heritability of Altruism</li>
</ul>
<p>Twin studies have been conducted by behavioural geneticists to esti- mate the heritability of altruism and cooperative behaviour. Identical</p>
<p>twins have a greater resemblance in their prosocial behaviours than fraternal twins, and the latter share only half of their genetic material. These studies have put forward evidence that genetics accounts for approximately 30 % to 50 % of altruistic tendencies while environ- mental and cultural factors account for the rest (West <em>et al. </em>2007).</p>
<ul>
<li>Key Genes Associated with Altruism and Cooperation</li>
</ul>
<p>Some gene candidates have been implicated in prosocial behaviour:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Oxytocin</em> <em>and</em> <em>Vasopressin</em> <em>Receptor</em> <em>Genes</em> <em>(OXTR &</em> <em>AVPR1A)</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Oxytocin, the so-called ‘love hormone,’ determines how much social bonding, trust, and empathy humans have. Variations in the OXTR gene are linked to differences in generosity and emotional intelligence. In addition, some studies have shown that carriers of the <em>OXTR </em>rs53576 GG variant display altruism significantly more frequently, both to- wards friends and strangers (Butovskaya <em>et al. </em>2020b). The AVPR1A gene is responsible for regulating the vasopressin system which is re- sponsible for social bonding. The vasopressin system is responsible for social bonding and cooperativeness, especially among men (Nowak <em>et al. </em>2010; Muzammal <em>et al. </em>2021; Stonerook 2021; Ahmad <em>et al. </em>2022).</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Dopamine</em> <em>and</em> <em>serotonin</em> <em>pathways</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Prosocial behaviour is reinforced by the dopamine system through the attachment of positive emotions and rewards to such acts. Therefore, any generous act will result in the release of dopamine in the brain and hence cause a pleasurable feeling. Higher serotonin levels are associ- ated with patience, fairness, and cooperative decision-making. The sero- tonin system regulates mood and impulse control (Smortchkova 2017; Mohaini <em>et al. </em>2022b; Ahmed <em>et al. </em>2024).</p>
<ul>
<li><em>MAOA</em> <em>(‘Warrior</em> <em>Gene’)</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Gene MAOA is thought to influence aggression and social behaviour. Some variations in the gene are associated with increased aggression and reduced empathy, but environmental factors still play a huge role in their expression (Golya 2005).</p>
<ul>
<li>EPIGENETICS: THE ENVIRONMENT SLIGHTLY AF- FECTS GENETIC EXPRESSION</li>
</ul>
<p>Epigenetics indicates that life experiences can affect gene expression without changing DNA sequences. Some examples include childhood experiences: children raised in a nurturing environment develop strong- er prosocial tendencies, while those raised in neglectful conditions show low levels of trust and empathy (Ramsay 2005). Stress and adversity: stress can inhibit oxytocin production, which can impede bonding to social networks. The genetic and neurobiological basis of altruism is shown in Table 2.</p>
<p><em>Table</em> <em>2</em></p>
<h2>Genetic and Neurobiological Basis of Altruism</h2>
<table border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>Gene/Hormone</strong></td>
<td><strong>Function</strong></td>
<td><strong>Impact</strong></p>
<p><strong>on</strong> <strong>Altruism</strong> <strong>& </strong><strong>Cooperation</strong></td>
<td><strong>Empirical Findings</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>OXTR (Oxytocin Receptor Gene)</td>
<td>Regulates oxyto- cin, the ‘bonding hormone’</td>
<td>Enhances trust, empathy, and so- cial bonding</td>
<td>Variations in OXTR influence generosity and</p>
<p>emotional intelli- gence</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>AVPR1A (Vaso-</p>
<p>pressin Receptor Gene)</td>
<td>Regulates vaso- pressin, involved in social behaviour</td>
<td>Affects bonding, particularly in males</td>
<td>Associated with pair bonding in mammals and</p>
<p>cooperation in humans</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Dopamine (D4R, DRD4 gene)</td>
<td>Reward system neurotransmitter</td>
<td>Reinforces proso- cial behaviours through pleasure</p>
<p>and reward</td>
<td>Higher dopamine activity linked to generosity and fair</p>
<p>decision-making</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Serotonin</p>
<p>(5-HTTLPR gene)</td>
<td>Regulates mood and impulse con- trol</td>
<td>Promotes patience, fairness, and co- operative behav- iour</td>
<td>Increased seroto- nin associated with prosocial choices in eco-</p>
<p>nomic games</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>MAOA (‘Warrior Gene’)</td>
<td>Regulates aggres- sion and emotional control</td>
<td>Certain variants linked to reduced empathy and in-</p>
<p>creased aggression</td>
<td>Low MAOA</p>
<p>linked to antisocial behaviour, espe- cially under stress</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Evolutionary benefits of altruism are shown in Table 3.</p>
<h2>Evolutionary Benefits of Altruism</h2>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>Table</em> <em>3</em></p>
<table border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>Benefit</strong></td>
<td><strong>Mechanism</strong></td>
<td><strong>Example</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Enhanced Sur-</p>
<p>vival of Kin</td>
<td>Kin selection ensures shared</p>
<p>genetic material is passed on</td>
<td>Parents invest in children,</p>
<p>siblings support each other</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reputation & Social Status</td>
<td>Altruistic individuals are</p>
<p>trusted and respected, increas- ing social capital</td>
<td>Philanthropy enhances public image; generous leaders gain</p>
<p>loyalty</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reciprocal Ben-</p>
<p>efits</td>
<td>Helping others increases</p>
<p>chances of future support</td>
<td>Business partnerships, alli-</p>
<p>ances in warfare</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Group Success & Stability</td>
<td>Cooperative groups outper- form selfish groups in compe-</p>
<p>tition</td>
<td>Nation-building, teamwork in corporations</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reduction of</p>
<p>Conflict</td>
<td>Altruism fosters social har-</p>
<p>mony and reduces aggression</td>
<td>Mediation in disputes, legal</p>
<p>systems promoting fairness</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<ul>
<li>OBSTACLES TO ALTRUISM IN TODAY’S WORLD</li>
</ul>
<p>However, the modern world presents a series of challenges to altruism in general, despite its evolutionary and genetic underpinnings.</p>
<ul>
<li>Economic inequalities and social fragmentation</li>
</ul>
<p>Enormous disparities in wealth can erode trust and cooperation within societies, leading to less prosocial behaviour. Studies have shown that people in highly unequal societies are less likely to give or support charitable causes (Golya 2005; Ramsay 2005; Smortchkova 2017).</p>
<ul>
<li>The Digital Era and Online Behaviour</li>
</ul>
<p>Online social media creates a phenomenon known as ‘moral outrage amplification,’ in which people participate in performative versions of altruism, such as virtue signaling, instead of cooperating to achieve meaningful actions (Fehr <em>et al. </em>2002b; Birch and Heyes 2021). Digital anonymity tends to diffuse responsibility, thus creating more hostile interactions and less cooperation online (Santos and Pacheco 2011a).</p>
<ul>
<li>Global Collective Action Problems</li>
</ul>
<p>Climate change, pandemics, and international conflicts all require the parable of large-scale cooperation, yet many people and nations stand in the way and choose self-interest, which frustratingly interferes with</p>
<p>the optimality of joint solutions (Seyfarth and Cheney 1988; Fehr <em>et</em> <em>al. </em>2002b; Santos and Pacheco 2011a, 2011b; Author 2013; Claidie <em>et al. </em>2014; A natural history of human morality 2016; Tomasello 2018). Challenges to altruism in modern society are shown in Table 4.</p>
<p><em>Table</em> <em>4</em></p>
<p><strong>Challenges</strong> <strong>to Altruism in</strong> <strong>Modern </strong><strong>Society</strong></p>
<table border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>Challenge</strong></td>
<td><strong>Cause</strong></td>
<td><strong>Impact</strong> <strong>on</strong> <strong>Altruism</strong></td>
<td><strong>Possible Solutions</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Economic Inequality</td>
<td>Wealth disparities</p>
<p>reduce trust and cooperation</td>
<td>Less charitable giving, social</p>
<p>fragmentation</td>
<td>Progressive taxa-</p>
<p>tion, social safety nets</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Digital Anonymity</td>
<td>Online interactions lack accountability</td>
<td>Increased trolling, cyberbullying, reduced empathy</td>
<td>Stronger regula- tions on social media behaviour, digital identity</p>
<p>verification</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Global Collective Action Problems</td>
<td>Climate change, pandemics require large-scale coop-</p>
<p>eration</td>
<td>Nations act in self- interest, leading to failures in global</p>
<p>solutions</td>
<td>International trea- ties, incentives for cooperation</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Cultural & Politi- cal Polarization</td>
<td>Ideological divi-</p>
<p>sions weaken so- cial cohesion</td>
<td>Reduced willing- ness to help out-</p>
<p>groups</td>
<td>Promoting dia-</p>
<p>logue, education on shared values</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Declining Face-to- Face Interaction</td>
<td>Virtual communi- cation replaces real-world interac- tions</td>
<td>Reduced emotion- al connection, lower empathy</td>
<td>Community- building initia- tives, encouraging in-person en-</p>
<p>gagement</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<ul>
<li>CONCLUSION</li>
</ul>
<p>The genetic basis of altruism and cooperation is a topic of great fasci- nation and complexity, invoking a tangled interplay between biologi- cal inheritance and environmental factors. Genes provide the founda- tion for prosocial behaviour, while cultural evolution, social norms, and individual experiences determine its expression. Cooperation is at higher demand than ever in today’s world, with pressing solutions re- quired to rectify economic inequality, digital isolation, and the chal- lenges of collective action on a global scale. With an understanding of the biological and cultural roots of altruism, we will be able to make significant progress toward a more cooperative and compassionate</p>
<p>world. Figure showing the Altruism and Cooperative behaviour in Human Societies.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="attachment-full size-full" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image1.png" alt="Image1" width="1203" height="1207" title="The Genetic Basis of Altruism and Cooperative Behaviour in Human Societies" /></p>
<p><strong>Fig.</strong> <strong>Representation</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Altruism</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Cooperative</strong> <strong>behaviour in Human Societies</strong></p>
<p><em>Note:</em> Aoki 2017; BioRender 2023.</p>
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<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>িশশুেদর জন্য মানসম্মত িশক্ষা িনি ত করা যমন বাংলােদেশর নিতক দািয়ত্ব, তমিন এটি একটি জরুিরঅথৈনিতক প্রেয়াজনও। বতমােন দশটি একটি “জনসংখ্যাগত লভ্যাংশ” উপেভাগ করেছ—অথাৎ িনভরশীলজনেগাষ্ঠীর তুলনায় কমক্ষম জনেগাষ্ঠীর সংখ্যা বিশ—যা অথৈনিতক প্রবৃিদ্ধর জন্য একটি সুেযােগর জানালাতির কেরেছ। িকন্তু প্রজনন হার ও মৃতু ্যহার কেম আসায় এই জানালাটি দ্রুত বন্ধ হেত চেলেছ। িশক্ষা সংস্কারেকযিদ এখনই কন্দ্রস্থেল না […]</p>
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<p class="wp-block-paragraph">িশশুেদর জন্য মানসম্মত িশক্ষা িনি ত করা যমন বাংলােদেশর নিতক দািয়ত্ব, তমিন এটি একটি জরুির<br>অথৈনিতক প্রেয়াজনও। বতমােন দশটি একটি “জনসংখ্যাগত লভ্যাংশ” উপেভাগ করেছ—অথাৎ িনভরশীল<br>জনেগাষ্ঠীর তুলনায় কমক্ষম জনেগাষ্ঠীর সংখ্যা বিশ—যা অথৈনিতক প্রবৃিদ্ধর জন্য একটি সুেযােগর জানালা<br>তির কেরেছ। িকন্তু প্রজনন হার ও মৃতু ্যহার কেম আসায় এই জানালাটি দ্রুত বন্ধ হেত চেলেছ। িশক্ষা সংস্কারেক<br>যিদ এখনই কন্দ্রস্থেল না আনা হয়, তেব এক দশেকর মেধ্যই বাংলােদশ বহু বছর ধের এক মারাত্মকভােব<br>অিশিক্ষত কমশিক্তর বাঝা বহন করেত বাধ্য হেব।<br>গত সপ্তােহ িশক্ষা সংস্কার িনেয় একটি প্রিতেবদন প্রকািশত হেয়েছ, যা বাস্তবািয়ত হেল বাংলােদেশর ভিবষ্যৎ<br>আমূল বদেল িদেত পাের। আেবদ চৗধুরীর সভাপিতেত্ব এবং িশক্ষা উপেদষ্টার উেদ্যােগ গঠিত এই খসড়া<br>কিমটিেত িছেলন মুস্তাক খান, এরুম মািরয়াম, সািবনা ইয়াসিমন, অনন্ত নীলীমসহ আরও অেনেক।<br>প<br>্<br>রিতেবদনটি িনেয় একটি চমৎকার উপস্থাপনা দওয়া হেয়িছল। িকন্তু পরবত আেলাচনায় প্রায় সবাই—প্রায়<br>৫০ জন অংশগ্রহণকারী—পাঠ্যক্রেমর িবষয়বস্তু, িশক্ষকেদর কমপিরিস্থিত, পাঠ্যবই ইত্যািদ িনেয় আেলাচনা<br>কেরন, যন প্রিতেবদেনর আসল গুরুত্বটাই ধরেত পােরনিন। আিম ধের িনি , সরকার ও নাগিরক সমােজর<br>ওই অংশগ্রহণকারীরা আেগভােগ প্রিতেবদনটি পড়ার সুেযাগ পানিন, যমনটি আিম পেয়িছলাম। আগাম না<br>পড়েল আিমও হয়েতা পুেরাপুির বুঝেত পারতাম না য পাঠ্যক্রেমর িবষয়বস্তু আেদৗ এই কিমটির কােজর মূল<br>ফাকাস নয়।<br>এখােন একটি উপমা এই প্রিতেবদেনর িবষয়বস্তু কী এবং কী নয়—তা বাঝােত সহায়ক হেত পাের।<br>একটি গািড় বাছাই করার সময় আমরা তার ইিঞ্জেনর ক্ষমতা, রং, অেটােমটিক না ম্যানুয়াল িগয়ার, পাওয়ার<br>িস্টয়ািরং আেছ িক না, সডান না এসইউিভ—এসব দিখ। যিদ আমরা িশক্ষােক জীবেনর যাত্রার শুরুেত<br>অিজত একটি গািড়র সে তুলনা কির, তেব এই উপমাটি যথাথ। কারণ িশক্ষা িনধারণ কের আমরা কত দ্রুত<br>ও কত দূর যেত পারব এবং কঠিন পথ পািড় িদেত আমােদর কতটা সক্ষমতা থাকেব। গািড়র এসব বিশষ্ট্যেক<br>পাঠ্যক্রেমর িবষয়বস্তু, িণর আকার বা িশক্ষক প্রিশক্ষেণর সে তুলনা করা যায়— যগুেলা িনেয়ই উপিস্থতরা<br>আেলাচনা করেত চেয়িছেলন।<br>িকন্তু প্রিতেবদনটি গািড়র বিশষ্ট্য িনেয় নয়; এটি মূলত কীভােব একটি ভােলা গািড় উৎপাদন কারখানা গেড়<br>তালা যায়—তা িনেয়।<br>এই দৃিষ্টভি গ্রহেণর মাধ্যেম কিমটি িশক্ষা ব্যবস্থার মৗিলক ঘাটিতগুেলা এবং সগুেলা কন টিেক আেছ—তা<br>িচি ত করেত পেরেছ। আরও গুরুত্বপূণ হেলা, প্রিতেবদনটি দিখেয়েছ কীভােব যেকােনা সংস্কার প্রস্তাব<br>মূল্যায়ন করেত হেব, কীভােব তা বাস্তবায়ন করেত হেব এবং কাযকর হেল কীভােব সটিেক টকসই করেত<br>হেব।<br>এই পদ্ধিতর িভিত্ত শিক্তশালী “িসেস্টম িবে ষণ” তে প্রািথত। নীিতগত প্রস্তাবনার তািলকা দওয়ার বদেল<br>কিমটি িশক্ষা শাসনব্যবস্থার কাঠােমাগত ব্যথতা িবে ষণ কেরেছ। নতুন পাঠ্যক্রেমর প্রিতটি খু ঁটিনাটি ব্যাখ্যা<br>করার পিরবেত তারা দিখেয়েছ, কীভােব ব্যবস্থার ভতেরর ভুল প্রেণাদনা বা সংেকত এবং সগুেলার<br>প<br>্<br>রিতিক্রয়ায় সংস্কার বারবার বাধাগ্রস্ত হেয়েছ।<br>এই ধারণাটি বাঝােত পরীক্ষা ব্যবস্থার উদাহরণ নওয়া যেত পাের। প্রিতেবদনটি দিখেয়েছ, পরীক্ষা পদ্ধিত<br>দক্ষতা বা পারদিশতার বদেল কবল পাঠ্যসূিচ শষ করােক অগ্রািধকার দওয়ায় এক ধরেনর িবপযয়কর<br>ব্যথতা ঘেটেছ। স্বাধীন মূল্যায়েন দখা যাে , পরীক্ষার ফলাফল ও প্রকৃত দক্ষতার মেধ্য ফারাক ক্রেমই বাড়েছ।<br>ভােলা নম্বর আর দক্ষতার প্রতীক নয়। িশক্ষাথরা প্রেয়াজনীয় দক্ষতা অজন না কেরই এক িণ থেক আেরক<br>িণেত উত্তীণ হে ।<br>এ ধরেনর িসেস্টম ব্যথতায় লাভ বা অেযাগ্যতাই মূল সমস্যা নয়। িশক্ষকরা আসেল ঠিক সটাই করেছন, যা<br>িসেস্টেমর সংেকত তােদর করেত বলেছ। পরীক্ষার ফলই হেলা সংেকত, আর িশক্ষেকর পাঠদান পদ্ধিত হেলা<br>তার প্রিতিক্রয়া। ফেল িশক্ষকরা দক্ষতা গেড় তালার বদেল কবল পাঠ্যসূিচ শষ করােতই মেনােযাগ দন।<br>বাস্তেব, শাসনব্যবস্থার প্রিতটি স্তেরই প্রায়শই মান নািমেয় আনার প্রবণতা দখা গেছ, যন দক্ষতা অজেনর<br>একটি ভ্রান্ত ধারণা বজায় রাখা যায়।<br>ভাষা ও গিণেতর মেতা প্রাথিমক দক্ষতার পারদিশতার বদেল বাংলােদেশর মাধ্যিমক িশক্ষা ব্যবস্থা এমন<br>িবষয়েক অগ্রািধকার িদেয়েছ, যা দক্ষতার পিরপন্থী— যমন মুখস্থিবদ্যা। মানবজািতর ইিতহােস কখেনাই মুখস্থ<br>করা দক্ষতা অজেনর উপায় িছল না।<br>অসংখ্য পেক্ষর অসামঞ্জস্যপূণ সংেযাজেন স্ফীত হেয় ওঠা পাঠ্যক্রম দক্ষতার ওপর মেনােযাগ নষ্ট কেরেছ। তেব<br>সমস্যাটি শুধু অিতিরক্ত িবস্তৃত পাঠ্যক্রম নয়; বরং “প্রত্যািশত শখার ফল, উপলব্ধ িশক্ষাদােনর সময়, পাঠ্যক্রম<br>ও পাঠ্যবইেয় িনিহত গিত-ধারণা এবং দক্ষতার বদেল কভােরজেক অগ্রািধকার দওয়া মূল্যায়ন সংেকেতর মেধ্য<br>অসামঞ্জস্য।”<br>কিমটি তােদর অবস্থান িনেয়েছ গেবষণালব্ধ একটি শিক্তশালী প্রবণতার ওপর, যা মাধ্যিমক স্তের িবস্তার নয়,<br>গভীরতা ও দক্ষতােক অগ্রািধকার দয়। এই দৃিষ্টভি বাংলােদেশর িশক্ষা ব্যবস্থায় প্রিতফিলত হেতই হেব।<br>সংস্কার কষ্টকর হেব। িকছু সংস্কার ধােপ ধােপ আনা যেত পাের, িকন্তু কিমটি জার িদেয়েছ য িকছু সংস্কার<br>দ<br>্<br>র<br>ুত বাস্তবায়ন করা জরুির। যখন পরীক্ষা সিত্যকার অেথ িশক্ষাথর দক্ষতা যাচাই করেব, তখন নম্বর পুেরা<br>িশক্ষা ব্যবস্থায় একটি গুরুত্বপূণ সংেকত িহেসেব কাজ করেব। খারাপ ফলাফল মােন পাঠ্যক্রম, পাঠদান ও<br>পাঠ্যবইেয় সংস্কােরর দািব।<br>কিমটি কেয়কটি “অ-আেলাচনােযাগ্য” শত িনধারণ কেরেছ, যা সব সংস্কাের প্রাধান্য পােব। যমন—নতুন<br>উেদ্যাগ কবল তখনই নওয়া যােব, যখন তা িবদ্যমান কাযক্রমেক “প্রিতস্থাপন, একীভূত বা অবসান” করেব।<br>উেদ্যােগর ওপর উেদ্যাগ চাপােনার এই অন্তহীন প্রবণতা বন্ধ করেত হেব।<br>সবেচেয় গুরুত্বপূণ অ-আেলাচনােযাগ্য শতগুেলার একটি হেলা—প্রিতটি িসেস্টম সংেকেতর দািয়ত্ব কার, তা আেগ<br>থেকই সবার জানা থাকেত হেব। দািয়ত্ব িনিদষ্ট না থাকেল, ভারী ও দীঘস্থায়ী পাইলট প্রকেল্পর িবস্তার চলেতই<br>থাকেব।<br>পাঠ্যক্রেমর িবষয়বস্তু িনধারেণ সাধারণত সুপািরশ না করেলও, কিমটি দুটি িবষয়েক যেকােনা পাঠ্যক্রেমর<br>জন্য অপিরহায িহেসেব িচি ত কেরেছ। (আমার মেত, একটি গুরুত্বপূণ িবষয় বাদ পেড়েছ— স কথায়<br>আসিছ।) প্রথমটি বাংলা ভাষা িশক্ষা, যার গুরুত্ব স্বতঃিসদ্ধ। ি তীয়টি গিণত।<br>গিণত িশক্ষা শতাব্দীর পর শতাব্দী ধের মানসম্মত িশক্ষার কেন্দ্র রেয়েছ, এমনিক যখন িশক্ষা কবল<br>অিভজাতেদর জন্য সীমাবদ্ধ িছল। আজ সারা িবেশ্ব মাধ্যিমক িশক্ষাথরা ি ঘাত সমীকরণ ও িত্রেকাণিমিতক সূত্র<br>শেখ, যিদও তােদর প্রায় কউই স্কুল ছাড়ার পর আর সগুেলার কােছ িফের যােব না। তবু এতিদন ধের এত<br>সমােজ এত িশশুেদর এসব পড়েত বাধ্য করার একটি ভােলা কারণ আেছ।<br>আিম প্রায়ই (লজ্জাজনকভােব) বলেত ভােলাবািস—গিণত হেলা তেথ্যর ভার ছাড়াই িচন্তা করার িশক্ষা।<br>ইংল্যােন্ডর এক আিপল আদালেতর িবচারক আমােক এ কথা বেলিছেলন, জেন য আিমও তার মেতা স্নাতেক<br>গিণত পেড়িছ। যুিক্ত শখােনার জন্য গিণেতর মেতা কাযকর মাধ্যম আর নই। অন্য সব িবষেয় যুিক্ত শুরু<br>করার আেগ অেনক তথ্য মুখস্থ করেত হয়।<br>এখােনই মুখস্থিবদ্যার প্রবণতা সবেচেয় ক্ষিতকর। যিদ পরীক্ষা কবল ি ঘাত সূত্র মুখস্থ জােন িক না তা যাচাই<br>কের, তেব মুখস্থ করা িশক্ষাথ পুরস্কৃত হয়। িকন্তু স িশক্ষাথ আসেল িকছুই অজন কেরিন, যা যুিক্ত কের সূত্রটি<br>導 করেত শখা িশক্ষাথ অজন কেরেছ। ি তীয় িশক্ষাথ িচন্তা করেত িশেখেছ, এমনিক ভিবষ্যেত ি ঘাত<br>সমীকরণ ভু েল গেলও।<br>এবার আিম সই িবষেয় আসিছ, যটিেক কিমটি অগ্রািধকার িহেসেব িচি ত কেরিন।<br>কেয়ক বছর আেগ আিম আমস্টারডাম িগেয়িছলাম। িবমানবন্দের নেম ট্যাি েত উেঠ চালকেক বললাম,<br>“দুঃিখত, আিম ডাচ বলেত পাির না, আপিন িক ইংেরিজ বেলন?”<br>চালক আমার িদেক একরাশ িবরিক্ত িনেয় তািকেয় তারপর উত্তর িদেলন।<br>পের আিম ঘটনাটি বন্ধু েদর বলেল তারা একটি চমৎকার ব্যাখ্যা িদল। চালকেক ইংেরিজ জােনন িক না িজেজ্ঞস<br>করা মােন নািক তােক িনরক্ষর বা িনচু িণর বেল ইি ত করা। কারণ প্রায় সবাই ইংেরিজ বলেত পাের।<br>ি<br>তীয় িবশ্বযুেদ্ধর পর, জামান অিধকৃত নদারল্যান্ডস িসদ্ধান্ত িনেয়িছল—চারপােশ িভন্ন ভাষাভাষী দশ<br>থাকায়—িশশুরা অন্তত আরও দুটি ভাষা িশখেব। উত্তর ইউেরােপর অিধকাংশ দেশই একই িচত্র।<br>গেবষণা স্পষ্টভােব দখায়, অল্প বয়েস ি তীয় ভাষা শখার জ্ঞানীয় উপকািরতা আেছ, যা কবল ভাষা শখার<br>মেধ্যই সীমাবদ্ধ নয়; এমনিক স্থািনক যুিক্তেবাধও উন্নত হয়।<br>অথৈনিতক সুিবধাটিও পিরষ্কার। একটি ভাষা বিশ্বক ব্যবসার মুদ্রা, আর সই ভাষাটিই—সবেচেয়<br>বিশ—মানবজািতর সামিষ্টক জ্ঞােনর ভাণ্ডার। আধুিনক অথনীিত মূলত সই জ্ঞােনর ওপরই দাঁিড়েয়।<br>আমার ধারণা, ভাষাগত জাতীয়তাবাদ উসেক দওয়ার আশঙ্কায় এবং পুেরা প্রিতেবদনটির গ্রহণেযাগ্যতা নষ্ট<br>হেত পাের ভেব কিমটি ইংেরিজেক অগ্রািধকার িহেসেব উে খ করা থেক িবরত থেকেছ। ভাষা িনেয়<br>আেলাচনায় ইিতহাসগতভােব— বাধ্য হেলও সহায়ক নয়—প্রবল আেবগ জিড়েয় যায়।<br>অথ ও সুেযােগর জাের বাংলােদেশর অিভজাত িণ রাে র মাধ্যিমক িশক্ষাব্যবস্থার সীমাবদ্ধতা থেক<br>িনেজেদর মুক্ত কের িনেয়েছ। যেহতু নীিতিনধারেণ মূলত এই িণরাই প্রভাবশালী, তাই বহু বছর ধের সরকাির<br>িশক্ষার সংস্কার িপিছেয় পেড়েছ।<br>এই অসাধারণ প্রিতেবদেনর ভিবষ্যৎ িনভর করেছ পরবত সরকার, নাগিরক সমাজ ও জনগেণর ওপর।<br>সরকার বা নাগিরক সমােজর ওপর ভরসা রাখেত হেল আশাবাদী হওয়া কঠিন। তেব সামান্য আশা এই য,<br>জুলাইেয়র গণঅভু ্যত্থান দিখেয়েছ—মানুেষর হােত এখনও িকছু ক্ষমতা রেয়েছ।</p>
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<entry>
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<name>krishanfoundation</name>
<uri>http://localhost/project/wordpress</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education System]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://krishanfoundation.com/report-of-the-review-committee-established-to-formulate-a-vision-for-the-transformation-of-the-secondary-and-higher-secondary-education-system/" />
<id>https://krishanfoundation.com/?p=862</id>
<updated>2026-02-08T08:35:09Z</updated>
<published>2026-02-08T08:24:00Z</published>
<category scheme="https://krishanfoundation.com/" term="Abed Chaudhury" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education System (with an Integrated Whole-of-Schooling Perspective) Volume I Vision for Learning Transformation Setting Direction, Priorities, and Governing Commitments Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation of the Secondary and […]</p>
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<content type="html" xml:base="https://krishanfoundation.com/report-of-the-review-committee-established-to-formulate-a-vision-for-the-transformation-of-the-secondary-and-higher-secondary-education-system/"><![CDATA[<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1583" height="2240" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image1.jpeg" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Image1" title="Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education System" /></p>
<p><strong>Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Vision for</strong><strong> </strong><strong>the Transformation</strong><strong> </strong><strong>of</strong><strong> </strong><strong>the</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Secondary</strong><strong> </strong><strong>and</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Higher</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Secondary</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Education</strong><strong> </strong><strong>System </strong><em>(with an Integrated Whole-of-Schooling Perspective)</em></p>
<p>Volume I</p>
<h2>Vision for Learning Transformation</h2>
<p><strong>Setting</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Direction,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Priorities,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>and</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Governing</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Commitments</strong></p>
<p><strong>Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation</strong><strong> </strong><strong>of</strong><strong> </strong><strong>the</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Secondary</strong><strong> </strong><strong>and</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Higher</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Secondary</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Education</strong><strong> </strong><strong>System </strong><em>(with</em><em> </em><em>an Integrated Whole-of-Schooling Perspective)</em></p>
<p>Volume I</p>
<h3>Vision for Learning Transformation</h3>
<p><strong>Setting</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Direction,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Priorities,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>and</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Governing</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Commitments</strong></p>
<p><strong>Report of the</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Review Committee</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Established to Formulate</strong><strong> </strong><strong>a Vision</strong><strong> </strong><strong>for the Transformation</strong><strong> </strong><strong>of</strong><strong> </strong><strong>the</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Secondary</strong><strong> </strong><strong>and</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Higher</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Secondary</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Education</strong><strong> </strong><strong>System </strong><em>(with an Integrated Whole-of-Schooling Perspective)</em></p>
<p>Volume I</p>
<p><strong>Vision</strong><strong> </strong><strong>for</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Learning</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Transformation</strong></p>
<p><strong>Setting Direction,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Priorities,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>and Governing</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Commitments</strong></p>
<h3>Published by</h3>
<p>Secondary and Higher Education Division Ministry of Education</p>
<p>Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh</p>
<h3>February 2026</h3>
<p>© 2026 Secondary and Higher Education Division, Ministry of Education</p>
<p>Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh</p>
<p>All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise— without prior permission, except for purposes of education, research, evaluation, or policy consultation with appropriate acknowledgement.</p>
<p><strong>Review</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Committee established</strong><strong> </strong><strong>to formulate</strong><strong> </strong><strong>a</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Vision</strong><strong> </strong><strong>for</strong><strong> </strong><strong>the</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Transformation of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education System</strong></p>
<table border="1">
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<td>
<p><strong>Dr</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Abed</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Chaudhury</strong></p>
<p>Chair of the Committee, Distinguished Gene Scientist</p>
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<td> </td>
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<td>
<p><strong>Professor</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Mushtaque</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Khan</strong></p>
<p>Member of Committee,</p>
<p>Department of Economics, SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom</p>
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<td> </td>
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<p><strong>Professor</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Shah </strong><strong>Shamim</strong></p>
<p>Member of Committee,</p>
<p>Institute of Education and Research (IER) University</p>
<p>of Dhaka, Bangladesh.</p>
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<td> </td>
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<p><strong>Mr.</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Saidur</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Rahman,</strong></p>
<p>Member of Committee,</p>
<p>Joint Secretary, Secondary-I Wing</p>
<p>SHED, Ministry of Education, Dhaka, Bangladesh</p>
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<td> </td>
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<p><strong>Professor</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Erum</strong><strong> Mariam</strong></p>
<p>Member of Committee,</p>
<p>Executive Director, BRAC Institute of Educational Development, Brac University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.</p>
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<td> </td>
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<p><strong>Dr</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Ananta</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Neelim</strong></p>
<p>Member of Committee,</p>
<p>Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Tasmania, Australia</p>
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<td> </td>
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<td>
<p><strong>Mr</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Shahir</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Chowdhury</strong></p>
<p>Member of Committee,</p>
<p>Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Shikho, Dhaka, Bangladesh</p>
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<td> </td>
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<p><strong>Ms.</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Sabina </strong><strong>Yeasmin,</strong></p>
<p>Member of Committee,</p>
<p>Deputy Secretary (Government Secondary-II Wing)</p>
<p>SHED, Ministry of Education, Dhaka, Bangladesh.</p>
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<td> </td>
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<p><strong>Mr</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Tarfadar</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Md</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Akhtar</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Jamil</strong></p>
<p>Member Secretary,</p>
<p>Joint Secretary (Government Secondary Branch),</p>
<p>SHED, Ministry of Education, Dhaka, Bangladesh.</p>
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<td> </td>
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</table>
<h2><strong></strong><strong></strong>Note to the Reader</h2>
<p>This report has been prepared by a Review Committee constituted by the Secondary and Higher Education Division, Ministry of Education, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, under a formal mandate to articulate a future-oriented vision for the transformation of the secondary and higher secondary education system.</p>
<p>The report is issued in <em>two</em><em> </em><em>complementary</em><em> </em><em>volumes</em><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>
<p><strong>Volume I </strong>sets out the vision, guiding principles, and system-level direction for reform. It provides a diagnosis of the key challenges facing the education system and articulates a coherent framework to guide future policy, institutional reform, and investment decisions. While the Committee’s formal mandate focuses on secondary and higher secondary education, the analysis in this volume adopts an integrated whole-of-schooling perspective, recognising that learning outcomes at the secondary level are shaped by conditions, incentives, and transitions across the full schooling cycle.</p>
<p><strong>Volume II</strong>, titled the <em>National Learning Implementation Framework (NLIF)</em>, translates the vision articulated in Volume I into a practical governance and implementation framework. It sets out mechanisms for sequencing reform, ensuring accountability, managing system incentives, and supporting sustained improvement over time.</p>
<p>The two volumes are designed to be read together<strong>, </strong>but each may also be read independently, depending on the reader’s role and interest. Volume I is intended primarily for policymakers, senior officials, and stakeholders concerned with strategic direction and reform priorities.</p>
<p>Volume II is intended for officials and institutions responsible for policy design, delivery, monitoring, and implementation.</p>
<p>The Committee acknowledges that education reform is complex and context-dependent. The recommendations presented in this report are therefore framed as guiding principles and system-level design choices, rather than prescriptive operational instructions. Decisions regarding adoption, adaptation, and implementation rest with the appropriate authorities of the Government of Bangladesh</p>
<h1><strong></strong><strong></strong>Executive Summary</h1>
<h3>The problem we face</h3>
<p>Bangladesh has expanded schooling at scale. More children are enrolled. More classrooms have been built. More students pass public exams. These numbers were often used to show success. But learning did not keep pace.</p>
<p>Too many students move through school without learning to read fluently, without building basic maths skills, and without learning how to think, explain, or apply ideas. They pass grades and receive certificates, but many do not gain real knowledge or confidence. Certificates have grown. Learning has not.</p>
<p>This gap has been visible for years. Independent studies and household surveys repeatedly show weak learning, especially in mathematics and in tasks that require understanding rather than memorisation. These findings were known. Yet they did not change how success was judged. The system continued to focus on enrolment, infrastructure, exam participation, and pass rates. Learning remained secondary.</p>
<p>As long as these visible numbers improved, weak learning did not force action. Students were promoted. Certificates were issued. Examination results were kept stable through design and moderation. Over time, the gap between schooling and learning stopped being a warning sign. It became normal. The consequences are now urgent.</p>
<p>Bangladesh is nearing the end of its demographic dividend. The students currently in school will soon form the core of the workforce. If present conditions continue, many will enter adult life with certificates but without the skills needed for productive work, for adapting to change, or for continued learning. The cost will be felt in lower productivity, slower growth, and weak returns on decades of public investment in education.</p>
<p>There is also a deep social cost. When the system promotes students without ensuring learning, it gives families a false sense of security. Risk shifts from the state to households. Families who can afford it turn to coaching and private tutoring. Families who cannot are left behind. Inequality widens. Trust in public education weakens. Young people spend years in school, but too many leave without what they were promised.</p>
<p>In short: the system expanded, but it did not deliver learning.</p>
<h3>Why weak learning became normal</h3>
<p>Weak learning persisted because of how the education system is organised, governed, and judged. Across the system, success is measured through what is visible and easy to count. Enrolment numbers, buildings, exam participation, and pass rates are tracked closely. Institutions and officials are judged on these results. Learning quality is harder to measure, unevenly assessed, and rarely enforced. This imbalance shaped behaviour throughout the system.</p>
<p>The curriculum became crowded and unrealistic. Finishing the syllabus mattered more than ensuring understanding. Teachers were under pressure to cover content and prepare students for exams, even when many students were not ready. Teaching shifted toward memorisation, copying, and exam practice. These were predictable responses to the signals teachers received.</p>
<p>Assessment made the problem worse. Examinations carried high stakes, but their credibility was weak. When results did not align with expectations, they were adjusted through design choices, moderation, and interpretation. This reduced the risk of visible failure, but it weakened the meaning of exam results. Students could progress even when learning had not occurred.</p>
<p>Governance reinforced these patterns. Administrative systems focused on compliance, reporting, and procedural completion. Officials were rewarded for meeting targets and maintaining stability, not for confronting learning failure that could not be quickly resolved.</p>
<p>Families responded in rational ways. As trust in classroom learning and exam signals declined, households invested more in private tutoring to protect their children’s prospects. This shifted responsibility for learning from the system to families and widened inequality.</p>
<p>Together, these forces produced a stable outcome. Weak learning did not trigger correction because the system was not organised to treat it as unacceptable. Instead, it was absorbed and normalised. Students progressed. Certificates were issued. Success continued to be reported.</p>
<p>Over time, the system learned how to function with weak learning.</p>
<h3>What must change: five decisive shifts</h3>
<p>The lesson of the past two decades is straightforward. Reform did not change outcomes because it did not change how the system works. As long as progression, certification, and visible results are rewarded more consistently than learning, weak learning will continue. Adding new programmes, training, or technology without changing these signals will reproduce the same results.</p>
<p>The problem is not how much reform has been attempted. It is the direction reform has taken. Five shifts are required.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Learning</em><em> </em><em>integrity</em><em> </em><em>must</em><em> </em><em>be</em><em> </em><em>the</em><em> </em><em>organising</em><em> priority</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Learning must have real consequences. Students should not move ahead unless they have learned what is essential. Progression must be based on mastery, not on age, coverage, or administrative discretion. When learning has not occurred, the system must slow down, adjust expectations, and correct course. Advancing students on paper cannot substitute for learning.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Curriculum</em><em> </em><em>must</em><em> </em><em>be</em><em> </em><em>reduced</em><em> </em><em>and</em><em> disciplined</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Removing overload must count as reform. A curriculum that cannot be taught cannot be learned. The system needs fewer objectives, clear sequencing, and strong focus on foundational skills, especially in the early grades. Too much content and too many symbolic activities reduce time for teaching. Making space for learning is not a loss. It is a necessary reform.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Assessment</em><em> </em><em>must</em><em> </em><em>regain</em><em> </em><em>credibility</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Messages from the system must point in the same direction. Exams shape behaviour. When assessment signals are weak or unstable, defensive behaviour dominates. Curriculum, exams, supervision, and pathways must all reward the same thing: real learning. Alignment and trust must be rebuilt before stakes are raised.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Teachers</em><em> </em><em>must</em><em> </em><em>be</em><em> </em><em>given</em><em> </em><em>conditions</em><em> </em><em>that</em><em> </em><em>make</em><em> </em><em>learning</em><em> </em><em>possible</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Information must reach classrooms in time to help. Protect classroom time. Clarify priorities. Reduce unnecessary administrative tasks. Teachers need quick, simple feedback about what students understand so they can adjust lessons while it still matters. Mentoring and practical support must be linked to actual teaching, not paperwork.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Governance must shift from procedural compliance to learning accountability </em>Responsibility must shift from families back to the system. Weak learning must trigger response, not accommodation. Authority and escalation pathways must be clear. Institutions must feel responsibility for learning, not only for reporting. When outcomes are poor, the response should come from the system through support and enforcement, not from households paying privately.</li>
</ul>
<p>These five shifts mark the point where change becomes possible. They work because they change what the system allows and what it enforces, not because they rely on goodwill or motivation alone.</p>
<h3>The North Star: what success should look like in lived experience</h3>
<p>Success in this Vision is defined through what children and families see and feel in everyday life.</p>
<p><em>Early</em><em> </em><em>childhood</em><em> </em><em>and</em><em> </em><em>the</em><em> </em><em>first</em><em> </em><em>years</em><em> </em><em>of</em><em> </em><em>primary</em>: Children arrive ready to participate. Classrooms are calm, predictable, and rich in language. The focus is on reading, writing, and basic number skills. These foundations are learned well, not rushed. Progress is checked often and simply. Confidence builds early.</p>
<p><em>Primary</em><em> </em><em>school:</em><em> </em>Learning grows through regular feedback, not rare high-stakes tests. Teachers know what students understand and adjust lessons as needed. Classroom time is protected for teaching. Parents receive clear messages about what their children are learning and how they can help.</p>
<p><em>Upper primary and lower secondary</em>: Classrooms encourage explanation and reasoning. Students talk through their ideas, compare answers, and improve their thinking. Assessment helps learning rather than distorting it. Teachers can slow down when students need more time. Students feel safe to ask questions and make mistakes.</p>
<p><em>Secondary school</em>: Assessment results are clear and trusted. Students understand where they stand and what effort leads to progress. Guidance is direct. Academic, technical, and vocational pathways are treated with equal seriousness. Choices are explained, not left unclear.</p>
<p><em>Families</em><em> </em><em>and communities</em>: Families receive regular, simple information about learning. Private tutoring becomes optional rather than necessary. Trust grows when schools communicate clearly and when progress is visible. Learning becomes the central purpose of schooling.</p>
<p>This is the North Star. It keeps the system focused on lived experience, not only on institutional plans.</p>
<h3>Why the next five years matter</h3>
<p>The system will not fix itself. Weak learning has remained stable even as schooling expanded, money increased, and reforms were added. Without changes to incentives and enforcement, more activity will not lead to better learning.</p>
<p>The next five years are a narrow window. During this time, rules, routines, and expectations can still be reset before weak learning becomes firmly embedded in the workforce and the economy. Delay reduces options.</p>
<p>This Vision establishes the governing framework for reform. It defines what must be protected and what must change. Implementation sequencing and delivery will be guided by the National Learning Implementation Framework (NLIF). The purpose of the NLIF is to operationalise this Vision over time, not to reinterpret its core commitments.</p>
<p>Every reform proposal should be judged by one simple question:</p>
<p>Does it strengthen real learning and everyday correction, or does it add activity without changing behaviour?</p>
<p>If it strengthens learning, it belongs. If it adds activity without changing behaviour, it should be rejected, even if it looks attractive or has external support.</p>
<p>What is at stake is not another reform cycle. It is whether Bangladesh’s education system can become a system that learns, one that faces evidence honestly, corrects course when needed, and keeps learning at the centre.</p>
<h3>Closing note</h3>
<p>Bangladesh has achieved much by bringing children into school. The next phase is harder and more important. It is about what happens inside classrooms and inside the institutions that guide them.</p>
<p>The country now needs a system that values mastery, protects time for teaching, measures learning honestly, supports teachers to improve, and acts when learning is weak.</p>
<p>This path does not require many new programmes. It requires discipline.</p>
<ol>
<li>Protect the foundations.</li>
<li>Align curriculum and exams.</li>
<li>Make assessment credible.</li>
<li>Support teachers.</li>
<li>Enforce standards fairly.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Return feedback to classrooms.</li>
<li>Remove what gets in the way of learning.</li>
</ol>
<p>If these steps are taken over the next five years, Bangladesh can move from schooling at scale to learning at scale. That is the promise families have been waiting for. That is the promise</p>
<p>this Vision aims to keep.</p>
<p>Table of Contents</p>
<h2><strong></strong><strong></strong>Chapter 1. Purpose and frame</h2>
<p>Bangladesh’s education system is failing its children. For decades, schooling expanded while learning stagnated. Classrooms multiplied, enrolment figures climbed, and certificates were issued in ever greater numbers. These visible signs of progress were repeatedly used to claim success. Yet beneath them, a more damaging reality took hold. Millions of children spent years in school without learning to read fluently, reason clearly, or develop the confidence needed to navigate adult life. This is not a marginal problem at the edges of the system. It is the defining failure at its core.</p>
<p>This Vision begins from a position of moral urgency. A society that allows children to pass through its education system without learning is not merely inefficient. It is unjust. It wastes human potential, deepens inequality, and transfers the cost of failure onto families who did everything they were asked to do. Schooling was delivered. Learning was not.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Why this Vision exists</li>
</ul>
<p>Bangladesh now sits near the bottom of global learning outcomes among countries that have achieved near-universal schooling. This is not because teachers did not work hard, parents did not care, or children lacked ability. It is because learning was never treated as the central test of success.</p>
<p>For many years, the system prioritised expansion, compliance, and visible outputs. Enrolment, infrastructure, and headline examination results mattered. Learning outcomes, especially for children who struggled early or fell behind quietly, mattered far less. Evidence of weak mastery accumulated across assessments, surveys, and classroom observations. It was documented, discussed, and acknowledged. Yet it rarely altered what the system enforced or what it ignored.</p>
<p>The pandemic did not create this crisis. It exposed it. When schools closed, many children lacked the foundations needed to recover without major adjustment. When schools reopened, curricula resumed largely unchanged. The system moved forward. The children who had fallen behind did not.</p>
<p>Bangladesh has now reached a point where denial is no longer possible. The demographic dividend is narrowing. The labour market is unforgiving. Social trust is fragile. Continuing to produce cohorts of young people without strong literacy, numeracy, and reasoning skills is no longer just an education problem. It is a national risk. This Vision exists because there is no second chance at this.</p>
<p>The changes required cannot be achieved within a single plan period or political term. This Vision therefore takes a generational view of reform, recognising that learning foundations established today shape outcomes over the next ten to fifteen years. It defines what must hold steady over that period, while implementation pace and sequencing are governed through the NLIF.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>What this Vision covers and why it matters</li>
</ul>
<p>This Vision focuses on learning from pre-primary through the end of secondary education. These years determine whether a child acquires the foundations that make everything else possible. When these foundations are weak, no later reform can fully compensate.</p>
<p>The Vision covers general education, madrasa education, English-medium schooling, and technical and vocational pathways. It does so not to treat them as equivalent by assumption, but to confront the reality that different streams now offer very different learning conditions and very different futures.</p>
<p>Higher education and adult learning matter deeply. But without strong foundations, they become sorting mechanisms rather than engines of opportunity. This Vision addresses the part of the system where failure is most damaging and where reform still has the power to change life trajectories.</p>
<ul>
<li>What this Vision means by learning</li>
</ul>
<p>Throughout this report, learning is not treated as the accumulation of content, the reproduction of information, or the successful navigation of examinations. Learning is understood as the gradual development of capability, judgement, and agency that allows a child to participate meaningfully in society.</p>
<p>At its core, learning means being able to read with understanding, reason with numbers, communicate ideas, listen to others, ask questions, and apply knowledge to unfamiliar</p>
<p>situations. It includes the ability to think, explain, reflect, and revise one’s understanding over time. These capacities are not abstract ideals. They are the foundations of personal dignity, economic participation, and civic life.</p>
<p>This Vision is grounded in a humanistic understanding of education. Children are not instruments for economic growth, nor are they vessels for rote transmission. Education serves society best when it enables individuals to develop confidence, curiosity, self-respect, and the ability to engage with difference, complexity, and change.</p>
<p>Culture, language, and belief shape how learning is expressed and valued. This Vision respects that diversity, but it does not prescribe moral doctrine or cultural hierarchy. Its concern is whether the education system equips young people with the intellectual and practical capacities needed to navigate adult life with agency and responsibility.</p>
<p>Learning, as used in this report, therefore refers to what learners can actually do with what they know. Where schooling advances without developing these capabilities, learning has not occurred, regardless of enrolment, coverage, or certification.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>The governing failure this Vision confronts</li>
</ul>
<p>This Vision does not assume that the system is doing its best and merely needs refinement. It begins from a harder truth. Systems behave exactly as they are set up to behave.</p>
<p>In Bangladesh, the education system rewarded compliance over competence, reporting over results, and credential expansion over learning integrity. Teachers were monitored but rarely supported. Schools were inspected but seldom empowered. Officials were assessed on completing processes rather than improving outcomes. Parents were told to trust the system, even as they paid privately to protect their children from its weaknesses.</p>
<p>In such conditions, behaviour adapted predictably. When effort was disconnected from results, motivation drained away. When weak performance carried no consequence, it spread. When appearances mattered more than substance, reporting replaced problem-solving and certificates replaced capability.</p>
<p>This Vision therefore does not begin with programmes or pilots. It begins with how the system actually works. It asks what people respond to, what they avoid, and what they learn to prioritise in their daily decisions. It treats reform as a question of behaviour and consequence, not aspiration.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>A break from comfortable narratives</li>
</ul>
<p>For too long, education reform in Bangladesh was framed to preserve comfort rather than confront failure<em>.</em></p>
<p>This Vision makes a different choice. It states plainly that the system failed to deliver learning at scale, and that this failure persisted because it was tolerated. This is not about naming villains. It is about naming governing logics. A system that consistently produces weak learning outcomes is not unlucky. It is operating as it has been allowed to operate. Facing this reality is not pessimism. It is the starting point for serious change.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>What this Vision demands instead</li>
</ul>
<p>This Vision focuses on changing the everyday signals the system sends.<a href="">1</a> It asks whether teachers are supported to succeed rather than merely supervised. Whether students experience early success or repeated failure. Whether information about learning reaches classrooms in time to matter. Whether schools and local officials are trusted to solve problems or simply expected to report them. Whether curriculum, assessment, and pathways reinforce the same priorities or pull in different directions.</p>
<p>Change does not come from exhortation. It comes when effort is recognised, support is real, feedback leads to adjustment, and failure is neither hidden nor ignored.</p>
<p>1 In this document, <em>system</em><em> </em><em>signals </em>refer to the rules, routines, and incentives through which the education system communicates what matters in practice. They are not directives or policy statements. Signals shape behaviour by default — through curriculum scope, assessment formats, instructional time, progression rules, reporting requirements, and the distribution of discretion and support — even in the absence of instruction or directives.</p>
<p>Education systems improve only when they are required to confront evidence, correct course, and respond early to signs of failure. In Bangladesh, information has been collected at scale for years, but it has rarely triggered action. Data travelled upward. Learning did not travel back.</p>
<p>This Vision insists that information must lead somewhere. When learning is weak, something must change. When support fails, it must be strengthened. When rules are ignored, that must matter. Not through arbitrary punishment, but through clear expectations, visible follow- through, and consequences that are predictable rather than selective.</p>
<p>Finally, this Vision treats learning failure as a public responsibility, not a private burden. When parents must pay to secure basic learning, the system has already failed. The task ahead is not to demand more effort from teachers or more patience from families. It is to rebuild a system where effort has meaning, support arrives before failure hardens, information is used rather than filed away, and learning is no longer optional. That is the standard this Vision sets.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>How to read this document</li>
</ul>
<p>This Vision is structured to move from evidence, to system diagnosis, to design principles, and finally to political and institutional commitments. Each part plays a distinct role.</p>
<p>The <em>Executive</em><em> </em><em>Summary</em><em> </em>sets out the problem, the governing diagnosis, the five decisive shifts required, and the lived experience the system must deliver. For many readers, this will be sufficient. It is designed to stand alone.</p>
<p>Chapter 2 documents the state of learning in Bangladesh. It draws on national assessments, household surveys, administrative data, and system reviews to show how weak learning has persisted despite expansion. The full evidentiary record supporting this chapter is provided in Appendix A.</p>
<p>Chapter 3 explains why learning has not improved. It shifts from description to system analysis, setting out the low-learning equilibrium, the dominance of non-learning signals, and why well- intentioned initiatives fail when system incentives remain unchanged. Appendix B should be read alongside this chapter. It provides the analytical framework for understanding how learning dynamics, system domains, and feedback loops interact, and why sequencing and leverage matter.</p>
<p>Chapter 4 reframes success from the perspective of children and families. It describes what the learning journey should look like if the system were functioning as intended, and why coherence across stages matters.</p>
<p>Chapters 5 and 6 translate this learning journey into system design. Chapter 5 addresses curriculum, assessment, and progression as system signals. Chapter 6 sets out what professional accountability and support for teachers must look like under conditions of clarity and coherence.</p>
<p>Chapter 7 examines the enabling systems and political realities that determine whether coherence can be sustained once enforcement begins, including governance, incentives, finance, information, and public narrative.</p>
<p>Chapter 8 establishes the implementation logic and the non-negotiables that protect the reform from dilution, layering, or retreat. It defines what phasing is allowed to mean and what cannot be reopened.</p>
<p>Chapter 9 addresses the conditions that surround learning, including health, equity, technology, and pathways. These are treated not as parallel agendas, but as system conditions whose role is to stabilise learning effort and protect coherence.</p>
<p>Chapter 10 sets out how the system learns and adapts without losing authority or credibility. It defines how experimentation, evidence, and course correction can occur within fixed commitments.</p>
<p>Chapter 11 concludes by articulating the national compact required for this Vision to hold. It specifies what the system is asking of teachers, families, and institutions, what the state commits in return, and where the line will not be crossed.</p>
<p>This Vision establishes the governing framework for education reform. It defines direction, priorities, and non-negotiable commitments. It does not prescribe programmes, delivery mechanisms, or implementation choices. Those decisions belong to the NLIF, which is designed to translate this governing logic into sequenced action over time without altering, diluting, or reopening the commitments set out here.</p>
<h2><strong></strong><strong></strong>Chapter 2. The state of learning in Bangladesh</h2>
<p><strong>This chapterestablishes that Bangladesh expanded schooling and credentials at scale without achieving corresponding gains in learning.shows that learning failure begins early, compounds over time, and is rarely corrected once students fall behind.demonstrates how assessment practices enabled credential expansion while eroding the credibility of learning signals.documents how fragmented governance, weak enforcement, and misaligned incentives normalised low learning outcomes.shows how underinvestment and inefficient spending shifted the cost of learning failure onto households through private tutoring.demonstrates how inequality is reproduced through poverty, gender, disability, language, and stratified education streams.concludes that weak learning is not accidental or temporary, but the predictable result of system choices that prioritised expansion and appearance over learning integrity.This chapterestablishes that Bangladesh expanded schooling and credentials at scale without achieving corresponding gains in learning.shows that learning failure begins early, compounds over time, and is rarely corrected once students fall behind.demonstrates how assessment practices enabled credential expansion while eroding the credibility of learning signals.documents how fragmented governance, weak enforcement, and misaligned incentives normalised low learning outcomes.shows how underinvestment and inefficient spending shifted the cost of learning failure onto households through private tutoring.demonstrates how inequality is reproduced through poverty, gender, disability, language, and stratified education streams.concludes that weak learning is not accidental or temporary, but the predictable result of system choices that prioritised expansion and appearance over learning integrity. </strong><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">establishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Bangladesh</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">expanded</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">schooling</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">credentials</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">at</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">scale</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">without achieving corresponding gains in learning.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">failure</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">begins</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">early,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">compounds over</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">time,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">rarely</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">corrected once students fall behind.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">practices</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enabled</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">credential</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">expansion</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">while</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">eroding the credibility of learning signals.</span><span style="color: #000000">documents</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fragmented</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">governance,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">misaligned</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">incentives normalised low learning outcomes.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">underinvestment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inefficient</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">spending</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">shifted</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">cost</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning failure onto households through private tutoring.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inequality</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reproduced</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">poverty,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">gender,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">disability, language, and stratified education streams.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accidental</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">temporary,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">predictable</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">result of system choices that prioritised expansion and appearance over learning integrity.</span><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">establishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Bangladesh</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">expanded</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">schooling</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">credentials</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">at</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">scale</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">without achieving corresponding gains in learning.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">failure</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">begins</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">early,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">compounds over</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">time,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">rarely</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">corrected once students fall behind.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">practices</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enabled</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">credential</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">expansion</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">while</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">eroding the credibility of learning signals.</span><span style="color: #000000">documents</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fragmented</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">governance,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">misaligned</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">incentives normalised low learning outcomes.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">underinvestment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inefficient</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">spending</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">shifted</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">cost</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning failure onto households through private tutoring.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inequality</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reproduced</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">poverty,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">gender,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">disability, language, and stratified education streams.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accidental</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">temporary,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">predictable</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">result of system choices that prioritised expansion and appearance over learning integrity.</span></p>
<p>For more than two decades, Bangladesh expanded schooling at extraordinary scale. New classrooms were built across the country, enrolment rose steadily, and national programmes reached communities that had long been excluded from formal education. These achievements were highly visible and frequently cited as evidence that the system was on the right path. But for millions of children, schooling did not result in learning.</p>
<p>This chapter makes a difficult claim, grounded in evidence and long visible to those working inside the system. Bangladesh did not merely struggle to improve learning outcomes. Over time, the education system did not merely fail to improve learning outcomes. It actively produced and defended an equilibrium in which weak learning could persist alongside expanding credentials and visible success. This equilibrium was sustained through policy choices, incentive structures, and enforcement practices that prioritised control, progression, and political signalling over the integrity of learning.</p>
<p>Appendix A documents the full diagnostic record behind this chapter, including quantitative evidence from national assessments, household surveys, and administrative systems spanning multiple years. This chapter does not rehearse that evidence in detail. It draws out what it means. Each section presented in this chapter has an accompanying section in the appendix.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Learning foundations, classroom practice, and progression</li>
</ul>
<p>Learning failure in Bangladesh begins early and compounds over time. Around 80 percent of children enter Grade 1 without consistent exposure to structured early learning, language-rich interaction, or age-appropriate cognitive development. Early childhood provision exists, but coverage and quality remain uneven relative to the size of the cohort. These risks have been identified repeatedly in studies, feasibility assessments, and national reviews. They were known, acknowledged, and left unresolved at scale.</p>
<p>Primary schools therefore inherit classrooms marked by wide variation in readiness. Yet the system does not adapt to this reality. Repeated national assessments show that by the end of primary school, fewer than half of students demonstrate grade-level proficiency in Bangla, and only around one-third do so in mathematics. These outcomes have remained largely unchanged across successive assessment cycles, pointing to a structural failure rather than a temporary disruption.</p>
<p>Instead of closing learning gaps, the system carries them forward. As students move into lower secondary education, curriculum demands increase sharply in abstraction and pace. Students are expected to reason, apply concepts, and work independently without having mastered the foundational skills required to do so. Many cannot cope. By the end of secondary school, more than 30 per cent of students have dropped out, with the steepest losses occurring between Grades 8 and 10.</p>
<p>Classroom practice reinforces these patterns. Teaching is dominated by copying, recall, and pressure to complete the syllabus. Opportunities for explanation, feedback, and problem- solving are limited. Effective instructional time is far lower than policy frameworks assume, eroded by teacher absence, administrative demands, large class sizes, and multi-grade teaching. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, curricula were largely reinstated without systematic reprioritisation, despite clear evidence of learning loss.</p>
<p>Students therefore progress through grades without learning. Once they fall behind, the system offers little chance of recovery.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Assessment, credentials, and learning signals</li>
</ul>
<p>Assessment is the organising force of Bangladesh’s education system. It determines progression, status, and access to opportunity. It shapes how teachers teach, how students study, and how families make decisions about time and money. Yet assessment signals no longer reliably represent learning.</p>
<p>Independent assessments show modest levels of mastery, particularly in mathematics. At the same time, public examination outcomes expanded rapidly over many years. Over the past two decades, pass rates in public examinations more than doubled, while independently measured learning levels remained low. This divergence hollowed out the meaning of credentials and weakened their value as indicators of competence.</p>
<p>When marking stringency or enforcement practices changed, examination results shifted dramatically within a single year. Such volatility cannot plausibly reflect changes in teaching quality or student ability. Attempts to alter assessment and curriculum regimes have not failed because they were absent, but because they were contested. Reforms that reduced high-stakes examinations or shifted toward competency-based approaches disrupted established interests, including political narratives, coaching markets, and familiar parental expectations. These reforms triggered backlash through media, partisan mobilisation, and claims of declining standards, leading to partial reversal or reversion. In this sense, assessment dominance was not accidental.</p>
<p>Concerns about examination integrity further weakened trust. Question leakage, automatic pass provisions, and organised malpractice were repeatedly acknowledged in official documents</p>
<p>and policy discussions. These were known vulnerabilities in a high-stakes system that prioritised outcomes over credibility.</p>
<p>Families responded rationally to this uncertainty. When grades could no longer be trusted as signals of learning, households treated examinations as high-risk contests. Private tutoring and coaching expanded rapidly, functioning as a parallel system for managing risk. Coaching focused narrowly on anticipated questions, formats, and marking schemes, reinforcing memorisation and narrowing learning. Assessment ceased to reward mastery. It rewarded access, risk management, and endurance.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Governance failures, incentives, and resource leakages</li>
</ul>
<p>The failure to convert schooling into learning is inseparable from governance. Authority is fragmented across ministries, directorates, and boards with overlapping but incomplete mandates. Curriculum, assessment, teacher management, supervision, and financing operate through parallel institutional chains that rarely converge on classroom learning. This fragmentation diffuses responsibility and weakens coherence.</p>
<p>Accountability flows upward through reports and checklists rather than outward to communities or peers. District and upazila levels function primarily as administrative conduits rather than empowered problem-solving tiers. Supervision focuses on compliance rather than instructional improvement. Information is generated at scale, but consequences rarely follow.</p>
<p>Enforcement is selective and uneven. Rules exist and can be applied stringently when outcomes are politically salient, but are relaxed or inconsistently enforced when learning integrity conflicts with progression targets, institutional convenience, or vested interests. Promotion and career progression are largely disconnected from instructional quality or student learning. In such an environment, reduced effort and informal practices become rational responses rather than aberrations.</p>
<p>Empirical studies document enrolment inflation, diversion of school funds, and weak verification at school level. These are not isolated deviations. They are stable features of a system where discretion is high and accountability is low.</p>
<p>Political incentives reinforced this equilibrium. Visible outputs such as enrolment expansion, infrastructure delivery, and headline examination results were rewarded. Learning outcomes were not. This reflected repeated choices about what would be measured, what would be enforced, and what would be allowed to persist.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Education financing, expenditure efficiency, and cost shifting</li>
</ul>
<p>Chronic underinvestment and inefficient use of resources further constrain learning in ways that are both structural and consequential. Public spending on education has remained low for decades relative to national ambition, demographic pressure, and the demands placed on schools. Where spending does occur, it is heavily absorbed by salaries and routine administrative costs, leaving limited fiscal space for remediation, instructional support, teacher coaching, or school-level problem-solving.</p>
<p>This is not simply a question of how much is spent, but how spending behaves. Weak verification, fragmented accountability, and limited linkage between finance and learning</p>
<p>outcomes mean that additional resources do not reliably translate into improved instruction. Funds flow, but their impact dissipates before reaching classrooms in ways that matter for struggling students, while simultaneously sustaining administrative routines, informal extraction, and private markets that benefit from weak public delivery.</p>
<p>When public provision fails to deliver learning, households absorb the cost. Household surveys show that private tutoring is now the single largest component of education spending for many families. For many households, this is no longer a discretionary supplement. It is the price of survival in an assessment system whose signals cannot be trusted. Parents pay not to get ahead, but to avoid falling behind.</p>
<p>This cost shifting is deeply inequitable. Families with resources can buy protection against weak instruction and volatile examinations. Families without resources bear the full consequences of system failure. Over time, public education shifts from a leveller of opportunity to a sorting mechanism that mirrors household wealth.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Equity and inclusion</li>
</ul>
<p>The system does not fail evenly. Poverty shapes attendance stability, learning outcomes, and progression at every stage of schooling. Children from low-income households are more likely to attend irregularly, fall behind early, and drop out when academic demands increase. Geographic disadvantage compounds these risks, particularly in rural areas, char regions, and urban informal settlements.</p>
<p>Girls experience sharp dropout during adolescence, despite decades of policy attention. Early marriage, safety concerns, household responsibilities, and social expectations converge at the point where academic pressure intensifies and household costs rise. Stipends have supported enrolment, but they have not offset weak learning, examination risk, or the absence of credible pathways beyond schooling.</p>
<p>Children with disabilities remain structurally excluded. Inaccessible infrastructure, limited specialist support, and inadequate teacher preparation prevent meaningful inclusion. Linguistic minority children face a different barrier. They are expected to master complex concepts in languages they do not speak at home, undermining comprehension, confidence, and participation from the earliest grades.</p>
<p>These disadvantages accumulate. Early gaps become entrenched exclusions. By the time students leave the system, outcomes reflect unequal exposure to learning conditions over time rather than effort or potential.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Education streams and stratification</li>
</ul>
<p>Bangladesh’s parallel education streams operate not as equivalent routes, but as stratified</p>
<p>pathways with unequal learning conditions and unequal futures.</p>
<p>Differences in curriculum balance, teacher quality, assessment regimes, and access to supplementary learning translate into sharply different preparation for higher education and employment. English-medium pathways concentrate advantage through smaller classes, greater resources, and stronger alignment with competitive examinations. General and madrasa streams operate under tighter constraints, particularly in rural and disadvantaged areas.</p>
<p>Technical and vocational education remains weakly connected to upward mobility and is often perceived as a terminal pathway.</p>
<p>Mobility between streams is limited in practice. Early placement matters, and later transitions are constrained by curricular mismatches, assessment barriers, and institutional gatekeeping. Private tutoring amplifies these divides, allowing some students to compensate for weak provision while others cannot.</p>
<p>The result is a system that reproduces inequality while claiming neutrality. Credentials appear formally equivalent, but their social and economic value diverges sharply. Opportunity is shaped less by aspiration or ability than by pathway and purchasing power.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>What this evidence means</li>
</ul>
<p>The evidence across learning outcomes, assessment behaviour, governance arrangements, financing patterns, and household responses leads to an unavoidable conclusion.</p>
<p>Weak learning outcomes in Bangladesh are not the result of ignorance, bad luck, or recent shocks. They reflect a system that repeatedly chose expansion over mastery, credentials over credibility, and visible success over learning integrity. These choices were sustained over time, reinforced by political incentives, institutional self-protection, and economic interests that benefited from credential expansion without learning enforcement.</p>
<p>Underperformance was predictable. It persisted because it was politically and administratively acceptable. The system delivered enrolment, infrastructure, and certificates. It did not consistently deliver learning.</p>
<p>For millions of children, this has meant years spent in classrooms without acquiring the skills needed to read with confidence, reason effectively, or participate fully in society. The cost is borne in constrained lives, narrowed choices, and foreclosed futures.</p>
<p>Bangladesh now faces a narrowing window to convert its demographic opportunity into a learning dividend. Appendix A documents the evidence in full. This Vision responds to it.</p>
<p>The question is no longer whether the problems are known. The question is whether the system is willing to act differently, and to accept the political, institutional, and moral consequences of doing so.</p>
<h2><strong></strong><strong></strong>Chapter 3. Why learning does not improve: the system problem</h2>
<p><strong>This chaptershows that weak learning persists because the education system is able to function without learning improvement.explains how incentives, accountability, and assessment reward compliance, coverage, and risk avoidance rather than mastery.demonstrates that teachers, officials, and households respond rationally to these signals, even when outcomes are poor.shows why reforms added on top of existing structures are absorbed, diluted, or reversed rather than changing behaviour.explains that learning does not improve when exposing failure is risky and maintaining appearances is safer.concludes that learning will not improve through more initiatives alone, but only when system rules, signals, and consequences change.establishes that sequencing matters, because some changes must come first to make improvement possible.This chaptershows that weak learning persists because the education system is able to function without learning improvement.explains how incentives, accountability, and assessment reward compliance, coverage, and risk avoidance rather than mastery.demonstrates that teachers, officials, and households respond rationally to these signals, even when outcomes are poor.shows why reforms added on top of existing structures are absorbed, diluted, or reversed rather than changing behaviour.explains that learning does not improve when exposing failure is risky and maintaining appearances is safer.concludes that learning will not improve through more initiatives alone, but only when system rules, signals, and consequences change.establishes that sequencing matters, because some changes must come first to make improvement possible. </strong><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">persists</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">because</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">education</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">able</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">function without learning improvement.</span><span style="color: #000000">explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">incentives,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accountability,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reward</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">compliance, coverage, and risk avoidance rather than mastery.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">teachers,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">officials,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">households</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">respond</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">rationally</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">these signals, even when outcomes are poor.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reforms</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">added</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">on</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">top</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">existing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">structures</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">are</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">absorbed,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">diluted,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or reversed rather than changing behaviour.</span><span style="color: #000000">explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">does</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">improve</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">exposing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">failure</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">risky</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and maintaining appearances is safer.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">will</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">improve</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">more</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">initiatives</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">alone,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">only when system rules, signals, and consequences change.</span><span style="color: #000000">establishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">sequencing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">matters,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">because</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">some</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">changes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">must</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">come</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">first</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to make improvement possible.</span><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">persists</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">because</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">education</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">able</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">function without learning improvement.</span><span style="color: #000000">explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">incentives,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accountability,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reward</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">compliance, coverage, and risk avoidance rather than mastery.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">teachers,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">officials,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">households</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">respond</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">rationally</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">these signals, even when outcomes are poor.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reforms</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">added</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">on</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">top</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">existing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">structures</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">are</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">absorbed,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">diluted,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or reversed rather than changing behaviour.</span><span style="color: #000000">explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">does</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">improve</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">exposing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">failure</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">risky</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and maintaining appearances is safer.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">will</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">improve</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">more</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">initiatives</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">alone,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">only when system rules, signals, and consequences change.</span><span style="color: #000000">establishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">sequencing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">matters,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">because</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">some</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">changes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">must</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">come</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">first</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to make improvement possible.</span></p>
<p>The patterns described in Chapter 2 are not a collection of unrelated failures. They reflect the predictable behaviour of a complex system operating under stable but poor incentives, constraints, and signals over time. When learning does not determine progression, status, or institutional survival, effort shifts elsewhere. When information carries no consequence, it ceases to guide behaviour. When risk is punished and compliance is rewarded, adaptation slows and ineffective routines harden.</p>
<p>This chapter explains why learning outcomes in Bangladesh have remained weak despite repeated initiatives, policy announcements, and technical adjustments. The problem is not that solutions were unknown or expertise was unavailable. It is that the education system has been actively shaped in ways that make genuine learning improvement difficult, costly, and politically inconvenient to pursue. Over time, the system came to privilege visible expansion, controllable metrics, and administrative safety over learning integrity.</p>
<p>In such a system, reform fails because it threatens established incentives, routines, and interests. Initiatives are introduced as additions rather than disruptions. They coexist with unchanged assessment regimes, accountability structures, and political incentives, and are therefore absorbed, neutralised, or reversed. What persists is a stable low-learning equilibrium that is actively maintained because changing it is harder, riskier, and less rewarding than preserving it.</p>
<p>The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, it explains what kind of system the education sector has become. Second, it shows how the low-learning equilibrium is sustained and defended in practice. Third, it sets out what it means to change a system before adding further initiatives. Appendix B presents the technical system logic underpinning this analysis. This chapter focuses on what that logic means in plain terms.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>What kind of system we are dealing with</li>
</ul>
<p>Education is not a collection of independent parts. It is a system made up of classrooms, examinations, curricula, financing rules, supervision arrangements, political incentives, labour markets, households, and social norms. These elements interact continuously. What happens in one part of the system shapes behaviour elsewhere, often with delays that make cause and effect difficult to see.</p>
<p>Because of this interdependence, changing one component in isolation rarely changes outcomes. New curricula are filtered through existing examinations. Teacher training is shaped by classroom conditions, inspection practices, and social expectations. Data systems influence behaviour only if they carry consequences. Household decisions respond to assessment signals, not to policy intent.</p>
<p>Outcomes are therefore not the sum of individual effort or goodwill. They are the product of how the system behaves as a whole. When incentives, risks, and rewards point in one direction, effort flows that way, regardless of stated goals. This is why education systems can appear busy and reform-active while remaining stuck. Activity continues, but learning does not improve.</p>
<p>This reality matters because it explains why long lists of initiatives, even when they appear sensible on paper, rarely achieve their intended purpose. In a system whose structure blocks learning improvement, programmes struggle to take root. In some cases, initiatives do harm by creating new ways to perform compliance without changing practice.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>The low-learning equilibrium</li>
</ul>
<p>Bangladesh’s education system operates in a low-learning equilibrium. Weak learning outcomes are not temporary deviations, implementation gaps, or short-term shocks. They are the system’s normal state.</p>
<p>An equilibrium is defined by what a system reliably produces and sustains. In this case, the education system consistently delivers:</p>
<ul>
<li>high enrolment and visible access,</li>
<li>widespread certification and examination participation,</li>
<li>administratively manageable performance indicators,</li>
<li>politically usable claims of progress.</li>
</ul>
<p>At the same time, it consistently fails to deliver:</p>
<ul>
<li>secure foundational learning,</li>
<li>credible assessment of mastery,</li>
<li>timely correction when students fall behind,</li>
<li>sustained instructional improvement inside classrooms.</li>
</ul>
<p>This combination is not accidental. The system has stabilised around outputs that are visible, controllable, and politically useful, while treating learning as an implicit by-product rather than a binding requirement. As long as certificates can be issued, grades can be managed, and progression can continue, the system remains functional in administrative and political terms, even when learning is weak.</p>
<p>What makes this an equilibrium is that changing it is harder than maintaining it. Improving learning would require confronting assessment credibility, protecting instructional time, enforcing standards that expose failure, and disrupting entrenched routines and interests.</p>
<p>This equilibrium is reproduced through everyday decisions made by administrators, teachers, political actors, and households, each responding rationally to the incentives, risks, and constraints they face. The result is not conspiracy, but a system in which disturbing the status quo is consistently more costly than preserving it.</p>
<ul>
<li>Administrative survival and risk avoidance</li>
</ul>
<p>Within the bureaucracy, survival depends on compliance rather than problem solving. Reporting requirements are clear. Expectations around learning improvement are diffuse and weakly enforced. Speaking plainly about failure carries risk, while managing indicators is safer.</p>
<p>In this environment, maintaining acceptable numbers becomes more important than confronting uncomfortable truths. Learning problems are acknowledged in principle, but rarely pursued to the point where they disrupt routines or expose responsibility. Managing appearances becomes rational behaviour.</p>
<ul>
<li>Classroom reality</li>
</ul>
<p>Teachers operate under intense pressure to complete syllabi, prepare students for examinations, and conform to established norms. Class sizes are large. Instructional time is constrained. Deviating from the expected pace or approach carries social and professional cost.</p>
<p>A teacher who slows down to ensure understanding risks being labelled ineffective or uncooperative. A teacher who experiments risks inspection queries, parental complaints, or informal sanction. Doing the right thing is often harder, riskier, and less rewarded than doing what has always been done.</p>
<ul>
<li>Assessment dominance and distorted signalling</li>
</ul>
<p>Assessment dominates the system. Examinations determine progression, status, and opportunity. Yet assessment practices have become weakly connected to learning.</p>
<p>High pass rates and grade inflation are politically useful. When credibility falters, volatility is tolerated if headline stability can be restored. This creates space for administrative discretion and further undermines trust in credentials.</p>
<p>When assessment rewards coverage and risk management rather than mastery, actors respond accordingly. Teaching narrows. Learning becomes strategic. Reform efforts that challenge this logic face resistance, both overt and subtle.</p>
<ul>
<li>Household adaptation</li>
</ul>
<p>Families respond rationally to uncertainty. When grades cannot be trusted, households turn to private tutoring and coaching to manage risk. Private expenditure compensates for system weakness.</p>
<p>This adaptation stabilises the equilibrium. Families protect their children individually rather than demanding collective change. Inequality widens, but the system remains politically manageable. No single actor causes the problem. But many actors have reasons not to disturb it.</p>
<p>Teaching adapts toexam survivalTeaching adapts toexam survival<strong><span style="color: #404040">Teaching</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">adapts</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">to</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">exam</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">survival</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">Teaching</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">adapts</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">to</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">exam</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">survival</span></strong>System remains functional without learningSystem remains functional without learning<strong>System remains functional</strong><strong> </strong><strong>without </strong><strong>learning</strong><strong>System remains functional</strong><strong> </strong><strong>without </strong><strong>learning</strong>Figure 3.1. The low-learning equilibrium</p>
<p>Assessment rewardscoverage & stabilityAssessment rewardscoverage & stability<strong><span style="color: #404040">Assessment</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">rewards</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">coverage</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">&</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">stability</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">Assessment</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">rewards</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">coverage</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">&</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">stability</span></strong>Results are managed, not confrontedResults are managed, not confronted<strong><span style="color: #404040">Results are managed,</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">not </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">confronted</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">Results are managed,</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">not </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">confronted</span></strong></p>
<p>Risk of exposure is highRisk of exposure is high<strong><span style="color: #404040">Risk</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">of</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">exposure</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">is </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">high</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">Risk</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">of</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">exposure</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">is </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">high</span></strong>Learning remains weakLearning remains weak<strong><span style="color: #404040">Learning</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">remains </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">weak</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">Learning</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">remains </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #404040">weak</span></strong></p>
<p><em>Notes: </em>This diagram illustrates how assessment, incentives, and risk management interact to produce a stable system in which weak learning persists without triggering correction. The equilibrium is not the result of individual failure, but of system signals that reward stability and absorb exposure rather than confronting learning gaps.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Why doing the right things in a bad system does not yield better outcomes</li>
</ul>
<p>Bangladesh has not experienced a simple story of well-designed reforms that failed to scale. Some initiatives were technically sound but poorly matched to the realities of a low-trust, politicised system. Others prioritised visibility, control, or narrative management over learning. Still others actively weakened the learning environment by embedding politicisation, eroding merit norms, and enabling rent-seeking around curriculum, recruitment, and procurement.</p>
<p>A recurring pattern has been the substitution of appearance for change. When the system needed to confront assessment credibility, instructional time, teacher effort, and accountability, it often chose safer alternatives: slogans, revised formats, pilots, platforms, trainings, or announcements. These actions created movement without disruption. Incentives remained intact while progress was signalled.</p>
<p>This pattern was reinforced by the selective importation of international best practice. Models developed in high-trust, high-capacity contexts were transplanted into a system characterised by fragmented authority and politicised implementation. Rather than transforming practice, these reforms were filtered through existing routines. Compliance replaced commitment. Documentation replaced learning.</p>
<p>More seriously, some system choices actively degraded the learning environment. Politicised curriculum content narrowed classroom space and weakened trust. Textbook development and procurement became channels for patronage, producing poor materials and weak instructional value. Politicised recruitment and postings eroded professional norms, signalling that effort was optional and accountability selective. Instructional time was routinely sacrificed to administrative and political visibility, demonstrating that symbolism mattered more than mastery.</p>
<p>Taken together, these practices reinforced the low-learning equilibrium by making credible assessment, professional effort, and instructional integrity politically and administratively costly.</p>
<p>In this environment, even helpful interventions struggle to survive. Teachers who slow down risk sanction. Headteachers who protect learning time risk conflict. Officials who push for assessment credibility risk backlash if results fall. Learning improvement becomes personally risky.</p>
<p>This explains why initiative stacking produces little change. New curriculum language combined with unchanged examinations produces no change. Training without follow-through produces no change. Monitoring without consequence produces no change. In some cases, reforms deepen the equilibrium by expanding the repertoire of compliance.</p>
<p>The lesson is not that reform is impossible. It is that the system must change before reforms can work, and that some entrenched practices must be confronted directly rather than bypassed.</p>
<p>Figure 3.2 Why initiatives fail to change outcomes</p>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>
<p><strong>Initiative</strong><strong> </strong><strong>introduced</strong></p>
</td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p><strong>System</strong><strong> </strong><strong>rules</strong><strong> unchanged</strong></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>New curriculum</p>
</td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>Same exams</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Teacher training</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Absorbed or neutralised</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Same incentives</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Technology</p>
</td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>Same accountability</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Pilot</p>
</td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>Same political risk</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><em>Notes:</em><em> </em>When reforms are introduced without altering examinations, incentives, accountability, or political risk, they are absorbed into existing routines. Activity increases, but behaviour does not change. Learning outcomes therefore remain largely unchanged.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Accountability and the dominance of non-learning signals</li>
</ul>
<p>Accountability for learning is largely absent from Bangladesh’s education system. What exists instead is strong accountability for reporting, procedural compliance, and the maintenance of politically acceptable indicators.</p>
<p>Accountability here does not mean punishment or inspection. It means that learning outcomes carry consequence. Expectations are clear, signals are observable, and failure to improve triggers response rather than accommodation.</p>
<p>In Bangladesh, the strongest consequences attach to non-learning objectives. Schools are judged on enrolment, coverage, examination participation, and compliance. Officials are rewarded for managing processes and avoiding disruption. Political actors benefit from stable headline indicators. None of these require learning to improve.</p>
<p>As a result, learning does not dominate decision-making. It consistently loses to signals that are more visible, controllable, and less risky. Data on learning accumulates but rarely compels action. Supervision focuses on documentation rather than instruction. The low-learning equilibrium persists because accountability is misdirected. The system enforces the wrong things.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Changing a system, not adding initiatives</li>
</ul>
<p>Because accountability is misaligned, adding initiatives does not change outcomes. New programmes enter a system whose incentives, risks, and routines remain intact. They are interpreted, reshaped, or neutralised to fit existing patterns of behaviour.</p>
<p>Signals must change before behaviour can change. When learning carries consequence, effort follows. When it does not, effort flows toward safer substitutes such as compliance, coverage, and risk management. System change therefore requires altering the conditions under which everyday decisions are made.</p>
<p>Credibility must be restored before stakes are raised. Instructional time and professional norms must be protected before new expectations are imposed. Consequences for learning must be visible and predictable, so that improvement becomes safer than avoidance.</p>
<p>Early gains matter because they change beliefs about whether effort leads to results. Beliefs shape behaviour, and behaviour stabilises systems. This is why sequencing is not a technical preference but a structural necessity. Some changes must come first to make others possible.</p>
<p>Taken together, the diagnosis in this chapter shows that learning remains fragile not because of a lack of effort or activity, but because the system repeatedly weakens the conditions under which learning can accumulate. Effort is risky. Feedback is weak or delayed. Trust is thin. Signals pull in different directions. Readiness is uneven and unaddressed. These are not separate problems. They are recurring features of how the system currently behaves.</p>
<p>Appendix B sets out the technical system logic underpinning this argument. What matters here is the implication: learning will not improve until the system is reshaped so that these core conditions consistently support, rather than undermine, everyday learning</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>From system diagnosis to learning dynamics</li>
</ul>
<p>The purpose of this chapter has been diagnostic. It has shown why learning does not improve in Bangladesh despite repeated reform efforts, and how incentives, accountability structures, assessment practices, and political pressures combine to stabilise a low-learning equilibrium.</p>
<p>That diagnosis also reveals something else. Across different levels of the system, the same dynamics appear again and again. When learning falters, it is because students are not ready to engage, effort is not rewarded, feedback arrives too late or not at all, trust is weak, or signals are misaligned. When learning improves, even temporarily, it is because these conditions briefly move in the right direction.</p>
<p>This observation matters because it clarifies the direction of change. Learning will not improve through additional programmes layered onto existing structures. It will improve only when the system is reshaped so that readiness, motivation, feedback, trust, and alignment consistently support learning in everyday practice.</p>
<p>That shift cannot begin with institutions alone. Education systems reproduce themselves through lived experience. What teachers do each day, how students experience effort and correction, what parents can see and trust, and whether learning appears to lead somewhere all determine whether incentives change in practice.</p>
<p>For this reason, the next chapter changes perspective. Rather than extending the system diagnosis, it steps inside the learning journey itself. It asks what a Bangladeshi child and family should experience, year by year, if these core dynamics were working in favour of learning rather than against it.</p>
<p>Chapter 4 therefore does not present reforms, programmes, or mechanisms. It presents the learning experience that the system must be capable of producing before technical change can take hold. The chapters that follow then return to institutions, accountability, and implementation, showing how that experience can be made possible</p>
<h2><strong></strong><strong></strong>Chapter 4. The Learning Journey: What a Child and Family Should Experience if the System Worked</h2>
<p><strong>This chapterreframes education from institutional stages to a continuous learning journey experienced by children and families.describes what learning should feel like, year by year, if the system worked as intended.shows how learning accumulates when readiness, motivation, feedback, trust, and alignment are present.demonstrates how early foundations determine whether later stages deepen learning or compound loss.illustrates how classrooms change when learning time is protected and feedback is immediate and safe.clarifies what families should see, understand, and trust at each stage of schooling.establishes the lived experience that governance and reform must make normal, not exceptional.This chapterreframes education from institutional stages to a continuous learning journey experienced by children and families.describes what learning should feel like, year by year, if the system worked as intended.shows how learning accumulates when readiness, motivation, feedback, trust, and alignment are present.demonstrates how early foundations determine whether later stages deepen learning or compound loss.illustrates how classrooms change when learning time is protected and feedback is immediate and safe.clarifies what families should see, understand, and trust at each stage of schooling.establishes the lived experience that governance and reform must make normal, not exceptional. </strong><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">reframes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">education</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">from</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">institutional</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">stages</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">continuous</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">journey experienced by children and families.</span><span style="color: #000000">describes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">what</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">should</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">feel</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">like,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">year</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">year,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">if</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">worked as </span><span style="color: #000000">intended.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accumulates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">readiness,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">motivation,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">feedback,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">trust, and alignment are present.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">early</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">foundations</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">determine</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">whether</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">later</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">stages</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">deepen learning or compound loss.</span><span style="color: #000000">illustrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">classrooms</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">change</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">time</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">protected</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">feedback is immediate and safe.</span><span style="color: #000000">clarifies</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">what</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">families</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">should</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">see,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">understand,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">trust</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">at</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">each</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">stage</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of </span><span style="color: #000000">schooling.</span><span style="color: #000000">establishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">lived</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">experience</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">governance</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reform</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">must</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">make</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">normal, not exceptional.</span><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">reframes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">education</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">from</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">institutional</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">stages</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">continuous</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">journey experienced by children and families.</span><span style="color: #000000">describes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">what</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">should</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">feel</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">like,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">year</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">year,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">if</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">worked as </span><span style="color: #000000">intended.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accumulates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">readiness,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">motivation,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">feedback,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">trust, and alignment are present.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">early</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">foundations</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">determine</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">whether</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">later</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">stages</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">deepen learning or compound loss.</span><span style="color: #000000">illustrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">classrooms</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">change</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">time</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">protected</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">feedback is immediate and safe.</span><span style="color: #000000">clarifies</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">what</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">families</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">should</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">see,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">understand,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">trust</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">at</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">each</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">stage</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of </span><span style="color: #000000">schooling.</span><span style="color: #000000">establishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">lived</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">experience</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">governance</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reform</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">must</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">make</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">normal, not exceptional.</span></p>
<p>This chapter asks a simple but demanding question: what should a Bangladeshi child and their family be able to expect, year by year, if the education system worked as intended?</p>
<p>Not in policy language, and not from the perspective of institutions, but in lived experience. What learning should feel like on an ordinary school day. What support should be visible. What signals should be clear. What routines should be reliable.</p>
<p>Chapter 3 showed why the current system fails to deliver this experience. It traced how incentives, accountability structures, assessment practices, and political pressures repeatedly weaken the conditions under which learning can accumulate. Across these failures, five dynamics consistently emerged as decisive: readiness, motivation, feedback, trust, and alignment.</p>
<p>This chapter takes those dynamics seriously and re-expresses them from the learner’s point of view. It describes education as a learning journey rather than a sequence of disconnected stages. Skills, confidence, identity, and aspiration accumulate over time. When early foundations are secure, later learning becomes possible. When they are weak, each transition becomes a point of loss.</p>
<p>What follows is not a list of reforms or initiatives. It is a coherent picture of the learning experience the system must be capable of delivering if learning is to become cumulative rather than fragile. The chapters that follow then return to the question of how institutions, governance, and implementation must change to make that journey real.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Early Childhood and Readiness: Arriving Ready to Learn</li>
</ul>
<p>Learning does not begin on the first day of Grade 1. Children arrive in classrooms with very different levels of language exposure, confidence, health, emotional regulation, and familiarity</p>
<p>with structured interaction. These differences are not random. They reflect household conditions, nutrition, access to early learning, and whether children have previously experienced adults responding to their curiosity.</p>
<p>When the system ignores these differences, inequality hardens immediately. Children who struggle early learn that school is a place of confusion and correction rather than discovery. Teachers, facing wide variation and fixed pacing expectations, move on. Gaps widen quietly and persist.</p>
<p>A learning-oriented system treats early childhood not as optional preparation, but as a core readiness function. Its purpose is not acceleration or early formal instruction. Its purpose is to ensure that children arrive in Grade 1 able to participate: to listen, speak, count, play, follow routines, and see themselves as learners.</p>
<h3>What readiness means in practice</h3>
<p>Readiness is not a checklist of discrete skills. It is a state of participation. Children who are ready can sit in a group, take turns, ask questions, and persist when something is difficult. They recognise sounds and symbols, but more importantly, they are willing to try.</p>
<p>This readiness is built through ordinary, repeatable routines: language-rich interaction through stories and conversation; predictable daily structure supported by regular meals; and opportunities to speak, play, and be heard in ways that connect learning to home and community life. These are not enrichment activities. They are the conditions under which learning becomes possible.</p>
<p>Alongside Bangla and home languages, early exposure to spoken English through songs, stories, and everyday classroom interaction supports listening, confidence, and cognitive flexibility, without introducing formal instruction or assessment<em>.</em></p>
<h3>Alignment between early learning and primary school</h3>
<p>Early childhood works only when it is aligned with what follows. When pre-primary emphasises play, language, and interaction, but Grade 1 immediately shifts to rapid syllabus coverage and copying, readiness is wasted. Children who arrive curious quickly learn to stay quiet.</p>
<p>In a coherent system, early childhood and early primary reinforce one another. Play-based exploration gives way gradually to structured learning. Language-rich interaction supports early literacy. Feedback is immediate and gentle. Children experience early success and begin to associate effort with progress. This alignment is achieved not through new documents, but through shared expectations, simple routines, and protected time for early learning.</p>
<h3>Trust, motivation, and early identity</h3>
<p>Early childhood is where trust in the system is first formed. Children learn whether school is a place where mistakes are punished or treated as part of learning. Parents learn whether schools notice their children as individuals or only as numbers.</p>
<p>When early learning environments are calm, predictable, and respectful, children develop confidence. When teachers respond to what children say and do, motivation emerges naturally. No slogans are required.</p>
<p>Vignette: Early childhood experience of Chingma, Age 5In the morning, we sing a song in Bangla and then one in Chakma. The teacher lets us choose which one to start with. I like the Chakma song because my grandmother sings it at home.On the way to school, I pick up a few small stones near the path. When we sit in a circle, the teacher asks us to talk about what we saw on the way. I show my stones. She asks how many there are. We count them together on the floor.Before we go home, we eat lunch at school. I feel less tired in the afternoon now. I like coming to school.Vignette: Early childhood experience of Chingma, Age 5In the morning, we sing a song in Bangla and then one in Chakma. The teacher lets us choose which one to start with. I like the Chakma song because my grandmother sings it at home.On the way to school, I pick up a few small stones near the path. When we sit in a circle, the teacher asks us to talk about what we saw on the way. I show my stones. She asks how many there are. We count them together on the floor.Before we go home, we eat lunch at school. I feel less tired in the afternoon now. I like coming to school.<strong>Vignette:</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Early</strong><strong> </strong><strong>childhood</strong><strong> </strong><strong>experience</strong><strong> </strong><strong>of</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Chingma,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Age</strong><strong> </strong><strong>5</strong>In the morning, we sing a song in Bangla and then one in Chakma. The teacher lets us choose which one to start with. I like the Chakma song because my grandmother sings it at home.On the way to school, I pick up a few small stones near the path. When we sit in a circle, the teacher asks us to talk about what we saw on the way. I show my stones. She asks how many there are. We count them together on the floor.Before we go home, we eat lunch at school. I feel less tired in the afternoon now. I like coming to school.<strong>Vignette:</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Early</strong><strong> </strong><strong>childhood</strong><strong> </strong><strong>experience</strong><strong> </strong><strong>of</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Chingma,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Age</strong><strong> </strong><strong>5</strong>In the morning, we sing a song in Bangla and then one in Chakma. The teacher lets us choose which one to start with. I like the Chakma song because my grandmother sings it at home.On the way to school, I pick up a few small stones near the path. When we sit in a circle, the teacher asks us to talk about what we saw on the way. I show my stones. She asks how many there are. We count them together on the floor.Before we go home, we eat lunch at school. I feel less tired in the afternoon now. I like coming to school.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="532" height="567" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image2.png" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Image2" title="Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education System" /></p>
<p>This vignette captures what readiness looks like when it is working. Learning is embedded in daily life. Language and culture are respected without becoming politicised. Feedback is immediate. Food and routine support attention. The child leaves school wanting to return.</p>
<h3>System responsibility at this stage</h3>
<p>Early childhood readiness cannot depend on exceptional teachers or well-resourced centres alone. It must be systemically reliable. That means:</p>
<ul>
<li>early learning time is protected,</li>
<li>meals and basic wellbeing are treated as learning supports rather than welfare add- ons,</li>
<li>teachers are supported to focus on interaction rather than paperwork, and</li>
<li>expectations for Grade 1 build on, rather than discard, what children have learned.</li>
</ul>
<p>When these conditions hold, readiness becomes a stabilising force. Teachers face less extreme variation. Children experience early success. Parents begin to trust that school is helping their child learn, not merely occupy time.</p>
<p>Early childhood does not solve inequality. But when it works, it prevents inequality from becoming destiny. It gives the system its first real chance to behave differently.</p>
<ul>
<li>Foundational Primary (Grades 1–3): Learning That Builds Confidence</li>
</ul>
<p>The first years of primary school determine whether children become independent learners or passive survivors of the system. When children master reading, writing, and basic mathematics early, they can learn from text, reason with numbers, and participate confidently. When they do not, every subsequent year becomes harder, and early gaps widen quietly.</p>
<p>This stage is therefore not one phase among many. It is the pivot point of the learning journey. At this stage, two dynamics are decisive: motivation and feedback. Children persist when effort leads to visible progress. They disengage when work feels repetitive, confusing, or disconnected from understanding. Teachers improve instruction when they can see what children understand as learning unfolds. They retreat to coverage and copying when feedback arrives too late or carries risk.</p>
<h3>Learning as daily progress, not performance</h3>
<p>Foundational learning succeeds when classrooms prioritise frequent, low-stakes practice rather than rare, high-stakes judgement. Short reading tasks, brief writing exercises, simple number work, and regular conversation allow teachers to observe learning in real time and adjust instruction immediately. Mistakes are expected. They are treated as information, not failure.</p>
<p>When feedback is immediate and usable, children understand what to improve and experience success quickly. Confidence grows not because tasks are easy, but because progress is visible.</p>
<h3>Vignette: Rafi, Age 8<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="460" height="508" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image3.png" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Image3" title="Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education System" /></h3>
<p>Last Sunday, we started with reading time. I chose a book with pictures of buses and roads.</p>
<p>After reading, we wrote two sentences. Mine was short. The teacher circled one word and showed me how to make it clearer. I tried again.</p>
<p>In maths, we watched a short video about mangoes being made into mango juice and amshotto. Then we went to the mango tree in our school yard and counted the mangoes together. We wrote the numbers and talked about which group had more. My friend explained it one way. I explained it another way.</p>
<p>After break, we do a short quiz. It is only a few questions. The teacher says it helps her see who needs more help this week.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>At the end of the week, I brought home three books: one easy, one harder, and one with new words. My father asked which one I liked best.</p>
<p>I felt proud when I finished a book and understood it.</p>
<p>This vignette illustrates how motivation and feedback emerge through ordinary classroom routines rather than formal testing.</p>
<h3>Protecting learning time and attention</h3>
<h3></h3>
<p>Foundational learning is fragile. It depends on time, consistency, and attention. When instructional time is routinely interrupted, when teachers are rushed to complete syllabi, or when classrooms are overcrowded without support, early learning breaks down.</p>
<p>In a learning-oriented system, Grades 1–3 are protected. Instructional time is predictable. Daily routines are stable. Children eat during the school day so that concentration is possible. Teachers are supported to focus on instruction rather than administrative tasks. These protections are not enhancements. They are preconditions.</p>
<h3>Alignment between curriculum, teaching, and assessment</h3>
<p>Foundational learning works only when curriculum expectations, classroom practice, and assessment reinforce one another. When curriculum emphasises comprehension but assessment rewards recall, teaching narrows. When assessment is delayed or disconnected from instruction, feedback loses value.</p>
<p>In a coherent system, early assessments are simple, frequent, and used locally. They help teachers group students, adjust pacing, and identify who needs support. They are not used to rank schools or punish teachers. Their purpose is improvement, not signalling.</p>
<p>Within this aligned structure, continued exposure to spoken English through routine classroom interaction supports comprehension and confidence, without becoming a separate instructional burden or an assessed priority at this stage.</p>
<p>When feedback mechanisms are short and safe, teachers adapt. When they are long and punitive, teachers protect themselves.</p>
<h3>The system responsibility at this stage</h3>
<p>Foundational primary cannot depend on exceptional teachers alone. It must be systemically reliable. That means:</p>
<ul>
<li>feedback is embedded in everyday teaching,</li>
<li>learning time is protected,</li>
<li>early assessment supports instruction rather than anxiety,</li>
<li>and success is defined by mastery rather than coverage.</li>
</ul>
<p>When this stage works, later learning becomes possible. When it fails, every subsequent reform must compensate for what was missed.</p>
<p>Foundational learning does not require innovation. It requires discipline, alignment, and protection. When those conditions hold, children do not merely pass through school. They begin to own their learning.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Upper Primary (Grades 4–5): Trust and Reasoning</li>
</ul>
<p>Upper primary is the stage where learning either deepens or quietly thins out. Students are expected to move beyond decoding and calculation toward explanation, reasoning, and</p>
<p>application. Whether this transition succeeds depends less on curriculum ambition than on whether classrooms are organised around trust.</p>
<p>Trust changes behaviour. It allows teachers to slow down without fear of sanction. It allows students to speak, disagree, and revise their thinking without embarrassment. It allows supervision to focus on instructional quality rather than surface compliance. Where trust is weak, classrooms revert to recitation and coverage. Where it is present, understanding becomes possible.</p>
<h3>Learning through explanation and collaboration</h3>
<p>In a learning-oriented system, upper primary classrooms make thinking visible. Students explain their reasoning, compare approaches, and learn from one another. Group work is structured and purposeful rather than performative. Writing is used to clarify ideas rather than reproduce text.</p>
<p>As reasoning deepens, structured opportunities to use English orally for explanation and discussion help normalise it as a language of thinking, without yet elevating it to a high-stakes or dominant instructional medium.</p>
<p>Feedback at this stage evolves from simple correctness to clarity and logic. Teachers need timely signals about how students are thinking so that misconceptions can be addressed before they harden. Short written responses, oral explanations, simple projects, and guided discussion provide this feedback when they are used locally and immediately. When feedback is reduced to marks or delayed judgement, reasoning gives way to performance.</p>
<p>Vignette: Upper Primary Students, Grade 5At the end of the week, we had a shortThis week, we worked in groups to plan a test. It was not like the exam. The teacher small garden behind the school. The said it helps the school see whether teacher gave us a sheet with three students in different classes are learning questions to answer. We measured the the same things.space and wrote instructions.I showed my mother the pictures at home.When two groups disagreed, the teacher asked us to explain our reasons. She wrote two questions on the board that everyone had to answer in their notebooks.We used a tablet to take photos and upload them to the class folder. The teacher showed us examples from another school. She said they were learning the same topic.Vignette: Upper Primary Students, Grade 5At the end of the week, we had a shortThis week, we worked in groups to plan a test. It was not like the exam. The teacher small garden behind the school. The said it helps the school see whether teacher gave us a sheet with three students in different classes are learning questions to answer. We measured the the same things.space and wrote instructions.I showed my mother the pictures at home.When two groups disagreed, the teacher asked us to explain our reasons. She wrote two questions on the board that everyone had to answer in their notebooks.We used a tablet to take photos and upload them to the class folder. The teacher showed us examples from another school. She said they were learning the same topic. <strong>Vignette:</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Upper</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Primary</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Students,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Grade</strong><strong> </strong><strong>5</strong>At the end of the week, we had a shortThis week, we worked in groups to plan a test. It was not like the exam. The teacher small garden behind the school. The said it helps the school see whether teacher gave us a sheet with three students in different classes are learning questions to answer. We measured the the same things.space and wrote instructions.I showed my mother the pictures at home.When two groups disagreed, the teacher asked us to explain our reasons. She wrote two questions on the board that everyone had to answer in their notebooks.We used a tablet to take photos and upload them to the class folder. The teacher showed us examples from another school. She said they were learning the same topic.<strong>Vignette:</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Upper</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Primary</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Students,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Grade</strong><strong> </strong><strong>5</strong>At the end of the week, we had a shortThis week, we worked in groups to plan a test. It was not like the exam. The teacher small garden behind the school. The said it helps the school see whether teacher gave us a sheet with three students in different classes are learning questions to answer. We measured the the same things.space and wrote instructions.I showed my mother the pictures at home.When two groups disagreed, the teacher asked us to explain our reasons. She wrote two questions on the board that everyone had to answer in their notebooks.We used a tablet to take photos and upload them to the class folder. The teacher showed us examples from another school. She said they were learning the same topic.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="469" height="330" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image4.png" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Image4" title="Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education System" /></p>
<h3>Protecting space for deeper learning</h3>
<p>Reasoning develops through discussion, revision, and reflection. It requires time and stability. When lessons are rushed, classrooms are frequently interrupted, or teachers feel pressure to prioritise coverage over understanding, this stage collapses into surface learning.</p>
<p>In a coherent system, upper primary is protected. Teachers are trusted to manage pacing. Supervisors focus on instructional quality rather than checklist compliance. Schools are encouraged to adapt lessons to student understanding rather than adhere rigidly to uniform schedules.</p>
<h3>The system responsibility at this stage</h3>
<p>Upper primary cannot rely on individual teacher confidence or goodwill. For reasoning to develop consistently, the system must make trust the safer option.</p>
<p>This requires:</p>
<ul>
<li>protecting instructional time so discussion and revision are possible,</li>
<li>allowing teachers discretion over pacing without penalty,</li>
<li>using supervision to support instructional quality rather than enforce uniform coverage,</li>
<li>and ensuring that assessment at this stage rewards explanation rather than recall.</li>
</ul>
<p>These conditions do not require new curricula or complex reform. They require restraint. They require the system to stop interrupting, rushing, and second-guessing classroom judgement at precisely the point where deeper learning begins.</p>
<p>When these conditions hold, upper primary classrooms become places where thinking is normalised and visible. When they do not, fragile learning is carried forward into later years, where it becomes far harder to repair.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Lower Secondary (Grades 6–8): Language, Reasoning, and Belonging</li>
</ul>
<p>Lower secondary is a turning point. Students are expected to move beyond basic skills and begin interpreting texts, explaining ideas, and applying learning to unfamiliar situations. It is also the stage at which many students begin to disengage. The work becomes harder, the curriculum more abstract, and the consequences of falling behind more visible. If confidence and trust are not established at this point, learning quickly becomes mechanical or avoidant.</p>
<p>Language sits at the centre of this transition. Bangla as well as English are no longer only a subject to be memorised. It becomes the medium through which students must understand instructions, express reasoning, and engage with the world beyond school. When language learning is reduced to rote reproduction, students struggle silently. When it is treated as a tool for interpretation and explanation, confidence grows.</p>
<p>At this stage, trust is decisive. Students need to feel safe to speak imperfectly. Teachers need space to slow down, revisit concepts, and adapt lessons based on evidence rather than pace alone. Feedback must be frequent and usable, signalling what matters and what to work on next. Assessment begins to matter more, but it must still function as guidance rather than threat.</p>
<p>Enablers shape whether this is possible. Regular meals affect concentration. Predictable routines reduce anxiety. Modest digital tools support explanation and practice. Short, school- wide assessments help teachers see patterns and respond before gaps widen. When these conditions hold, lower secondary becomes a period of consolidation rather than loss.</p>
<p>In this kind of lower secondary classroom, learning is visible and purposeful. Language connects school to everyday life. Feedback clarifies expectations. Assessment provides direction rather than anxiety. Digital tools support explanation without replacing teaching. Students begin to see themselves as capable of reasoning, not merely repeating.</p>
<h3>Vignette: Lower Secondary Students, Grades 7<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="570" height="332" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image5.png" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Image5" title="Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education System" /></h3>
<p>In English class, our teacher asked us to bring a short text from home. My older sister helped me find a story from an old magazine about a boy travelling by launch on the river.</p>
<p>We read the story in class and underlined words we did not understand. The teacher asked us to guess their meaning from the sentence. When we were unsure, she showed us how to look them up using a dictionary app, which she shared on the classroom screen.</p>
<p>Later, she showed us a photo of a real launch ticket. We worked in pairs to read it carefully. We looked for the date, the destination, the seat number, and the price.</p>
<p><br>Some of the words were printed very small. The teacher asked why it mattered to read them properly. She said this was also English.</p>
<p>After reading, we wrote a short paragraph explaining either the story or the ticket in our own words. The teacher did not give marks. She circled a few sentences and wrote brief notes. She said this helped her see who needed more practice with explanation.</p>
<p>Every few weeks, all students in our grade do a short English test. The teacher showed us a simple chart with the results. I read well, but my writing is still weak. She told me exactly what to practise and gave me a small exercise to take home.</p>
<p>In this kind of lower secondary classroom, learning is visible and purposeful. Language connects school to everyday life. Feedback clarifies expectations. Assessment provides direction rather than anxiety. Digital tools support explanation without replacing teaching. Students begin to see themselves as capable of reasoning, not merely repeating.In this kind of lower secondary classroom, learning is visible and purposeful. Language connects school to everyday life. Feedback clarifies expectations. Assessment provides direction rather than anxiety. Digital tools support explanation without replacing teaching. Students begin to see themselves as capable of reasoning, not merely repeating.In this kind of lower secondary classroom, learning is visible and purposeful. Language connects school to everyday life. Feedback clarifies expectations. Assessment provides direction rather than anxiety. Digital tools support explanation without replacing teaching. Students begin to see themselves as capable of reasoning, not merely repeating.In this kind of lower secondary classroom, learning is visible and purposeful. Language connects school to everyday life. Feedback clarifies expectations. Assessment provides direction rather than anxiety. Digital tools support explanation without replacing teaching. Students begin to see themselves as capable of reasoning, not merely repeating.At 11 everyday, we eat at school. I feel less tired during writing lessons now. On some days, we use the computer room to type our paragraphs. The computers are slow, but I like seeing my writing on the screen. I am learning how to understand and explain what I read, not just memorise it. Bangla feels useful, not frightening.</p>
<p>This is the stage at which many systems lose students quietly. It is also the stage at which the system can still pull them back. When trust, feedback, and alignment hold together, lower secondary strengthens foundations instead of eroding them, preparing students to face the pressures and choices that follow in upper grades.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Secondary (Grades 9–10): Credible Signals and Real Choice</li>
</ul>
<p>Secondary education is where learning becomes consequential. Examinations carry weight. Pathways begin to narrow. Decisions start to feel permanent. Anxiety rises sharply when assessment signals are unclear, volatile, or untrusted.</p>
<p>In a learning-oriented system, secondary education provides credible signals. Students understand what they know, what they need to improve, and what options lie ahead. Assessment informs learning rather than overwhelming it. When signals are stable and intelligible, effort becomes purposeful. When they are not, effort turns strategic and defensive.</p>
<h3>Assessment as information, not threat</h3>
<p>At this stage, feedback must be clear, timely, and interpretable. Students should be able to answer simple questions: What am I doing well? Where am I struggling? What should I work on next?</p>
<p>This does not require constant testing or high-stakes judgement. It requires assessments that are aligned with classroom practice and explained in ways that make sense to students and families. When results are predictable and connected to learning, anxiety declines and focus improves.</p>
<p>Vignette: Secondary school experience of Nosheen and Baisakhi, Grade 9.After our science test, the teacher gives usMy parents receive a message explaining the a sheet showing which skills we haveresults and what support the school will mastered and which we still need toprovide if I struggle. It feels like the school practise. The same format is used in otherknows what it is doing.schools. My results are not a surprise. We have done similar questions in class and online, and the teacher showed usexamples before the test. Once a term, theteacher meets with us to talk aboutpathways. She explains different options, including technical training and further academic study. She tells us what subjects matter for each one.Vignette: Secondary school experience of Nosheen and Baisakhi, Grade 9.After our science test, the teacher gives usMy parents receive a message explaining the a sheet showing which skills we haveresults and what support the school will mastered and which we still need toprovide if I struggle. It feels like the school practise. The same format is used in otherknows what it is doing.schools. My results are not a surprise. We have done similar questions in class and online, and the teacher showed usexamples before the test. Once a term, theteacher meets with us to talk aboutpathways. She explains different options, including technical training and further academic study. She tells us what subjects matter for each one. <strong>Vignette:</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Secondary</strong><strong> </strong><strong>school</strong><strong> </strong><strong>experience</strong><strong> </strong><strong>of</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Nosheen</strong><strong> </strong><strong>and</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Baisakhi,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Grade</strong><strong> 9.</strong>After our science test, the teacher gives usMy parents receive a message explaining the a sheet showing which skills we haveresults and what support the school will mastered and which we still need toprovide if I struggle. It feels like the school practise. The same format is used in otherknows what it is doing. schools. My results are not a surprise. We have done similar questions in class and online, and the teacher showed usexamples before the test. Once a term, theteacher meets with us to talk aboutpathways. She explains different options, including technical training and further academic study. She tells us what subjects matter for each one.<strong>Vignette:</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Secondary</strong><strong> </strong><strong>school</strong><strong> </strong><strong>experience</strong><strong> </strong><strong>of</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Nosheen</strong><strong> </strong><strong>and</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Baisakhi,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Grade</strong><strong> 9.</strong>After our science test, the teacher gives usMy parents receive a message explaining the a sheet showing which skills we haveresults and what support the school will mastered and which we still need toprovide if I struggle. It feels like the school practise. The same format is used in otherknows what it is doing. schools. My results are not a surprise. We have done similar questions in class and online, and the teacher showed usexamples before the test. Once a term, theteacher meets with us to talk aboutpathways. She explains different options, including technical training and further academic study. She tells us what subjects matter for each one.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="586" height="381" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image6.png" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Image6" title="Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education System" /></p>
<p>In classrooms like this, assessment supports decision-making rather than fear. Results are specific. Weaknesses are identifiable. Improvement feels possible. Students focus on learning rather than gaming the system.</p>
<p>When assessment signals are weak or unstable, the opposite occurs. Anxiety rises. Shortcuts proliferate. Trust erodes quickly.</p>
<h3>Choice requires guidance</h3>
<p>Secondary education introduces choice, but choice without guidance is abandonment. In a functioning system, schools provide structured conversations about pathways. Academic, technical, and vocational routes are presented as legitimate options with progression and dignity.</p>
<p>Students are not funnelled silently. They are informed deliberately. Guidance connects learning to future possibilities without reducing education to narrow job preparation. It helps students understand how subjects, skills, and qualifications relate to further study, work, and mobility.</p>
<p>Clear guidance also reduces inequality. When information is shared openly, families rely less on private coaching and insider knowledge to manage risk.</p>
<h3>Alignment at high stakes</h3>
<p>Secondary education works when curriculum, assessment, and pathways send the same message: learning matters, and multiple futures are possible. When assessment rewards memorisation while pathways demand competence, trust breaks down.</p>
<p>High-stakes moments test systems. Integrity must be actively protected. Clear standards, transparent marking, and predictable rules are not technical details. They are what allow effort to remain directed toward learning rather than distortion.</p>
<h3>The system responsibility at this stage</h3>
<p>Secondary education cannot eliminate pressure. But it can determine where that pressure points.</p>
<p>That requires:</p>
<ul>
<li>assessment practices that are stable, interpretable, and aligned with teaching,</li>
<li>clear communication of results to students and families,</li>
<li>structured guidance on pathways before decisions become irreversible,</li>
<li>and protection of assessment integrity so signals remain credible.</li>
</ul>
<p>When these conditions hold, students invest effort with purpose rather than fear. Families trust the system enough to engage rather than hedge. Schools can focus on learning rather than damage control.</p>
<p>When they do not, anxiety dominates, shortcuts proliferate, and secondary education amplifies inequality rather than opportunity.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Upper Secondary (Grades 11–12): Pathways with Dignity and Direction</li>
</ul>
<p>Upper secondary education is the point at which schooling becomes consequential. Decisions made during Grades 11 and 12 shape access to higher education, technical training, employment, and migration. For many families, this stage determines whether years of schooling translate into opportunity or stall without direction.</p>
<p>In Bangladesh, upper secondary has often functioned as a narrow academic filter rather than a stage of preparation. Prestige is attached to a limited set of academic outcomes, while technical and vocational routes are treated as residual. Guidance is weak, information is fragmented, and examination pressure dominates everyday experience. As a result, students frequently invest effort without a clear sense of what that effort is leading toward.</p>
<p>In a learning-oriented system, upper secondary does something different. It provides clarity rather than compression. It connects learning to credible futures without pretending that all constraints can be removed. Dignity at this stage comes from visibility, guidance, and honest signalling, not from eliminating examinations or promising outcomes the system cannot deliver.</p>
<h3>Learning with purpose, not abstraction</h3>
<p>At this stage, learning should feel connected to life beyond school. Subjects remain demanding and assessments still matter, but tasks increasingly require explanation, application, and judgement rather than recall alone. Students begin to see how different subjects prepare them for different pathways, and where further effort is required.</p>
<p>Feedback becomes selective but meaningful. Teachers do not comment on everything. They focus on one or two aspects that matter for improvement. Students learn to revise, refine, and take responsibility for their work. Learning is no longer symbolic. It has direction.</p>
<p>This does not require expensive equipment or imported models. It requires using existing classrooms differently: real examples, structured discussion, short revisions, and clear expectations about what quality looks like.</p>
<h3>Vignette: Grade 11 experience of Sameer, Age 17<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="559" height="608" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image7.png" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Image7" title="Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education System" /></h3>
<p>In Grade 11, our teachers explained that these two years matter because they open different paths. We were not told that only one path was respectable.</p>
<p>In science class, we worked on an assignment about electricity use at home. We listed the appliances we use, estimated costs, and discussed how power cuts affect daily life. We did not use expensive equipment. We used notebooks, a shared school computer, and examples from our own homes.</p>
<p>Our teacher asked us to explain our</p>
<p>thinking, not just give answers. She</p>
<p>returned our work with short comments and asked us to improve one part. I rewrote my explanation and understood it better the second time.</p>
<p>Once a month, the school holds a guidance session. We are told clearly what SSC and HSC results mean for different options. Some students plan for university. Some are interested in technical institutes. Some talk openly about working abroad. Teachers explain what skills and certificates are needed, not just marks.</p>
<p><br>My parents came to one meeting. The teacher explained my subjects and what they prepare me for. My parents still worry, but they understand more. They now ask me what I am learning, not only what grade I got.</p>
<p>Exams are still stressful. Coaching still exists. But I feel less lost. I know why I am studying these subjects and how they connect to life after school.</p>
<p>This vignette reflects an upper secondary experience where learning is connected to real futures. Guidance is explicit. Language and communication are treated as practical capabilities. Assessment pressure remains, but it is framed by direction rather than uncertainty.</p>
<h3>Pathways that are visible and permeable</h3>
<p>Upper secondary works when pathways are made visible early and treated with seriousness. Academic, technical, and vocational routes are explained clearly, using real examples rather than slogans. Students learn what qualifications are required, how progression works, and what risks and opportunities exist.</p>
<p>This includes acknowledging realities families already consider. For many households, overseas employment is a genuine pathway. A learning-oriented system does not ignore this or leave families to navigate it alone. It integrates preparation for language use, communication, digital literacy, and rights awareness into existing subjects rather than adding disconnected programmes.</p>
<p>Permeability matters. Students should not feel locked into irreversible choices at sixteen. Movement between general and technical routes must remain possible, even if imperfect. When pathways are rigid and hierarchical, anxiety narrows motivation. When they are transparent and flexible, aspiration broadens.</p>
<h3>The role of teachers and schools at this stage</h3>
<p>Teachers in upper secondary carry heavy content loads and operate under intense examination pressure. A realistic vision does not demand transformation without support. It requires clarity of role.</p>
<p>Teachers are not expected to be career counsellors or social workers. They are expected to:</p>
<ul>
<li>make expectations explicit,</li>
<li>give limited but timely feedback,</li>
<li>protect learning time,</li>
<li>and participate in simple, structured guidance routines supported by the school.</li>
</ul>
<p>Schools play a coordinating role. Even modest routines matter: one guidance session per month, one parent conversation per term, and one clear information sheet on pathways can significantly change how students and families experience this stage.</p>
<h3>The system responsibility at this stage</h3>
<p>Upper secondary cannot remove pressure. But it can determine where that pressure points. That requires:</p>
<ul>
<li>curriculum and assessment that reward explanation and application, not only recall,</li>
<li>clear and honest communication of results and expectations,</li>
<li>structured guidance before choices become irreversible,</li>
<li>and protection of pathway credibility so effort remains meaningful.</li>
</ul>
<p>When these conditions hold, students invest effort with direction rather than fear. Families engage with confidence rather than hedging through private expenditure. Schools focus on preparation rather than damage control.</p>
<p>When they do not, upper secondary nullifies earlier gains. Effort becomes brittle, trust erodes, and schooling ends without direction. This is why upper secondary is not simply another stage, but a decisive test of whether the learning journey has coherence and purpose.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Parents, Families, and Community: Shared Responsibility</li>
</ul>
<p>Parents and families experience the education system through signals, not policy documents. They judge whether the system is working based on what they can see, understand, and trust. When learning is opaque and assessment signals are unstable, families respond rationally by hedging through private expenditure. When learning is visible and communication is clear, trust becomes possible.</p>
<p>In a functioning system, families receive regular, intelligible information about what their children are learning and how they are progressing. This information does not arrive only at examination points. It is shared through simple messages, brief feedback, and conversations that explain both strengths and areas for improvement. Parents are not expected to become educators, but they are given enough clarity to support routines, encouragement, and effort at home.</p>
<p>Vignette: Parents of two school going girlsWe know which book she should read and what kinds of questions we can ask her at home. Sometimes we talk about the story while she is reading. Sometimes we ask her to explain something she learned in her own words. We are not guessing anymore or worrying that we are asking the wrong things. We feel more confidentThe teacher sends a short message about supporting her, even when schoolwork what our child is learning this week and feels unfamiliar to us.We feel more at what she found difficult. It tells us what she ease as parents.is practising in class and where she might need more help.Vignette: Parents of two school going girlsWe know which book she should read and what kinds of questions we can ask her at home. Sometimes we talk about the story while she is reading. Sometimes we ask her to explain something she learned in her own words. We are not guessing anymore or worrying that we are asking the wrong things. We feel more confidentThe teacher sends a short message about supporting her, even when schoolwork what our child is learning this week and feels unfamiliar to us.We feel more at what she found difficult. It tells us what she ease as parents.is practising in class and where she might need more help.<strong>Vignette:</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Parents</strong><strong> </strong><strong>of</strong><strong> </strong><strong>two</strong><strong> </strong><strong>school</strong><strong> </strong><strong>going</strong><strong> </strong><strong>girls</strong>We know which book she should read and what kinds of questions we can ask her at home. Sometimes we talk about the story while she is reading. Sometimes we ask her to explain something she learned in her own words. We are not guessing anymore or worrying that we are asking the wrong things. We feel more confidentThe teacher sends a short message about supporting her, even when schoolwork what our child is learning this week and feels unfamiliar to us.We feel more at what she found difficult. It tells us what she ease as parents.is practising in class and where she might need more help.<strong>Vignette:</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Parents</strong><strong> </strong><strong>of</strong><strong> </strong><strong>two</strong><strong> </strong><strong>school</strong><strong> </strong><strong>going</strong><strong> </strong><strong>girls</strong>We know which book she should read and what kinds of questions we can ask her at home. Sometimes we talk about the story while she is reading. Sometimes we ask her to explain something she learned in her own words. We are not guessing anymore or worrying that we are asking the wrong things. We feel more confidentThe teacher sends a short message about supporting her, even when schoolwork what our child is learning this week and feels unfamiliar to us.We feel more at what she found difficult. It tells us what she ease as parents.is practising in class and where she might need more help.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="560" height="360" src="https://krishanfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image8.png" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Image8" title="Report of the Review Committee Established to Formulate a Vision for the Transformation of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education System" /></p>
<p>When communication works in this way, families stop managing risk alone. They begin to engage with the school as a partner rather than a hedge.</p>
<p>Community relationships also matter. Schools that connect with local organisations, health workers, and youth groups create broader support structures for learners. School meals, wellbeing services, and safe spaces are not peripheral benefits. They stabilise attendance, attention, and participation, particularly for students facing hardship.</p>
<p>The system responsibility at this stage is to make trust the easier choice for families. That requires:</p>
<ul>
<li>regular, comprehensible communication about learning and progress,</li>
<ul>
<li>feedback that explains what matters rather than simply reporting results,</li>
<ul>
<li>visible links between school learning and future opportunities,</li>
<li>and basic supports that stabilise participation and wellbeing.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
<p>When these conditions hold, families invest time and attention rather than private substitutes. Public education regains credibility through everyday experience, not promise. Shared responsibility emerges because trust has been earned.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Coherence Across the Learning Journey</li>
</ul>
<p>The learning journey only works when it holds together. Early childhood readiness must support foundational mastery. Foundational mastery must support reasoning and exploration. Exploration must feed aspiration. Upper secondary must open real pathways. Each stage depends on the integrity of the one before it.</p>
<p>This coherence does not arise from ambition alone. It depends on alignment across curriculum, teaching, assessment, and support structures. When these elements reinforce one another, learning becomes cumulative rather than fragile. Feedback arrives in time to matter. Motivation grows because effort leads somewhere. Trust develops because signals are consistent.</p>
<p>Enablers such as meals, instructional time, wellbeing support, and basic digital access are not separate initiatives. They are the conditions that allow learning to occur repeatedly and reliably. When these conditions are unstable, even strong teaching struggles to take hold. When they are protected, improvement compounds.</p>
<p>This chapter has not presented a shopping list of reforms. It has described the learning experience that the system must be capable of delivering if learning is to improve in a sustained way. That experience is the North Star that follows from the diagnosis in Chapter 3.</p>
<p>The chapters that follow return to institutions, accountability, and implementation. They ask how governance, incentives, and sequencing must change so that this learning journey is no longer exceptional, but normal—and so that coherence is built deliberately rather than assumed.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>Chapter 5. Curriculum, Assessment, and Learning Progression</h3>
<p><strong>This chapterargues that curriculum and assessment are the system’s primary coordination mechanisms, shaping behaviour far more than policy statements or reform rhetoric.shows that curriculum overload and weak sequencing undermine mastery by shifting coherence burdens onto teachers and families.demonstrates that learning progression fails when movement through grades substitutes for mastery, forcing later stages into remediation and sorting.explains how misaligned, high-stakes assessment rewards recall and predictability, hollowing out the meaning of credentials.locates accountability not in inspection or supervision, but in the signals sent by curriculum priorities and assessment design.shows how weak curriculum–assessment coherence fuels coaching markets, inequality, and loss of trust in public certification.positions curriculum coherence as both an equity instrument and an economic reform that restores the informational value of credentials.concludes that learning improvement requires altering system signals and reinforcing loops, not adding initiatives on top of incoherent structures.This chapterargues that curriculum and assessment are the system’s primary coordination mechanisms, shaping behaviour far more than policy statements or reform rhetoric.shows that curriculum overload and weak sequencing undermine mastery by shifting coherence burdens onto teachers and families.demonstrates that learning progression fails when movement through grades substitutes for mastery, forcing later stages into remediation and sorting.explains how misaligned, high-stakes assessment rewards recall and predictability, hollowing out the meaning of credentials.locates accountability not in inspection or supervision, but in the signals sent by curriculum priorities and assessment design.shows how weak curriculum–assessment coherence fuels coaching markets, inequality, and loss of trust in public certification.positions curriculum coherence as both an equity instrument and an economic reform that restores the informational value of credentials.concludes that learning improvement requires altering system signals and reinforcing loops, not adding initiatives on top of incoherent structures. </strong><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">argues</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">curriculum</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">are</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system’s</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">primary</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coordination mechanisms, shaping behaviour far more than policy statements or reform </span><span style="color: #000000">rhetoric.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">curriculum</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">overload</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">sequencing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">undermine</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">mastery</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by shifting coherence burdens onto teachers and families.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">progression</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fails</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">movement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">grades substitutes for mastery, forcing later stages into remediation and sorting.</span><span style="color: #000000">explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">misaligned,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">high-stakes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">rewards</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">recall</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and predictability, hollowing out the meaning of credentials.</span><span style="color: #000000">locates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accountability</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">in</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inspection</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">supervision,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">in</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">signals</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">sent</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by curriculum priorities and assessment design.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">curriculum–assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fuels</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coaching</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">markets, inequality, and loss of trust in public certification.</span><span style="color: #000000">positions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">curriculum</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">as</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">both</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">an</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">equity</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">instrument</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">an</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">economic reform that restores the informational value of credentials.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">improvement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">requires</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">altering</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">signals</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and reinforcing loops, not adding initiatives on top of incoherent structures.</span><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">argues</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">curriculum</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">are</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system’s</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">primary</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coordination mechanisms, shaping behaviour far more than policy statements or reform </span><span style="color: #000000">rhetoric.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">curriculum</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">overload</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">sequencing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">undermine</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">mastery</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by shifting coherence burdens onto teachers and families.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">progression</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fails</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">movement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">grades substitutes for mastery, forcing later stages into remediation and sorting.</span><span style="color: #000000">explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">misaligned,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">high-stakes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">rewards</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">recall</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and predictability, hollowing out the meaning of credentials.</span><span style="color: #000000">locates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accountability</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">in</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inspection</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">supervision,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">in</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">signals</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">sent</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by curriculum priorities and assessment design.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">curriculum–assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fuels</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coaching</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">markets, inequality, and loss of trust in public certification.</span><span style="color: #000000">positions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">curriculum</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">as</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">both</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">an</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">equity</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">instrument</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">an</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">economic reform that restores the informational value of credentials.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">improvement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">requires</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">altering</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">signals</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and reinforcing loops, not adding initiatives on top of incoherent structures.</span></p>
<p>Chapter 4 set out the learning journey the system must be capable of delivering if learning outcomes are to improve in a sustained way. That journey depends on coherence across stages, clarity about what mastery looks like, and consistency in the signals learners and teachers receive over time. Without these conditions, effort fragments, feedback arrives too late, and learning remains fragile.</p>
<p>Curriculum and assessment are the primary instruments through which this coherence is either created or undermined. They define what counts as learning, how progress is recognised, and which forms of effort are rewarded. In practice, they shape daily classroom behaviour far more powerfully than policy statements or reform rhetoric. When curriculum is overloaded or vague, teachers are forced to interpret rather than enact expectations. When assessment rewards recall rather than understanding, classrooms narrow regardless of stated intentions. When progression is unclear, students move forward without mastering what they need, and the learning journey breaks.</p>
<p>This chapter argues that curriculum is not a neutral technical document. It is the system’s core coordination mechanism. When designed well and reinforced by aligned assessment, it protects instructional time, reduces cognitive overload, and creates shared expectations across classrooms, schools, and regions. When designed poorly, it shifts the burden of coherence onto teachers and families, amplifying inequality and reinforcing risk-averse behaviour.</p>
<p>Assessment is inseparable from this function. Assessment determines which parts of the curriculum are taken seriously, which are ignored, and which are rehearsed mechanically. Together, curriculum and assessment form the learning spine of the system. They are also the most consequential sites of accountability. What is assessed is what is taught. What is taught is what is practised. What is practised becomes the learning experience of students.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Curriculum as a System Signal, Not a Content Catalogue</li>
</ul>
<p>In many systems, curriculum is treated as an aspirational catalogue of content rather than a governing signal. New priorities are added in response to social, political, or global pressures, but little is removed. The result is not ambition, but overload. Teachers face impossible coverage expectations. Students encounter breadth without depth. Mastery becomes episodic rather than cumulative.</p>
<p>In Bangladesh, this pattern has weakened coherence across grades. Foundational skills are introduced but not sufficiently protected. Later grades assume competencies that were never securely established. Teachers respond rationally by prioritising examinable content and visible completion rather than deep understanding. This is not a failure of professionalism or commitment. It is a predictable response to unclear and competing system signals.</p>
<p>A coherent curriculum functions as a constraint. It limits what must be taught so that what matters can be taught well. It makes explicit choices about depth over breadth, and about which learning outcomes are non-negotiable. It sequences learning deliberately, ensuring that each stage builds reliably on the last. In doing so, it reduces uncertainty for teachers and lowers the professional risk associated with instructional focus.</p>
<p>This constraint function is central to accountability. A curriculum that tries to cover everything ultimately holds no one accountable for anything. A curriculum that specifies priorities allows supervisors, school leaders, and communities to distinguish between genuine instructional difficulty and weak practice. It creates a shared reference point for improvement rather than a diffuse set of expectations that are impossible to meet simultaneously.</p>
<p>Curriculum coherence also depends on discipline in content selection. Content cannot be treated as an open vessel into which every social, political, or symbolic priority is placed. When content decisions are driven by political economy rather than learning progression, the result is not relevance but fragmentation. Over time, this undermines mastery, overloads classrooms, and weakens the credibility of the curriculum itself.</p>
<p>A learning system must therefore establish a clear principle: curriculum content is determined by what learners need to know and be able to do at each stage, not by what is expedient to include. Social values, national history, and civic priorities matter, but they must be integrated through pedagogically sound sequencing rather than accumulation. Where content expansion is not matched by corresponding reductions elsewhere, curriculum coherence collapses in practice.</p>
<p>Protecting curriculum integrity is not an ideological stance. It is a governance requirement. Without it, teachers are forced to navigate contradictions they did not create, and the system quietly shifts responsibility for coherence onto classrooms and households.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Learning Progression and the Protection of Foundations</li>
</ul>
<p>Learning progression is not the same as movement through grades. It is the accumulation of capability over time. For progression to occur, mastery at one stage must be a realistic prerequisite for success at the next.</p>
<p>When progression is poorly specified, assessment substitutes ranking for diagnosis. Students pass without understanding. Teachers move on without confidence. Families invest in private tutoring to manage uncertainty. The system appears active, but learning remains shallow and fragile.</p>
<p>A progression-based curriculum makes depth visible. It defines what students should be able to do with knowledge at key transition points, particularly in literacy, numeracy, and reasoning. It specifies which concepts require sustained practice and which can be revisited flexibly. This clarity allows teachers to slow down without fear of falling behind, and it allows school leaders to protect instructional time for what matters most.</p>
<p>Learning progression only functions when it is treated as a binding system commitment rather than an aspirational principle. If progression is acknowledged in curriculum documents but overridden by assessment pacing, textbook sequencing, or examination calendars, it loses operational force. Teachers are then placed in an impossible position, expected to ensure mastery while also advancing on schedule. Predictably, schedule prevails. Making progression real therefore requires explicit protection of foundational stages, clarity about non-negotiable competencies, and alignment across curriculum, assessment, and instructional time. Without this alignment, progression remains rhetorical, and early learning remains fragile.</p>
<p>Protecting foundations is not a pedagogical preference. It is a system necessity. When early mastery is weak, later interventions become expensive, inequitable, and politically contentious. Upper grades are forced into remediation. Examinations become sorting devices rather than learning signals. Coaching markets expand. Inequality widens.</p>
<p>A coherent learning spine reduces this pressure upstream. It lowers the stakes of later reform by ensuring that later stages are not compensating for earlier failure.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Assessment as Reinforcement Rather Than Distortion</li>
</ul>
<p>Assessment translates curriculum intent into behaviour. If assessment signals are misaligned, curriculum collapses in practice regardless of how well it is written.</p>
<p>In Bangladesh, high-stakes examinations reward predictability, memorisation, and coaching. This is not a technical flaw, nor an unintended side effect. It reflects a poorly designed accountability regime that prioritises short-term performance on narrow indicators while failing to verify whether learning has actually occurred.</p>
<p>Under this regime, recall is rewarded but understanding is not tested. Progression is enforced, but mastery is not required. Results are published, but responsibility for their validity is diffuse. Students are judged, teachers are pressured, and schools are ranked, yet no institution is clearly accountable for whether examination outcomes correspond to curriculum goals or real capability.</p>
<p>The result is not disciplined accountability, but its appearance. Actors across the system respond to the strongest visible signal, even when that signal is educationally empty. At the same time, authority over examination design, grading standards, and progression rules remains insulated from meaningful feedback about learning outcomes. Accountability is therefore displaced downward, while control over the signal remains concentrated elsewhere.</p>
<p>This produces both compliance and evasion. Teachers teach to the test because student survival depends on it. Families invest in coaching because they do not trust the signal. Students memorise because depth is punished without predictability. Meanwhile, no actor is held responsible for the widening gap between certified success and actual learning.</p>
<p>Misaligned assessment does more than narrow pedagogy. It distorts the meaning of achievement itself. When assessment rewards recall and predictability, grade inflation becomes structurally likely. Results rise without corresponding gains in understanding, and certificates lose their informational value. This inflation is not evidence of progress. It is evidence that assessment has detached from curriculum mastery.</p>
<p>As signal quality erodes, system-wide consequences follow. Teachers receive affirmation that does not reflect learning. Students progress without secure foundations. Parents interpret success through grades rather than capability. Over time, public confidence in assessment weakens, and informal filtering mechanisms expand to compensate. What appears as success on paper masks a deeper loss of trust in public certification.</p>
<p>Restoring assessment credibility therefore requires more than technical redesign. It requires an explicit commitment that assessment will verify curriculum mastery rather than substitute for it. Without this commitment, accountability remains performative. Actors are judged, but learning is not strengthened.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Curriculum, Assessment, and the Real Location of Accountability</li>
</ul>
<p>To understand why these assessment failures persist, it is necessary to examine where accountability actually sits in the system.</p>
<p>In practice, accountability in education systems does not operate primarily through inspection or supervision. It operates through signals. Curriculum communicates what matters. Assessment confirms what will be rewarded. Together, they define which behaviours feel safe, risky, or pointless for actors across the system.</p>
<p>In Bangladesh, these signals pull in different directions. Curriculum documents articulate broad ambitions, but high-stakes examinations reward narrow performance. Teachers are formally accountable for coverage rather than mastery. Schools are judged by pass rates rather than by learning progression. Families, aware of this gap, hedge through private tutoring to manage risk. These responses are not distortions of the system. They are predictable outcomes of how accountability has been structured.</p>
<p>This is why accountability reform cannot be treated as an add-on or an enforcement problem. It is embedded in the architecture of curriculum and assessment. When expectations are diffuse and signals conflict, accountability shifts downward and inward. Teachers absorb responsibility for outcomes they cannot fully control. Students internalise failure without receiving feedback that explains why. Families convert uncertainty into private expenditure. The system appears active and disciplined, but responsibility is fragmented and learning remains brittle.</p>
<p>Accountability failure is intensified by institutional misalignment. Curriculum goals are articulated through one set of bodies, while high-stakes certification, examination design, marking standards, and progression rules are governed through others, with limited enforceable</p>
<p>mechanisms to ensure alignment. In such conditions, assessment inevitably overrides curriculum in practice, regardless of stated intent.</p>
<p>Expecting curriculum reform to succeed under these conditions places an impossible burden on teachers and curriculum designers alike. When examinations contradict curriculum progression, teachers must choose between professional judgment and student survival. Predictably, survival wins. This is not resistance to reform. It is rational compliance with the strongest signal in the system.</p>
<p>Future system design must therefore resolve this misalignment explicitly. Curriculum authority must be reflected in assessment design, timing, and standards. Where this alignment is absent, accountability fragments, grade inflation becomes structurally likely, and learning outcomes remain unstable.</p>
<p>A coherent learning spine relocates accountability back to the system. It clarifies what mastery looks like at each stage. It aligns assessment to progression rather than coverage. It enables supervisors, school leaders, and communities to ask meaningful questions about practice rather than relying on crude outcome proxies. Accountability becomes instructional rather than performative.</p>
<p>This shift matters politically as well as educationally. Systems that rely on fear, surveillance, and blame to enforce compliance exhaust themselves. Systems that embed accountability in shared learning expectations generate legitimacy. They are more resilient precisely because they reduce the need for constant enforcement and allow professional judgment to function.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>From Curriculum Signals to Market Signals</li>
</ul>
<p>Curriculum and assessment do not stop at the school gate. They shape how young people understand opportunity, risk, and return. Over time, they influence labour markets, credential value, and patterns of investment in human capital.</p>
<p>When learning progression is unclear and assessment rewards short-term recall, credentials lose informational value. Employers respond by discounting certificates and relying on informal screening, networks, or additional testing. Families respond by chasing grades rather than skills. Students respond by prioritising strategies that maximise progression rather than competence. This is the credentialism loop described in Chapter 3, and it is reinforced upstream by weak curriculum–assessment coherence.</p>
<p>A system that does not reliably signal what learners can do cannot support efficient labour market matching. Over time, this erodes trust not only in schools but in public qualifications themselves. The result is a fragmented market in which skills, credentials, and opportunity drift apart.</p>
<p>Curriculum coherence is therefore an economic reform, not just an educational one. When progression is visible and assessment reflects real capability, credentials regain meaning. Employers can trust signals. Students can see the link between effort and opportunity.</p>
<p>Vocational and technical pathways gain legitimacy when they are grounded in demonstrable competence rather than social status.</p>
<p>This is where curriculum connects directly to productivity and growth. A learning system that rewards depth, problem-solving, and application feeds a labour market that values capability. A system that rewards memorisation feeds a labour market that mistrusts formal education and relies on private filtering mechanisms.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Interrupting Reinforcing Loops That Undermine Learning</li>
</ul>
<p>Appendix B shows that education systems stabilise around dominant feedback loops. These loops are not restated here as abstract system dynamics, but to show how everyday classroom behaviour, household decisions, and assessment practices stabilise around a small number of reinforcing patterns unless system signals are deliberately changed. This chapter translates that logic into everyday terms.</p>
<p>When curriculum is overloaded, teachers rush. When teachers rush, students memorise. When students memorise, examinations reward recall. When examinations reward recall, coaching markets expand. When coaching markets expand, inequality widens. When inequality widens, trust erodes. When trust erodes, families hedge further. The loop reinforces itself.</p>
<p>Breaking this cycle does not require heroic effort from teachers or moral exhortation to families. It requires altering the conditions under which decisions are made.</p>
<p>A coherent curriculum reduces overload. Reduced overload allows time-on-task to matter. When time-on-task produces mastery, formative feedback becomes useful. When feedback is useful, teachers are more willing to slow down. When slowing down is not punished by assessment, professional judgement strengthens. When professional judgement strengthens, reliance on private tutoring weakens. When reliance weakens, public confidence rises.</p>
<p>These are not abstract dynamics. They are observable behaviours. Systems that have shifted learning outcomes at scale have done so by changing which loops dominate, not by adding initiatives on top of existing structures.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Curriculum Coherence as an Equity Instrument</li>
</ul>
<p>Curriculum incoherence does not affect all learners equally. It disproportionately harms those with fewer buffers.</p>
<p>Students from educated households can compensate for weak progression signals. They receive help at home, access private tutoring, and navigate opaque expectations. First-generation learners cannot. For them, unclear progression is not an inconvenience but a structural barrier.</p>
<p>A clear learning spine reduces this inequality. It makes expectations legible. It allows teachers to diagnose rather than guess. It gives students repeated opportunities to experience success. It shifts advantage from background to effort.</p>
<p>This is why foundational learning must be protected institutionally rather than rhetorically. When early mastery is secure, later choices widen. When it is not, systems are forced into late- stage remediation that is expensive, politicised, and rarely equitable.</p>
<p>Curriculum coherence therefore performs a quiet redistributive function. It reduces reliance on informal support systems that favour the already advantaged. It converts public schooling from a sorting mechanism into a capability-building one.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>From Learning Journey to System Design</li>
</ul>
<p>This chapter has grounded the learning journey described in Chapter 4 in its core system mechanisms. Curriculum defines what learning is. Assessment determines which learning counts. Together, they shape behaviour across classrooms, households, and markets.</p>
<p>They also define the feasible space for reform. Without a coherent learning spine, teachers are asked to compensate for systemic ambiguity. Assessment reform becomes politically risky. Accountability oscillates between neglect and punishment. Enabling systems struggle to stabilise impact.</p>
<p>With coherence, the burden shifts back to institutions rather than individuals. Expectations become explicit. Feedback arrives earlier. Accountability becomes meaningful rather than symbolic. Trust has something concrete to anchor to.</p>
<p>The next chapter turns to teachers on these terms. Teachers are no longer positioned as heroic interpreters of vague ambition or as shock absorbers for systemic incoherence. They are professionals working within a system that has made clear, enforceable choices about what learning it is responsible for delivering, and about how that responsibility will be shared.</p>
<h2><strong></strong><strong></strong>Chapter 6. Teachers as Professionals in a Coherent System</h2>
<p>This chapter</p>
<ol>
<li>shows how long-standing curriculum overload, assessment volatility, and weak learning enforcement shaped teaching practice toward compliance, coverage, and recall rather than instructional quality.</li>
<li>demonstrates that system incoherence both constrained committed teachers and protected weak practice by diffusing responsibility for learning outcomes.</li>
<li>explains how curriculum and assessment coherence reorders accountability by clarifying expectations, stabilising signals, and making instructional practice observable rather than ambiguous.</li>
<li>examines how professional accountability shifts from procedural compliance to classroom practice once mastery, progression, and assessment alignment are enforced.</li>
<li>sets out what professional support must look like under clarity, emphasising classroom-embedded coaching, feedback, and instructional leadership rather than episodic training.</li>
<li>identifies the limits of professional development in a system with uneven capability, and explains why remediation, redeployment, and exit pathways become unavoidable once expectations are enforceable.</li>
<li>reframes teacher wellbeing as sustainability under coherent expectations, linking workload, administrative burden, supervision, and learning outcomes rather than treating wellbeing as insulation from accountability.</li>
<li>concludes that teacher professionalisation depends on system coherence, and that enforcing learning integrity necessarily entails confronting uneven practice rather than accommodating it through ambiguity.</li>
</ol>
<p>Chapter 5 established curriculum and assessment as the system’s learning spine. It showed that when priorities are explicit, progression is binding, and assessment verifies mastery rather than recall, the system makes a decisive shift from managing appearances to enforcing learning. This shift does not merely improve technical coherence. It fundamentally reorders responsibility, with direct consequences for teachers.</p>
<p>For decades, teaching in Bangladesh took place within systemic ambiguity. Overloaded curricula, contradictory directives, volatile examinations, and unrealistic pacing created conditions in which weak instruction could plausibly be attributed to system failure rather than classroom practice. In that environment, mechanical teaching, rote rehearsal, and coverage- driven instruction were often defensible adaptations to incoherent signals. Teachers operated in a system that rewarded compliance, tolerated low instructional ambition, and rarely verified whether learning had actually occurred.</p>
<p>However, ambiguity did more than constrain committed teachers. It also protected poor practice. Weak selection into teaching, limited screening for aptitude, and low expectations of instructional quality allowed some individuals to enter and remain in the profession precisely because it permitted minimal effort, predictable routines, and time for activities outside the classroom. In a system where learning outcomes were weakly enforced and assessment rewarded recall, such behaviour carried little professional cost. Compliance was sufficient. Instructional quality was optional.</p>
<p>Coherence changes this equilibrium. Once curriculum priorities are narrowed, learning progression is explicit, and assessment verifies mastery, the space for both excuse and evasion contracts. Teachers are no longer navigating noise. Expectations are clearer, instructional time is more defensible, and assessment signals are more stable. Under these conditions, persistent mechanical teaching is no longer a rational adaptation to system incoherence. It is a professional failure.</p>
<p>This chapter therefore does not proceed from a presumption of teacher virtue. It proceeds from a redefinition of accountability under clarity. When the system makes enforceable choices about what learning it is responsible for delivering, it also makes enforceable claims about professional behaviour. Some teachers will thrive under this shift. Others will struggle. Some will resist. That is unavoidable. What matters is that responsibility is no longer displaced onto curriculum documents, examination volatility, or administrative contradiction.</p>
<p>Teachers are no longer positioned as shock absorbers for systemic incoherence or as heroic interpreters of vague ambition. They are positioned as professionals operating within defined expectations, stable signals, and real consequences. With that repositioning comes both protection and obligation. This chapter sets out what the system now guarantees to teachers, what teachers are therefore accountable for, which practices are no longer acceptable once coherence exists, and what professional support must look like in a system that has decided to take learning seriously rather than symbolically.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Professional Accountability Under Coherence</li>
</ul>
<p>The reordering of responsibility described above is not abstract. It has concrete implications for how teaching is defined, evaluated, and supported. Once curriculum priorities are narrowed, progression is binding, and assessment verifies mastery, the system makes a set of commitments to teachers. Those commitments, in turn, ground a sharper and more enforceable conception of professional accountability.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>What the System Now Guarantees</h3>
<p>A coherent system makes specific guarantees to teachers, and these guarantees are not symbolic.</p>
<p>First, it guarantees curriculum clarity. Teachers are no longer asked to cover everything. They are asked to teach what matters, in the order it matters, with sufficient time to secure mastery. Priority replaces accumulation, and depth replaces superficial completion.</p>
<p>Second, it guarantees assessment alignment. Teachers are no longer penalised for slowing down to ensure understanding. Examinations and progression rules reinforce curriculum intent rather than contradict it, removing the long-standing conflict between teaching well and helping students survive the system.</p>
<p>Third, it guarantees realistic instructional scope. Foundational learning is protected, pacing assumptions are defensible, and teachers are not expected to compensate for systemic overload through personal sacrifice, improvisation, or informal workarounds.</p>
<p>Fourth, it reduces noise. Administrative directives, reporting requirements, and reform initiatives are constrained by the learning spine rather than layered indiscriminately on top of</p>
<p>it. Teachers receive fewer, clearer signals about what matters, and those signals are stable over time.</p>
<p>These guarantees matter because they narrow the space of acceptable explanation. Once they exist, persistent weak instruction can no longer be attributed to impossible conditions. The system has created the conditions under which professional judgement can operate. It can now expect that judgement to be exercised.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>What Teachers Are Therefore Accountable For</h3>
<p>Under coherence, accountability shifts decisively from compliance to practice. Teachers are accountable for instructional quality. This includes how concepts are explained, how understanding is checked, how errors are responded to, and how lesson time is allocated. Teaching is no longer defined by syllabus completion or examination preparation alone, but by whether students are actually learning what the system has deemed essential.</p>
<p>They are accountable for the exercise of professional judgement. Decisions about pacing, differentiation, and when to slow down to secure mastery are no longer optional or deferrable. Once mastery is non-negotiable, judgement becomes a professional obligation rather than a discretionary add-on.</p>
<p>They are accountable for classroom practice. Passive supervision, extended copying, and mechanical rehearsal without feedback are no longer defensible strategies when expectations are realistic and instructional time is protected.</p>
<p>They are accountable for engagement with feedback. When assessment and supervision generate usable information about learning, ignoring that information is no longer neutral. It represents a failure to act on evidence within one’s professional remit.</p>
<p>This is a substantially higher bar than the system has historically enforced. That is deliberate. A system that clarifies its expectations must also accept the consequences of enforcing them.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>What Is No Longer Acceptable</h3>
<p>Once coherence exists, several practices lose legitimacy. Mechanical coverage is no longer acceptable. Advancing through content without evidence of understanding is not neutral compliance. It is instructional neglect.</p>
<p>Passive compliance is no longer acceptable. Following directives without engaging intellectually with their purpose is incompatible with professional teaching under clarity.</p>
<p>Reliance on coaching markets is no longer acceptable. Teachers cannot outsource instructional responsibility to private tutors while retaining public authority. Coaching markets expanded because assessment signals were untrustworthy. When assessment verifies mastery, that justification disappears.</p>
<p>Avoidance of instructional responsibility is no longer acceptable. Persistent weak learning cannot be attributed solely to student background once foundations are protected and expectations are realistic.</p>
<p>These are not moral judgements about individual teachers. They are structural implications of coherence. A system that does not enforce these boundaries will reproduce the very equilibrium it claims to reject, regardless of how well its curriculum or assessments are written.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>What Professional Support Looks Like Under Clarity</li>
</ul>
<p>Higher expectations without support would be punitive, but support that is disconnected from instructional responsibility is equally corrosive. Under coherence, professional support must therefore change in both form and purpose. In an incoherent system, support is typically episodic, generic, and symbolic. Workshops substitute for practice, training is delivered away from classrooms, and new ideas are introduced without follow-through. Teachers are left to translate abstract guidance into daily instruction on their own. In such conditions, professional development becomes performative: attendance replaces learning, certification replaces improvement, and very little changes inside classrooms.</p>
<p>A coherent system cannot rely on this model. Once curriculum priorities are explicit and assessment verifies mastery, professional support must move directly into the instructional core. Support shifts from transmission to practice, and from exposure to accountability. Mentoring, observation, and coaching focused on real classrooms become central rather than supplementary. Teachers need structured opportunities to see effective instruction enacted against the actual curriculum they are responsible for teaching, to attempt new approaches with their own students, and to receive feedback grounded in evidence of learning rather than compliance with procedure. This form of support makes instructional quality visible. It also makes avoidance visible. That visibility is not a side effect. It is the point.</p>
<p>Collaboration replaces isolation, but not as an abstract professional value. Professional learning communities organised around curriculum progression, student work, and common assessment tasks create peer accountability that is more credible than external inspection. When teachers examine student errors together, compare instructional choices, and observe one another teaching the same material, weak practice is harder to hide and strong practice is easier to diffuse. Collegiality under clarity is therefore not about comfort or morale alone. It is about shared responsibility for learning outcomes.</p>
<p>School leadership is pivotal in this shift. Under coherence, the role of school leaders is redefined. They are no longer primarily administrators of rules or intermediaries for directives. Their central responsibility becomes instructional leadership: diagnosing teaching practice, prioritising support where learning is weakest, protecting time for professional work, and sustaining a culture in which improvement is expected rather than optional. Leadership that cannot engage with instruction does not remain neutral under these conditions. It becomes a bottleneck rather than a support.</p>
<p>This model of professional support is demanding. It requires time, instructional expertise, and sustained investment. It also requires the system to tolerate visible struggle during transition, as teaching practice is exposed to scrutiny that was previously absent. However, it is the only form of support that is commensurate with the expectations the system has now set. Professional support under clarity is not a substitute for accountability. It is its counterpart. Support exists to enable teachers to meet higher standards, not to excuse their absence. Where support is provided and learning does not improve, the system gains information it previously lacked. That information is essential for distinguishing between teachers who require further development and those who are unwilling or unable to meet professional expectations.</p>
<p>Without this form of support, higher standards collapse into rhetoric. With it, responsibility becomes actionable.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Selection, Capability, and the Limits of Reform</li>
</ul>
<p>Curriculum and assessment coherence expose a difficult truth that has long been obscured by system ambiguity. Not all teachers currently in the system will be able to meet the expectations that coherence makes enforceable. This is not a speculative risk. It is an empirical consequence of years of weak selection, uneven preparation, limited screening for instructional aptitude, and an accountability regime that tolerated low instructional ambition as long as procedural compliance was maintained.</p>
<p>This outcome is not the failure of individuals alone. It is the predictable result of a system that prioritised staffing stability, credential fulfilment, and administrative coverage over subject mastery, pedagogical capability, and classroom performance. However, once coherence exists, that history can no longer be used to defer responsibility indefinitely. Exposure creates choice. The system must decide whether it is willing to act on the information coherence generates.</p>
<p>There are only two viable paths. The first is to dilute expectations in order to accommodate current capability. This path preserves surface stability, avoids confrontation, and reassures incumbents, but it reproduces the very equilibrium that Chapter 2 diagnosed. Learning remains optional, credentials continue to drift away from capability, and reform collapses into symbolic adjustment. The second path is to maintain expectations and confront the institutional and political consequences of doing so. This path is difficult. It requires confronting uneven performance, managing resistance, and accepting that not all incumbents will remain in instructional roles. But it is the only path consistent with taking learning seriously.</p>
<p>Professional development has a central role in this transition, but its limits must be acknowledged explicitly. Training and mentoring can raise capability over time where foundational knowledge exists and effort is present. They cannot indefinitely compensate for weak subject mastery, persistent instructional avoidance, or refusal to engage with feedback once expectations are clear and support is available. A system that pretends otherwise merely postpones failure and shifts its cost onto students.</p>
<p>Clear standards therefore require clear pathways. These include structured remediation for teachers with development potential, redeployment to non-instructional roles where appropriate, and exit mechanisms where minimum professional standards cannot be met despite support. These pathways are not punitive instruments. They are governance necessities in a system that claims learning as a non-negotiable outcome rather than a hopeful aspiration.</p>
<p>Once coherence exists, protecting every incumbent becomes incompatible with protecting learning. This is not an argument against teachers. It is an argument against pretending that reform can succeed without confronting selection, capability, and the limits of accommodation. A system that refuses to make these choices will eventually make a different one by default: it will sacrifice learning while preserving appearances.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Wellbeing as Sustainability Under Professional Expectations</li>
</ul>
<p>Teacher wellbeing has often been framed as protection from pressure or as a compensatory response to systemic failure. Under coherence, it must be reframed more precisely as</p>
<p>sustainability under real professional expectations. A system that is serious about learning cannot promise comfort, but it must guarantee conditions under which sustained, demanding work is possible.</p>
<p>Wellbeing in this sense is not an emotional abstraction. It rests on concrete institutional conditions: manageable workload, predictable routines, timely salary disbursement, and supervision that is firm but respectful. It requires the deliberate removal of unnecessary administrative burden so that teachers’ cognitive and emotional effort can be directed toward instruction rather than compliance. When reporting, monitoring, and directive overload dominate the working day, stress is not an individual resilience problem. It is a system design failure.</p>
<p>Wellbeing under coherence also requires honesty about the nature of the work. Teaching in a system that enforces mastery is demanding. It requires sustained attention, diagnostic skill, responsiveness to student misunderstanding, and emotional labour in classrooms where failure is no longer hidden by automatic progression. A system that softens this reality in rhetoric while intensifying expectations in practice undermines trust and accelerates burnout.</p>
<p>Sustainable professionalism emerges when effort is meaningfully connected to outcomes. When instructional improvement leads to visible learning gains, when feedback is timely and usable, and when excellence is recognised through practice rather than symbolic praise, professional motivation stabilises. In such conditions, wellbeing is not achieved by lowering expectations, but by ensuring that expectations are coherent, effort is not wasted, and teachers can see that their work matters.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>From Teacher Reform to System Credibility</li>
</ul>
<p>This chapter has not argued that teachers are the sole lever of reform. It has argued the opposite. Teachers cannot be professionalised in the absence of system coherence, and no amount of exhortation, training, or surveillance can substitute for clear curriculum priorities, aligned assessment, and realistic instructional scope.</p>
<p>Once coherence begins to take hold, however, teacher behaviour becomes central. Instructional responsibility moves closer to classrooms. Avoidance becomes visible. Excellence becomes distinguishable from routine. The system can no longer plausibly attribute weak learning to ambiguity alone.</p>
<p>This shift is uncomfortable. It exposes uneven capability, entrenched habits, and resistance that was previously obscured by incoherence. It also makes clear that professionalisation is not a rhetorical commitment but a practical one, with consequences for selection, support, progression, and exit. A system that is unwilling to confront these implications will inevitably dilute expectations and reproduce the equilibrium described in Chapter 2.</p>
<p>At the same time, this chapter does not assume that the system can move instantly from today’s conditions to full professional accountability. Many teachers will require sustained support to meet higher expectations. Some will improve. Some will struggle. Some will not adapt. That transition must be managed deliberately rather than denied. The National Learning Implementation Framework, which accompanies this document, sets out the sequencing, safeguards, and institutional mechanisms required to move from clarity on paper to capability in practice, without either retreating from standards or imposing them prematurely.</p>
<p>Professional judgement, in this sense, is not assumed to be uniformly present today. It is learned, exercised, and verified over time under conditions of clarity. Coherence does not presuppose a fully capable workforce on day one. It creates the conditions under which capability can be developed, observed, and distinguished from avoidance. Without those conditions, judgement cannot be meaningfully assessed at all. With them, it becomes possible to invest in development where potential exists and to act decisively where it does not.</p>
<p>What is not optional is direction. The system must be explicit about where it is heading, what professionalism will mean once coherence is established, and which practices will ultimately no longer be tolerated. Phasing is a strategy for change, not a justification for delay.</p>
<p>The next chapter turns to enabling systems. It asks whether governance, resourcing, and institutional design are capable of sustaining this transition over time, or whether political pressure, administrative inertia, and vested interests will force a retreat back into ambiguity. The credibility of the entire reform agenda rests on that choice.</p>
<h2><strong></strong><strong></strong>Chapter 7. Enabling Systems and the Politics of Sustaining Coherence</h2>
<p><strong>This chaptershows how coherence shifts responsibility upward from classrooms to the institutions that govern, certify, finance, and defend the education systemexplains why coherence generates conflict rather than harmony by exposing deferred decisions and institutional contradictions once learning outcomes become visibledemonstrates how governance structures built for administration struggle when required to enforce alignment and arbitrate instructional standardsanalyses how weak sideways enforcement allows institutions to absorb pressure through delay, parallel interpretation, and exception-makingshows how career systems become the primary site where enforcement either gains consequence or collapses into dilution once performance is differentiatedexamines how finance and verification systems can stabilise retreat by prioritising paperwork compliance over instructional consequenceexplains why data systems fail when information circulates without feedback loops that trigger correction, support, or sanctionconcludes that system credibility is tested at the point of political pressure, and that sustaining coherence depends on institutions choosing enforcement over retreat into ambiguityThis chaptershows how coherence shifts responsibility upward from classrooms to the institutions that govern, certify, finance, and defend the education systemexplains why coherence generates conflict rather than harmony by exposing deferred decisions and institutional contradictions once learning outcomes become visibledemonstrates how governance structures built for administration struggle when required to enforce alignment and arbitrate instructional standardsanalyses how weak sideways enforcement allows institutions to absorb pressure through delay, parallel interpretation, and exception-makingshows how career systems become the primary site where enforcement either gains consequence or collapses into dilution once performance is differentiatedexamines how finance and verification systems can stabilise retreat by prioritising paperwork compliance over instructional consequenceexplains why data systems fail when information circulates without feedback loops that trigger correction, support, or sanctionconcludes that system credibility is tested at the point of political pressure, and that sustaining coherence depends on institutions choosing enforcement over retreat into ambiguity </strong><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">shifts</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">responsibility</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">upward</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">from</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">classrooms</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the institutions that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">govern, certify, finance, and defend the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">education system</span><span style="color: #000000">explains why coherence generates conflict rather than harmony by exposing deferred</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">decisions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">institutional</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">contradictions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">once</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">outcomes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">become </span><span style="color: #000000">visible</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">governance</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">structures</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">built</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">for</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">administration</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">struggle</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when required to enforce alignment and arbitrate instructional standards</span><span style="color: #000000">analyses</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">sideways</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">allows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">institutions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">absorb</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pressure through delay, parallel interpretation, and exception-making</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">career</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">systems</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">become</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">primary</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">site</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">where</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">either</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">gains consequence or collapses into dilution once performance is differentiated</span><span style="color: #000000">examines</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">finance</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">verification</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">systems</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">can</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">stabilise</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">prioritising paperwork compliance over instructional consequence</span><span style="color: #000000">explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">data</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">systems</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fail</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">information</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">circulates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">without</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">feedback</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">loops that trigger correction, support, or sanction</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system credibility is tested at</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">point</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of political</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pressure, and that sustaining</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">depends</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">on</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">institutions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">choosing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">over</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">into </span><span style="color: #000000">ambiguity</span><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">shifts</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">responsibility</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">upward</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">from</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">classrooms</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the institutions that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">govern, certify, finance, and defend the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">education system</span><span style="color: #000000">explains why coherence generates conflict rather than harmony by exposing deferred</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">decisions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">institutional</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">contradictions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">once</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">outcomes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">become </span><span style="color: #000000">visible</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">governance</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">structures</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">built</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">for</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">administration</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">struggle</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when required to enforce alignment and arbitrate instructional standards</span><span style="color: #000000">analyses</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">sideways</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">allows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">institutions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">absorb</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pressure through delay, parallel interpretation, and exception-making</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">career</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">systems</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">become</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">primary</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">site</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">where</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">either</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">gains consequence or collapses into dilution once performance is differentiated</span><span style="color: #000000">examines</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">finance</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">verification</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">systems</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">can</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">stabilise</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">prioritising paperwork compliance over instructional consequence</span><span style="color: #000000">explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">data</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">systems</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fail</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">information</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">circulates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">without</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">feedback</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">loops that trigger correction, support, or sanction</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system credibility is tested at</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">point</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of political</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pressure, and that sustaining</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">depends</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">on</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">institutions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">choosing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">over</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">into </span><span style="color: #000000">ambiguity</span></p>
<p>Chapters 5 and 6 established what coherence requires. Curriculum priorities must be explicit, assessment must verify mastery, and teachers must be held professionally accountable under clear and enforceable expectations. Together, these shifts move the system away from managing appearances and toward enforcing learning as a concrete outcome rather than a symbolic aspiration.</p>
<p>Once this happens, the weakest link in the system changes. Under ambiguity, weak learning could be absorbed at the classroom level. Overloaded curricula, volatile examinations, and contradictory directives provided plausible explanations for failure, allowing responsibility to float across actors and institutions. Enforcement never fully arrived, and institutional arrangements remained intact even as learning deteriorated.</p>
<p>Under coherence, responsibility moves upward. When curriculum is narrowed, assessment aligned, and instructional expectations clarified, weak learning is no longer plausibly explained by design failure alone. It becomes visible as an enforcement problem. Pressure shifts away from teachers and toward the institutions that govern, certify, finance, monitor, and defend the system.</p>
<p>This is where reform has historically broken. Coherence does not create harmony. It creates conflict. It forces decisions that were previously deferred, exposes contradictions between mandates, and makes retreat politically tempting. The critical moment arrives when mastery- verified assessment produces its first visible shock, for example when examination results no longer match the familiar story of steady improvement and high pass rates, and when previously hidden variation in performance becomes publicly legible.</p>
<p>This chapter examines whether Bangladesh’s enabling systems are capable of sustaining coherence once that shock arrives, or whether they will absorb pressure by softening standards, carving exceptions, and allowing ambiguity to re-enter through institutional practice. The test is not technical readiness, but credibility under pressure.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Governance Under Coherence: From Administration to Enforcement</li>
</ul>
<p>Education governance in Bangladesh has been built to administer scale rather than to enforce learning integrity. Its core functions are distribution, staffing, reporting, approvals, and compliance monitoring. These functions are indispensable in a large and complex system, but they were never designed to arbitrate instructional standards or to resolve conflicts over what counts as mastery once expectations harden.</p>
<p>Coherence changes the role governance must play. Once curriculum priorities are explicit and assessment verifies mastery, governance can no longer operate primarily as a transmission mechanism. Someone must decide whose interpretation holds, what constitutes acceptable performance, and what happens when outcomes contradict stated intent. Governance shifts from administration to arbitration, from passing information upward to enforcing alignment across institutions.</p>
<p>This shift exposes the system’s weakness in sideways enforcement. Curriculum signals are set by the National Curriculum and Textbook Board. Certification authority sits with the Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education and the Bangladesh Madrasah Education Board. Delivery and supervision operate through parallel chains in the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education and the Directorate of Primary Education. BANBEIS renders the system increasingly visible through data, while inspection and audit functions focus primarily on procedural and financial compliance. Each institution has a defined mandate, but no routine mechanism compels alignment when mandates collide.</p>
<p>Under ambiguity, this architecture is stable. NCTB can narrow curricula without controlling how assessments interpret them. Boards can certify outcomes that reward recall rather than mastery. DSHE and DPE can supervise attendance and coverage without engaging instructional quality. BANBEIS can document learning gaps without triggering corrective action. Inspection mechanisms can verify files and expenditure while classrooms stagnate. Responsibility is vertically strong but horizontally hollow.</p>
<p>Under coherence, this arrangement becomes unstable. Once assessment aligns with curriculum and instructional expectations harden, contradictions between institutions can no longer be absorbed quietly. Governance must enforce sideways, not just upward. It must compel alignment between curriculum intent and certification practice, between supervision routines and instructional quality, and between data visibility and corrective authority.</p>
<p>When governance lacks the authority, routines, or political backing to do this, enforcement stalls at institutional boundaries. Disputes are resolved through delay, parallel interpretation, or escalation rather than through instructional standard-setting. What previously appeared as coordination problems become enforcement failures. Governance built for administration begins to fracture when asked to defend learning integrity.</p>
<p>When sideways enforcement fails, responsibility is displaced downward. Schools face pressure from parents and communities, but without authority to change curriculum, assessment, or</p>
<p>staffing. Informal community scrutiny intensifies unevenly, reproducing the weak and unequal horizontal accountability patterns described in Appendix A. These pressures do not correct system misalignment; they stabilise it by shifting risk onto households.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Incentives, Careers, and the Persistence of Low Stakes</li>
</ul>
<p>Under coherence, the system must differentiate between effort, capability, and avoidance. Once mastery is verified and instructional outcomes become visible, uniform treatment of performance is no longer neutral. It becomes an active choice to absorb pressure rather than to act on it.</p>
<p>Career systems are where this differentiation either acquires consequence or collapses. Postings, transfers, and promotions determine whether visible performance matters. If instructional outcomes do not shape careers, enforcement stalls regardless of how clear expectations become elsewhere in the system.</p>
<p>Under conditions of ambiguity, insulation was stabilising. When learning outcomes were weakly verified and instructional quality was difficult to observe, seniority-based and compliance-based career structures reduced conflict and protected institutional equilibrium. They allowed the system to function without constant confrontation over performance or capability.</p>
<p>Coherence alters this settlement. If mastery is verified, then career systems that cannot respond become the primary site where enforcement fails. Visible variation in instructional quality demands decisions about support, remediation, redeployment, and exit. These decisions are not primarily pedagogical. They are political, because they disrupt long-standing protections and expose uneven capability that was previously concealed by ambiguity.</p>
<p>The predictable response is not open resistance, but dilution. Expectations are reframed as aspirational. Performance signals are treated as provisional. Enforcement is delayed in the name of transition. Over time, low stakes reassert themselves even as reform language remains intact and coherence is preserved rhetorically.</p>
<p>The system therefore faces a structural choice. It can absorb pressure by softening standards so that careers remain insulated, or it can absorb conflict by changing incentives so that performance differentiation has consequence. Coherence cannot survive if career systems continue to function as shock absorbers once outcomes become visible.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Finance, Verification, and Money Without Consequence</li>
</ul>
<p>Finance does not merely fund education. It signals what the system values. What gets verified gets done. What gets audited gets performed. What is measured on paper becomes the target of effort.</p>
<p>Bangladesh’s education financing system evolved under ambiguity. Budgets are rigid and salary-heavy, verification prioritises paperwork, and links between expenditure and instructional outcomes are weak. In this environment, effort concentrates on producing compliant documentation rather than verifiable learning, and discretionary space is preserved within delivery chains.</p>
<p>Under ambiguity, this arrangement is politically manageable. Increased spending can be presented as commitment, while weak learning outcomes are attributed to scale, poverty, or disruption. Finance performs a symbolic function, demonstrating effort without demanding proof of instructional impact.</p>
<p>Coherence changes the meaning of money. When learning expectations are explicit and assessment verifies mastery, the gap between expenditure and outcomes becomes visible. Budget flows that do not translate into improved instruction attract scrutiny. Verification practices that focus on files rather than classrooms become politically exposed.</p>
<p>The retreat mechanism is predictable. Paperwork compliance intensifies. Inspection and audit activity increase around inputs. Classroom-level verification remains thin. Outcome proxies replace mastery as the object of attention. Hard verification is delayed or displaced to protect discretionary space. These moves stabilise institutions, but they weaken coherence.</p>
<p>Finance can sustain reform only when verification follows learning rather than paperwork, and when expenditure is treated not as proof of effort but as a claim that must be justified by instructional effect. Without this shift, additional resources risk reinforcing compliance intensity while leaving learning unchanged.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Information, Feedback, and the Limits of Data</li>
</ul>
<p>Bangladesh’s education system is increasingly legible upward. BANBEIS and the directorate systems generate extensive information on enrolment, staffing, infrastructure, attendance, and performance, and reporting routines are well established. Administrative visibility has expanded steadily.</p>
<p>The constraint lies in what information does once it circulates. Reporting is reliable. Feedback with consequence is not. Data move efficiently to higher levels of the system, but they rarely return to schools or institutions in forms that trigger correction, support, or sanction. Information accumulation substitutes for action.</p>
<p>This produces reporting loops rather than feedback loops. Under ambiguity, such loops are sufficient. Weak outcomes can be documented without forcing institutional response, and responsibility remains diffuse. The system appears active while behaviour remains unchanged.</p>
<p>Under coherence, information takes on a different role. When assessment verifies mastery and curriculum priorities are explicit, data no longer merely describe patterns. They allocate responsibility. Variation in outcomes becomes evidence of enforcement gaps rather than system noise.</p>
<p>It is at this point that retreat mechanisms activate. Institutions manage implications through timing, framing, indicator choice, and narrative adjustment. Data releases are delayed, comparisons softened, and trends reframed as transitional. Reporting continues, but the capacity of information to change behaviour weakens.</p>
<p>Appendix B explains why feedback loops matter for system behaviour. This chapter shows why they are most fragile when coherence makes performance visible and follow-through costly. Data do not threaten institutions because they are incomplete. They threaten institutions because they demand decisions.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Managing Resistance: Politics, Media, and Public Narrative</li>
</ul>
<p>Coherence does not fail quietly. It provokes resistance because it removes buffers that previously absorbed blame. When assessment begins to verify mastery and instructional expectations harden, long-standing accommodations come under threat.</p>
<p>Assessment reform is often the first flashpoint because certification is where visibility concentrates. When boards adjust marking or grading standards, public narratives quickly form around standards falling or fairness being undermined. Media translate uncertainty into decline. Coaching markets mobilise parental anxiety by presenting reform as risk. Unions resist enforcement perceived as uneven or premature. Local political actors intervene to protect incumbents through postings and transfers.</p>
<p>These responses are not aberrations. They are structural reactions to exposure. Coherence makes outcomes legible and allocates responsibility, raising the political cost of enforcement.</p>
<p>Reforms rarely collapse because their logic is flawed. They retreat because pressure arrives before institutions have committed to bearing the cost of enforcement. Narrative softening becomes the first line of defence. Language shifts from mastery to progress, from standards to flexibility, from enforcement to transition. Exceptions are introduced. Pilots proliferate. Over time, standards blur without ever being formally abandoned.</p>
<p>When institutions retreat, enforcement is displaced downward. Households intensify risk management through private tutoring and coaching. Communities exert uneven pressure on schools without authority to change system signals. The informal horizontal accountability patterns described in Appendix A reassert themselves, not as a solution, but as a symptom of state retreat.</p>
<p>Systems that fail to anticipate this dynamic often misinterpret backlash as evidence of reform error rather than as evidence that reform has begun to work. Retreat then occurs precisely when credibility is being tested.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Phasing Without Retreat: The Role of the National Learning Implementation Framework</li>
</ul>
<p>Sequencing is necessary in any system-wide reform, but dilution is fatal. The distinction between the two is not technical. It is political, and it determines whether coherence is sustained or quietly undone.</p>
<p>Phasing exists to manage capacity, not to abandon standards. Phased enforcement means fixed direction, time-bound support, and staged verification. Abandonment takes the language of readiness, stability, or consensus and uses it to justify indefinite postponement. The difference lies not in pace, but in commitment.</p>
<p>The National Learning Implementation Framework plays a critical role in holding this line. Its function is not to operate as a technical checklist or a menu of optional reforms. It operates as a political buffer. By sequencing actions while keeping non-negotiables fixed, it protects coherence from the pressures that arise once enforcement begins to bite.</p>
<p>For phasing to serve this purpose, it must be explicit. The system must be clear about what will change, over what period, and what practices will ultimately no longer be tolerated once transition periods end. Without this clarity, sequencing becomes indistinguishable from retreat.</p>
<p>Phasing, properly understood, is a strategy for sustaining direction under pressure. Used otherwise, it becomes the mechanism through which coherence is lost while reform appears to continue.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>What Failure Would Look Like</li>
</ul>
<p>Failure rarely announces itself directly. It emerges through a series of moves that appear reasonable in isolation but are corrosive in combination. Exceptions are introduced in the name of pragmatism. Delays are framed as prudence. Pilot programmes proliferate without clear pathways to scale. Public narratives soften expectations while formal standards remain unchanged on paper.</p>
<p>Under these conditions, curriculum ambition is preserved rhetorically but not enforced in practice. Assessment alignment is postponed rather than rejected. Teacher accountability is discussed repeatedly but acted on selectively. Data continue to circulate, but without consequence.</p>
<p>Failure has recognisable signatures. Standards remain in circulars, but boards calibrate marking to restore pass rates. Supervision returns to checklist compliance. Data publication becomes less comparable over time. Responsibility is displaced downward, and households compensate for uncertainty through private expenditure.</p>
<p>The system continues to claim reform, but ambiguity re-enters through interpretation, discretion, and delay. What appears as flexibility becomes drift. What is described as caution functions as retreat.</p>
<p>Making this pattern visible before it unfolds is one of the central purposes of this chapter. Systems rarely fail because they lack intelligence or effort. They fail because the mechanisms of retreat are familiar, politically comfortable, and poorly named.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>System Credibility as the Final Test</li>
</ul>
<p>Bangladesh does not lack plans. It lacks credibility at the point where reform becomes costly. Credibility is not tested at launch. It is tested the first time examination results stop matching the old story. It is tested when mastery-verified assessment produces a distributional shift, when headlines turn hostile, and when insiders demand exceptions.</p>
<p>If assessment returns to being a performance signal rather than a mastery signal, the learning spine collapses. Coherence unravels not because it was wrong, but because it was not defended.</p>
<p>At that moment, leadership faces a choice. It can absorb pressure, defend coherence, and accept instability as the price of enforcement. Or it can retreat into ambiguity, soften expectations, and preserve short-term stability at the expense of learning.</p>
<p>Chapters 5 and 6 showed what coherence requires. This chapter has shown what it costs. The credibility of the reform agenda rests on whether institutions are willing to bear that cost. There is no neutral path. Only a choice.</p>
<h2><strong></strong><strong></strong>Chapter 8 Implementation Logic and the Non-Negotiables</h2>
<p><strong>This chapterReframes implementation as a set of governing rules rather than a delivery plan, sequencing manual, or programme portfolio.Shows how reforms commonly fail through accumulation, exception, and delay rather than explicit reversal.Defines a set of non-negotiable system conditions that must hold if coherence is to survive enforcement pressure.Demonstrates how weakening any single non-negotiable triggers retreat across curriculum, assessment, professional accountability, and governance.Distinguishes phasing that builds capability under fixed commitments from phasing that functions as dilution of standards.Explains why initiative layering fragments signals, erodes instructional time, and weakens enforcement even when individual programmes are well designed.Establishes the required order of operations between expectations, support, and enforcement to preserve legitimacy.Clarifies the role of the National Learning Implementation Framework as a sequencing instrument that protects direction rather than reopens settled principles.Identifies which system decisions cannot be revisited once enforcement begins without reintroducing ambiguity.Concludes that implementation is ultimately a credibility test, determined by whether institutions defend non-negotiables when political pressure intensifies.This chapterReframes implementation as a set of governing rules rather than a delivery plan, sequencing manual, or programme portfolio.Shows how reforms commonly fail through accumulation, exception, and delay rather than explicit reversal.Defines a set of non-negotiable system conditions that must hold if coherence is to survive enforcement pressure.Demonstrates how weakening any single non-negotiable triggers retreat across curriculum, assessment, professional accountability, and governance.Distinguishes phasing that builds capability under fixed commitments from phasing that functions as dilution of standards.Explains why initiative layering fragments signals, erodes instructional time, and weakens enforcement even when individual programmes are well designed.Establishes the required order of operations between expectations, support, and enforcement to preserve legitimacy.Clarifies the role of the National Learning Implementation Framework as a sequencing instrument that protects direction rather than reopens settled principles.Identifies which system decisions cannot be revisited once enforcement begins without reintroducing ambiguity.Concludes that implementation is ultimately a credibility test, determined by whether institutions defend non-negotiables when political pressure intensifies. </strong><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">Reframes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">implementation</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">as</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">set</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">governing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">rules rather</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">than</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">delivery</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">plan, sequencing manual, or programme portfolio.</span><span style="color: #000000">Shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reforms</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">commonly</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fail</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accumulation,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">exception,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">delay rather than explicit reversal.</span><span style="color: #000000">Defines</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">set</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">non-negotiable</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">conditions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">must</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">hold if</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is to survive enforcement pressure.</span><span style="color: #000000">Demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weakening</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">any</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">single</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">non-negotiable</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">triggers</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">across curriculum, assessment, professional accountability, and governance.</span><span style="color: #000000">Distinguishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">phasing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">builds</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">capability</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">under</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fixed</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">commitments</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">from phasing that functions as dilution of standards.</span><span style="color: #000000">Explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">initiative</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">layering</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fragments</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">signals,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">erodes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">instructional</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">time,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and weakens enforcement even when individual programmes are well designed.</span><span style="color: #000000">Establishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">required</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">order</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">operations</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">between</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">expectations,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">support,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and enforcement to preserve legitimacy.</span><span style="color: #000000">Clarifies</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">role</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">National</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Implementation</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Framework</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">as</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a sequencing instrument that protects direction rather than reopens settled </span><span style="color: #000000">principles.</span><span style="color: #000000">Identifies</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">which</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">decisions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">cannot</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">be</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">revisited</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">once</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">begins without reintroducing ambiguity.</span><span style="color: #000000">Concludes that implementation is ultimately a credibility test, determined by whether</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">institutions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">defend</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">non-negotiables</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">political</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pressure</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">intensifies.</span><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">Reframes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">implementation</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">as</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">set</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">governing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">rules rather</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">than</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">delivery</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">plan, sequencing manual, or programme portfolio.</span><span style="color: #000000">Shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reforms</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">commonly</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fail</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accumulation,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">exception,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">delay rather than explicit reversal.</span><span style="color: #000000">Defines</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">set</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">non-negotiable</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">conditions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">must</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">hold if</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is to survive enforcement pressure.</span><span style="color: #000000">Demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weakening</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">any</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">single</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">non-negotiable</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">triggers</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">across curriculum, assessment, professional accountability, and governance.</span><span style="color: #000000">Distinguishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">phasing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">builds</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">capability</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">under</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fixed</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">commitments</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">from phasing that functions as dilution of standards.</span><span style="color: #000000">Explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">initiative</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">layering</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fragments</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">signals,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">erodes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">instructional</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">time,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and weakens enforcement even when individual programmes are well designed.</span><span style="color: #000000">Establishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">required</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">order</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">operations</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">between</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">expectations,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">support,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and enforcement to preserve legitimacy.</span><span style="color: #000000">Clarifies</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">role</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">National</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Implementation</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Framework</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">as</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a sequencing instrument that protects direction rather than reopens settled </span><span style="color: #000000">principles.</span><span style="color: #000000">Identifies</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">which</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">decisions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">cannot</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">be</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">revisited</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">once</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">begins without reintroducing ambiguity.</span><span style="color: #000000">Concludes that implementation is ultimately a credibility test, determined by whether</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">institutions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">defend</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">non-negotiables</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">political</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pressure</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">intensifies.</span></p>
<p>Chapters 5, 6, and 7 established what coherence requires, what it demands of professionals, and why it becomes politically difficult to sustain once enforcement begins and produces visible disruption. Together, they show that the primary risk to reform is not technical failure, but retreat under pressure. Implementation logic therefore cannot be treated as a sequencing plan or a delivery manual. It must operate as a set of governing rules that protect coherence when enforcement becomes uncomfortable. Non-negotiables constrain direction, not methods; they define what must be preserved when trade-offs are demanded, not how change must be delivered.</p>
<p>In systems that fail to sustain reform, implementation often comes to be treated as a portfolio of programmes. Initiatives are launched, pilots proliferate, and activity is mistaken for progress. When pressure arrives from results, media scrutiny, or internal resistance, programmes can be paused, reframed, or quietly absorbed without any formal decision to abandon reform. Coherence dissolves not through explicit reversal, but instead through accumulation, exception, and delay.</p>
<p>This chapter sets out a different approach. Implementation logic here is not about what to do next, but about what must not be undone once enforcement begins to bite. It defines the non- negotiables that anchor the reform agenda, specifies what phasing is allowed to mean, and establishes discipline over how change is introduced. Its purpose is to ensure that sequencing strengthens coherence rather than reopening settled questions when pressure intensifies.</p>
<p>This chapter does not describe delivery steps, allocate responsibilities, or restate the National Learning Implementation Framework. It provides the constitutional logic within which all implementation must operate. Without this logic, even well-designed reforms revert to symbolic compliance once enforcement becomes costly.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>From Reform Activity to Governing Rules</li>
</ul>
<p>Reform fails when implementation is treated as additive. New priorities are layered onto existing routines, additional reporting is introduced alongside old requirements, and institutions are asked to do more without stopping anything. In such environments, coherence is structurally impossible. The system becomes busier rather than clearer, and enforcement weakens rather than strengthens.</p>
<p>A coherent system therefore requires governing rules that constrain action. These rules determine what takes priority, what must align, and what cannot be traded away when pressure arrives. They are not programme guidelines or implementation preferences. They are system- level constraints that apply regardless of which initiatives are active, funded, or politically salient at any given moment.</p>
<p>These governing rules matter most where authority is distributed across institutions rather than concentrated within a single delivery chain. In such systems, coherence depends not only on vertical compliance within agencies, but on sideways enforcement across curriculum, assessment, supervision, and verification functions. Without rules that bind these functions together, institutional boundaries become sites where enforcement stalls and ambiguity re- enters.</p>
<p>Implementation logic therefore functions as a filter rather than a plan. It distinguishes actions that are permissible because they reinforce the learning spine from actions that are impermissible because they fragment signals, overload classrooms, or dilute accountability. This logic does not replace planning or sequencing. It disciplines them by setting limits on what can be done without undermining coherence.</p>
<p>The purpose of naming non-negotiables is not rigidity for its own sake. It is to prevent the re- entry of ambiguity through well-intentioned accommodation. When non-negotiables are absent, every difficulty becomes an opportunity to reopen foundational decisions. When they are explicit, difficulty is managed within constraints rather than resolved through retreat</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>The Non-Negotiables of Coherence</li>
</ul>
<p>Five non-negotiables anchor the reform agenda. They are not programme components, implementation priorities, or thematic commitments. They are system conditions that must hold if coherence is to survive enforcement. If any one of them is weakened, coherence collapses regardless of how much activity continues elsewhere in the system.</p>
<p><strong>The first non-negotiable is the integrity of the learning spine. </strong>Curriculum priorities, learning progression, instructional time, and language of instruction must remain aligned and mutually reinforcing. Foundational learning cannot be compressed or bypassed to accommodate coverage pressures, examination calendars, or political demands without undermining the reform logic as a whole. Once mastery is defined as a requirement rather than an aspiration, progression without learning ceases to be acceptable. Any implementation choice</p>
<p>that compromises the learning spine, even temporarily or for pragmatic reasons, reintroduces ambiguity that later stages of reform cannot correct. Where curriculum progression assumes mastery through a particular language, instruction must be aligned to that assumption rather than left to informal accommodation, as misalignment at this level displaces risk onto households and fragments the spine itself.</p>
<p><strong>The</strong><strong> </strong><strong>second</strong><strong> </strong><strong>non-negotiable</strong><strong> </strong><strong>is</strong><strong> </strong><strong>assessment</strong><strong> </strong><strong>credibility.</strong><strong> </strong>Assessment must verify mastery rather than simulate progress. This requirement applies not only to examination design, but also to marking standards, grading practices, and progression rules. When assessment is adjusted to restore familiar distributions or protect short-term stability, it ceases to function as a learning signal and reverts to a performance signal. At that point, the learning spine collapses, because classrooms, households, and labour markets respond to what is rewarded rather than what is intended. Restoring pass rates through marking adjustment after an initial dip may stabilise headlines, but it directly violates assessment credibility, even when framed as transitional or protective.</p>
<p>Assessment credibility applies uniformly across streams and boards. General, technical, and Madrasah streams are subject to the same mastery standards where learning objectives are equivalent. Separate certification pathways cannot be used to soften expectations, recalibrate difficulty, or manage political discomfort through differentiated grading norms. Stream differentiation cannot operate as a parallel route for absorbing enforcement pressure. Once assessment credibility diverges across boards, the learning spine fragments and household risk management intensifies.</p>
<p><strong>The third non-negotiable is protected instructional time. </strong>Instructional time is the scarcest resource in the system and must be defended institutionally rather than left to individual discretion. Administrative directives, reporting requirements, and parallel initiatives cannot be permitted to erode classroom time, particularly in foundational stages. When instructional time is treated as flexible or residual, teachers are pushed back toward coverage, rehearsal, and examination preparation strategies that coherence was explicitly designed to displace.</p>
<p><strong>The fourth non-negotiable is minimum professional standards. </strong>Once expectations are explicit and appropriate support is available, persistent instructional avoidance cannot be normalised or absorbed. Professional standards must be enforceable rather than symbolic. This does not imply uniform punishment or immediate sanction, but it does require that development, remediation, redeployment, and exit remain available and credible responses. A system that protects every incumbent regardless of performance ultimately sacrifices learning in order to preserve institutional comfort and stability.</p>
<p><strong>The fifth non-negotiable is governance enforceability across institutional boundaries. </strong>Once coherence is established, learning standards must be enforceable not only within classrooms, but across the institutions that set curriculum, certify outcomes, supervise delivery, and render performance visible. Curriculum intent cannot be diluted at the point of assessment. Assessment standards cannot be disconnected from instructional expectations. Data visibility cannot exist without consequence.</p>
<p>Arbitration authority is therefore non-negotiable. Where curriculum intent, assessment standards, supervision findings, or performance data conflict, there must be a recognised locus of arbitration whose determinations are binding across institutions. Without this, sideways enforcement collapses into parallel interpretation at precisely the moment coherence begins to</p>
<p>bite. This Vision does not prescribe a new delivery agency. It requires a standing arbitration function mandated to issue published alignment rulings when contradictions arise between curriculum authorities, certification bodies, delivery directorates, and data systems. These rulings must be authoritative, transparent, and enforceable across institutional boundaries.</p>
<p>In the absence of such an arbiter, contradictions are resolved informally through delay, political escalation, or silent recalibration. Assessment bodies soften standards, supervision retreats to procedural compliance, and curriculum intent is diluted without formal decision. Naming the arbitration function closes this retreat path by making alignment decisions explicit, contestable, and binding. It is not an additional layer of governance, but the mechanism through which existing mandates are made coherent under pressure.</p>
<p>These non-negotiables are interdependent. Weakening any one of them places pressure on the others and accelerates retreat through reinterpretation rather than formal reversal. Protecting all five simultaneously is therefore not optional. It is the minimum condition for coherence to survive its first serious test under political and institutional pressure.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>What Phasing Is Allowed to Mean</li>
</ul>
<p>Phasing is necessary in a system of this scale, but it is also the most common vehicle for retreat. The distinction between sequencing and dilution is therefore not a matter of timing alone. It is a matter of leverage: which parts of the system are allowed to move first, which signals must remain fixed, and where pressure is absorbed when enforcement begins.</p>
<p>Phased enforcement means that direction is fixed while capability catches up. Core signals remain stable, while routines, support, and verification are introduced progressively. Expectations do not soften as capacity lags. Instead, the system concentrates effort on a small number of leverage points that anchor behaviour while other elements adjust around them. Timelines are explicit, transition periods are bounded, and the end state is not negotiable, even if the path to it is staged.</p>
<p>The critical leverage points are not evenly distributed. Curriculum priorities, assessment standards, and progression rules must stabilise early, because they shape classroom behaviour, household expectations, and market responses. Supervision practices, professional support, and enforcement intensity can then be phased in behind those fixed signals. When phasing respects this order, it builds capability without reopening settled principles. When it does not, ambiguity re-enters through interpretation rather than policy reversal.</p>
<p>Retreat, by contrast, uses the language of phasing to move the wrong levers. Instead of staging support and verification, it relaxes the signals that discipline behaviour. Timelines become elastic. Standards are reframed as provisional. Assessment is recalibrated to manage discomfort. Verification is postponed indefinitely. What was initially described as a transition quietly becomes a permanent exception, and coherence erodes not because it was rejected, but because it was never defended at the points of highest leverage.</p>
<p>Implementation logic must therefore specify not only when phasing occurs, but what phasing cannot touch. Phasing cannot be used to restore progression without mastery. It cannot be used to recalibrate assessment to preserve familiar pass-rate distributions. It cannot be used to defer minimum professional standards indefinitely once expectations and support are in place. It cannot be used to reintroduce initiative layering that fragments instructional focus and weakens accountability.</p>
<p>Phasing is a strategy for managing change under fixed commitments, not a licence to renegotiate the reform itself. When this distinction is enforced, sequencing concentrates pressure where it builds capability. When it is not, sequencing becomes the mechanism through which pressure is dissipated, and retreat occurs under the appearance of pragmatism.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Initiative Discipline and the Refusal of Layering</li>
</ul>
<p>One of the most reliable ways coherence collapses is through initiative accumulation. New programmes are introduced to address visible problems, but existing routines remain untouched. Teachers and school leaders are asked to comply with multiple, partially overlapping expectations, and instructional focus fragments as actors hedge across competing signals. What appears as responsiveness functions as dilution.</p>
<p>Layering is not neutral. Each additional initiative competes for instructional time, reporting attention, and administrative compliance. When priorities multiply, enforcement weakens because no single signal can dominate behaviour. Actors respond rationally by doing a little of everything and committing fully to nothing. Coherence is lost not through resistance, but through overload.</p>
<p>Coherence therefore requires initiative discipline as a governing rule rather than a preference. This means fewer reforms, tighter routines, and explicit decisions about what stops when something new starts. It also requires resisting the temptation to treat every emerging problem as evidence that another programme is needed. Many implementation problems arise not because activity is insufficient, but because signals are unclear, contradictory, or weakly enforced.</p>
<p>The leverage point here is substitution, not addition. Any new action must replace something existing, not sit alongside it. When substitution is avoided, initiatives accumulate while enforcement dissipates. When substitution is enforced, the system becomes clearer even as activity narrows.</p>
<p>Initiative discipline applies equally to externally financed and technically assisted programmes. Development partners, consultants, and pilot-driven interventions have historically contributed to layering, parallel reporting systems, and fragmented accountability without strengthening learning enforcement. Under this Vision, external support is not exempt from coherence constraints. Financing, technical assistance, and innovation are acceptable only insofar as they reinforce the learning spine, assessment credibility, instructional time, and professional standards, rather than reopening settled questions through parallel agendas or exceptional arrangements.</p>
<p>Implementation logic must therefore impose a presumption against layering. Any proposed initiative must demonstrate how it strengthens the learning spine, how it aligns with assessment and protected instructional time, and which existing requirements it replaces or renders unnecessary. Initiatives that add reporting, monitoring, or instructional demands without displacing existing obligations weaken coherence regardless of their individual merits.</p>
<p>This discipline is politically difficult because it requires saying no to plausible, well-intentioned proposals. It requires refusing activity that signals responsiveness in favour of routines that sustain enforcement. Without this refusal, coherence becomes one initiative among many rather</p>
<p>than the organising principle of the system, and retreat occurs through accumulation rather than reversal.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Enforcement, Support, and the Order of Operations</li>
</ul>
<p>A common failure mode in reform is the inversion of enforcement and support. Expectations are raised rhetorically, but support remains generic, episodic, or disconnected from classroom practice. When learning outcomes do not improve, enforcement is either intensified prematurely or abandoned altogether, producing cycles of pressure and retreat that undermine legitimacy.</p>
<p>Under coherence, the order of operations is not procedural detail. It is a condition of credibility. Expectations must be explicit before support can be targeted. Support must be available before enforcement is applied. Enforcement must follow evidence that expectations were clear and that meaningful support was provided. When this sequence is reversed, accountability appears arbitrary rather than principled, and resistance hardens even where reform intent is sound.</p>
<p>Implementation logic must therefore bind enforcement to conditions rather than to timelines alone. Where curriculum priorities are clear, assessment verifies mastery, and instructional support has been provided, enforcement is not punitive. It is a system obligation. Where clarity or support is absent, enforcement is not merely ineffective. It is illegitimate, because it shifts responsibility downward while ambiguity remains intact upstream.</p>
<p>The non-negotiables do not require immediate or uniform enforcement across the system. They require that enforcement remains credible and unavoidable over time. Credibility means that enforcement is known to be possible, not that it is constantly applied. Once enforcement is removed from the set of available responses, coherence becomes symbolic. Expectations may still be articulated, but they no longer carry consequence.</p>
<p>These non-negotiables are therefore not internal management preferences. They are public commitments intended to anchor scrutiny across institutions, professions, media, and society. Their function is to make retreat visible when pressure arrives, not to rely on discretion or goodwill. By naming what cannot be traded away, the Vision creates reference points against which future decisions can be judged, including decisions taken by leadership itself.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>The Role of NLIF Within the Constitutional Logic</li>
</ul>
<p>The National Learning Implementation Framework operates within this implementation logic. It does not define the non-negotiables, nor does it replace them. Its role is to sequence action while holding direction steady under pressure.</p>
<p>NLIF provides a structured path from clarity on paper to capability in practice. It sets out how routines are built, how professional support is phased, and how verification is introduced without overwhelming delivery institutions. In this sense, NLIF addresses capacity. It does not address commitment. That distinction is critical.</p>
<p>NLIF cannot compensate for retreat at the level of principle. If learning spine integrity is compromised, if assessment credibility is softened, or if enforcement is indefinitely postponed, no amount of sequencing can restore coherence. Sequencing can manage transition, but it cannot repair abandonment.</p>
<p>For this reason, NLIF should be read as a mechanism of protection rather than as a menu of options. Its authority derives from the non-negotiables, not the other way around. When pressure arrives, NLIF should be used to defend direction by managing how change unfolds, not to justify delay by reopening what has already been settled.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>What Cannot Be Reopened</li>
</ul>
<p>As reform progresses, pressure will repeatedly surface demands to revisit earlier decisions. These demands will often be framed as pragmatic, context-sensitive, or necessary for stability. They may be presented as temporary adjustments, transitional accommodations, or politically unavoidable corrections. Implementation logic must therefore be explicit about which questions are closed.</p>
<p>The integrity of the learning spine cannot be reopened in response to coverage anxiety or timetable pressure. Assessment credibility cannot be reopened to manage public discomfort with new result profiles or distributional shifts. Instructional time cannot be reopened to accommodate administrative convenience or initiative accumulation. Minimum professional standards cannot be reopened to preserve universal comfort when performance becomes visible.</p>
<p>Debate can and should continue about how these commitments are enacted. It cannot continue about whether they apply. Once this boundary blurs, coherence unravels rapidly, even if reform language remains intact. Retreat occurs not through explicit rejection, but through repeated reconsideration of what was meant to be settled.</p>
<p>Naming what cannot be reopened is therefore not rigidity. It is protection. It prevents the slow erosion of coherence through reinterpretation, delay, and exception that allows the system to appear stable while learning remains fragile.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Implementation Logic as a Test of Credibility</li>
</ul>
<p>This chapter frames implementation not as a technical challenge, but as a test of credibility. Credibility is not established at launch, when momentum is high and expectations are abstract. It is established when enforcement produces discomfort and the system holds its ground.</p>
<p>The decisive moment will arrive when assessment outcomes shift, when familiar narratives break, and when pressure to restore the old equilibrium intensifies. At that point, implementation logic determines whether coherence survives or dissolves. The system will either defend learning integrity or reabsorb pressure by softening standards.</p>
<p>If non-negotiables are defended, instability can be absorbed and learning strengthened over time. If they are softened, stability is preserved temporarily while learning remains shallow and unequal. There is no neutral outcome. Where the Learning Compact defines mutual obligations among actors, this chapter defines the constraints within which those obligations must operate.</p>
<p>Chapters 5 and 6 showed what coherence requires. Chapter 7 showed why sustaining it is politically difficult. This chapter defines the governing rules that determine whether the system holds or retreats. The credibility of the Vision rests on whether these rules are treated as binding when they are most inconvenient. There is no technical fix for this choice. Only a governing one.</p>
<h2><strong></strong><strong></strong>Chapter 9. Enabling Conditions for Learning</h2>
<p><strong>This chapterexplains why learning reform fails when surrounding conditions operate out of alignment with learning expectations, even when curriculum, assessment, and teaching reforms are well designed.reframes health, nutrition, equity, digital capability, and pathways as system conditions whose sole function is to stabilise learning effort under enforcement, not as parallel social agendas.shows how readiness, inclusion, technology, and transitions can either reinforce the learning spine or become channels through which pressure is absorbed and standards are softened.establishes that equity strengthens coherence only when it protects progression without diluting expectations or creating parallel standards.argues that digital systems are core infrastructure for feedback, motivation, and trust, and that technology which adds load or substitutes for verification weakens reform.demonstrates that transitions and pathways are high-leverage signal points where inconsistent standards rapidly unravel upstream learning.concludes that enabling conditions must be governed as constraints, not alternatives, to prevent retreat through wellbeing, fairness, innovation, or flexibility narratives once enforcement begins.This chapterexplains why learning reform fails when surrounding conditions operate out of alignment with learning expectations, even when curriculum, assessment, and teaching reforms are well designed.reframes health, nutrition, equity, digital capability, and pathways as system conditions whose sole function is to stabilise learning effort under enforcement, not as parallel social agendas.shows how readiness, inclusion, technology, and transitions can either reinforce the learning spine or become channels through which pressure is absorbed and standards are softened.establishes that equity strengthens coherence only when it protects progression without diluting expectations or creating parallel standards.argues that digital systems are core infrastructure for feedback, motivation, and trust, and that technology which adds load or substitutes for verification weakens reform.demonstrates that transitions and pathways are high-leverage signal points where inconsistent standards rapidly unravel upstream learning.concludes that enabling conditions must be governed as constraints, not alternatives, to prevent retreat through wellbeing, fairness, innovation, or flexibility narratives once enforcement begins. </strong><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reform</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fails</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">surrounding</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">conditions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">operate</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">out</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of alignment with learning expectations, even when curriculum, assessment, and teaching reforms are well designed.</span><span style="color: #000000">reframes health, nutrition, equity, digital capability, and pathways as system conditions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">whose</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">sole</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">function</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">stabilise</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">effort</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">under</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement, not as parallel social agendas.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">readiness,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inclusion,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">technology,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">transitions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">can</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">either</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reinforce the learning spine or become channels through which pressure is absorbed and standards are softened.</span><span style="color: #000000">establishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">equity</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">strengthens</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">only</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">it</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">protects</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">progression without diluting expectations or creating parallel standards.</span><span style="color: #000000">argues that digital systems are core infrastructure for feedback, motivation, and trust,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">technology</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">which</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">adds</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">load</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">substitutes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">for</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">verification</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weakens </span><span style="color: #000000">reform.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">transitions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pathways</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">are</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">high-leverage</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">signal</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">points</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">where inconsistent standards rapidly unravel upstream learning.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes that enabling conditions must be governed as constraints, not alternatives,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">prevent</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">wellbeing,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fairness,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">innovation,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or flexibility narratives once enforcement begins.</span><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">explains</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reform</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fails</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">surrounding</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">conditions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">operate</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">out</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of alignment with learning expectations, even when curriculum, assessment, and teaching reforms are well designed.</span><span style="color: #000000">reframes health, nutrition, equity, digital capability, and pathways as system conditions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">whose</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">sole</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">function</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">stabilise</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">effort</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">under</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">enforcement, not as parallel social agendas.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">readiness,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inclusion,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">technology,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">transitions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">can</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">either</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reinforce the learning spine or become channels through which pressure is absorbed and standards are softened.</span><span style="color: #000000">establishes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">equity</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">strengthens</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">coherence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">only</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">it</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">protects</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">progression without diluting expectations or creating parallel standards.</span><span style="color: #000000">argues that digital systems are core infrastructure for feedback, motivation, and trust,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">technology</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">which</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">adds</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">load</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">substitutes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">for</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">verification</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weakens </span><span style="color: #000000">reform.</span><span style="color: #000000">demonstrates</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">transitions</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pathways</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">are</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">high-leverage</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">signal</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">points</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">where inconsistent standards rapidly unravel upstream learning.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes that enabling conditions must be governed as constraints, not alternatives,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">prevent</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">wellbeing,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fairness,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">innovation,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or flexibility narratives once enforcement begins.</span></p>
<p>Learning reform does not fail because curriculum, assessment, or teaching are misunderstood. It fails because the wider conditions that shape readiness, motivation, feedback, trust, and coherence are allowed to operate out of alignment with learning expectations. When this happens, even well-designed reforms are slowly neutralised through pressure that enters from outside the classroom.</p>
<p>This chapter addresses the politically necessary domains that sit around the learning spine. It does not elevate them as parallel priorities, social agendas, or development programmes. It treats them as system conditions whose only legitimate purpose within this Vision is to stabilise learning effort and protect coherence once enforcement begins.</p>
<p>The governing question applied throughout is not whether these domains matter. It is how they behave<strong>. </strong>Each subsection therefore answers a single test: does this condition reinforce the learning spine and the five system dynamics described in Chapter 3, or does it provide an alternative pathway for absorbing pressure when learning expectations harden?</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Health, Nutrition, and Readiness as Preconditions for Enforcement</li>
</ul>
<p>Readiness is the most underestimated constraint on learning enforcement. It shapes whether instructional expectations can be held without inducing withdrawal, avoidance, or informal adaptation. Where readiness is weak, teachers do not reject standards explicitly. They adapt around them.</p>
<p>Health, nutrition, and emotional stability feed directly into the readiness–engagement loop described in Chapter 3. Hunger, illness, anxiety, and irregular attendance reduce cognitive bandwidth, weaken concentration, and fragment classroom routines. Over time, this pushes teachers toward survival strategies: slower pacing, repeated rehearsal, selective attention to stronger students, or informal lowering of expectations. These responses are rational under conditions of unstable readiness, but they quietly erode coherence.</p>
<p>The relevance of health and nutrition in this Vision is therefore not humanitarian framing, but system logic. These conditions matter because they determine whether enforcement is feasible without disproportionate strain on classrooms. When readiness is stabilised, instructional expectations can hold. When it is not, pressure to soften standards intensifies upstream.</p>
<p>This chapter therefore treats health and nutrition as learning stabilisers, not welfare add-ons. Their role is to protect attendance regularity, emotional regulation, and sustained engagement so that the learning spine can operate as designed. When they function in this way, they reinforce motivation and trust by making effort feel achievable. When they are treated as parallel social agendas disconnected from instructional routines, they fail to alter classroom dynamics and become another layer of activity without consequence. Readiness is not a marginal concern. It is a precondition for coherence under enforcement.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Equity and Inclusion as Protection Against Progression Failure</li>
</ul>
<p>Equity in this Vision is defined narrowly and deliberately. It is not about symbolic access, representation, or parallel provision. It is about protecting progression through the learning spine for learners who face predictable disadvantage<strong>.</strong></p>
<p>Inequity enters the system at identifiable pressure points: irregular attendance, language barriers, disability, poverty-related stress, geographic isolation, and early exit. These pressures weaken motivation, distort feedback, and increase the likelihood that learners fall behind early. When this occurs, systems face a choice: intensify support to protect progression, or lower expectations to preserve appearances.</p>
<p>Historically, the latter has been the path of least resistance. Learners are advanced without mastery, assessment is softened in the name of fairness, and inequity is managed through certification rather than learning. This reproduces disadvantage while allowing the system to claim inclusion.</p>
<p>This Vision explicitly rejects that path. Equity strengthens coherence only when it protects progression without diluting standards<strong>. </strong>Differentiation must occur in time, scaffolding, instructional support, and pacing. It must not occur through lowered expectations, alternative assessment norms, or silent exception.</p>
<p>When inclusion is governed in this way, it reinforces trust. Households see that effort pays off regardless of background. Motivation strengthens because learning remains meaningful. Feedback remains credible because standards do not shift by group or stream. When inclusion is governed otherwise, it becomes a channel through which pressure is absorbed and coherence fragments.</p>
<p>Equity, properly aligned, is therefore not a competing agenda. It is a condition for coherence to endure without reproducing inequality under new language.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Digital and Technology as a Core Coherence Infrastructure</li>
</ul>
<p>In a system of Bangladesh’s scale and heterogeneity, digital capability is not optional. It is a structural requirement for coherence. Its importance lies not in innovation or modernisation narratives, but in its ability to reduce variability, accelerate feedback, and lower cognitive and administrative load across the system.</p>
<p>Digital systems matter because they directly shape three of the five dynamics identified in Chapter 3: feedback, motivation, and trust.</p>
<p>First, digital infrastructure can radically shorten feedback loops. When learning progress, instructional gaps, and assessment outcomes become visible earlier and more reliably, corrective action can occur before failure becomes entrenched. Slow, noisy, or aggregated feedback forces enforcement to be blunt and politically costly. Faster, more granular feedback allows support to be targeted and enforcement to be proportionate.</p>
<p>Second, digital tools can reduce heterogeneity by anchoring shared instructional expectations. Structured lesson resources, diagnostic tools, and professional learning materials accessed through common platforms reduce reliance on uneven local capacity. This protects coherence while still allowing professional judgement within clear bounds.</p>
<p>Third, digital systems can strengthen trust by making system signals legible. When teachers understand what is expected, how learning is judged, and how support is triggered, motivation improves. When digital systems are opaque, duplicative, or primarily extractive, they undermine trust and provoke resistance.</p>
<p>The discipline is decisive. Technology must reduce load, not add it. Digital platforms that increase reporting, duplicate paperwork, or create parallel accountability channels weaken coherence. Technology that substitutes for pedagogy rather than supporting it invites superficial compliance and quiet withdrawal.</p>
<p>In this Vision, digital investment is justified only where it strengthens learning signals, accelerates feedback, and stabilises enforcement under scale. Treated otherwise, it becomes a high-profile mechanism for reform dilution.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Transitions, Pathways, and the Credibility of Signals Across the System</li>
</ul>
<p>Transitions across years, stages, and streams are among the highest-leverage points in the system. They shape motivation by determining whether effort pays off. They shape trust by determining whether credentials mean the same thing across contexts. They shape feedback by signalling what the system actually values.</p>
<p>This is the only chapter where pathways are addressed explicitly, and the framing is deliberate. Pathways are not discussed in terms of employability slogans or aspiration narratives. They are treated as signal mechanisms that either reinforce or undermine the learning spine.</p>
<p>When transitions reward progression without mastery, upstream learning collapses. When alternative routes allow learners to bypass learning expectations, effort reallocates accordingly. Households respond rationally to perceived risk and reward, intensifying private tutoring or</p>
<p>steering children toward pathways with lower enforcement. Coherence unravels without any formal policy reversal.</p>
<p>This applies across general, technical, and Madrasah streams. Where learning objectives are equivalent, assessment credibility must be equivalent. Stream differentiation cannot operate as a parallel route for absorbing enforcement pressure. Once assessment norms diverge, the learning spine fragments and inequality intensifies through household risk management.</p>
<p>Transitions must therefore be governed to reinforce mastery, not relieve pressure. Choice remains possible, but it cannot function as an escape from learning expectations. Credential credibility is not an outcome of messaging. It is an outcome of enforcement consistency at transition points.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Enabling Conditions as a Managed System Ecology</li>
</ul>
<p>Health, equity, digital capability, and pathways do not sit alongside the learning system. They form the ecology in which learning effort is either sustained or exhausted. Each condition interacts with the feedback loops described in Appendix B. When aligned, they reinforce readiness, motivation, feedback, trust, and coherence. When misaligned, they become entry points for retreat.</p>
<p>The central risk is expansion without discipline. Enabling conditions are politically attractive because they signal care, inclusion, and modernisation. Without firm alignment to the learning spine, they accumulate as parallel agendas that dilute focus and weaken enforcement. The system becomes busy, not coherent.</p>
<p>This chapter therefore imposes a governing constraint: enabling conditions exist to stabilise learning enforcement, not to compete with it. They are legitimate only insofar as they protect the spine when pressure arrives.</p>
<p>This framing gives political leaders space to act without reopening foundational design choices. It allows attention to health, equity, technology, and pathways while holding learning integrity fixed. In doing so, it closes a common failure mode of reform: expanding support while quietly withdrawing standards.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Conditions, Not Alternatives: Political Insulation Against Retreat</li>
</ul>
<p>This chapter does not expand the reform agenda. It constrains the ways in which pressure may legitimately be absorbed once enforcement begins. Health, equity, technology, and pathways are recognised here not as parallel priorities, compensatory programmes, or political offsets, but as conditions whose sole purpose is to stabilise learning effort and protect coherence under stress<strong>.</strong></p>
<p>The distinction matters politically. When learning expectations harden, pressure rarely arrives in the language of curriculum or assessment. It arrives through appeals to wellbeing, fairness, innovation, flexibility, or future opportunity. These appeals are often sincere. They are also the most common vehicles through which coherence is softened without formal reversal.</p>
<p>This chapter therefore functions as insulation. It specifies that enabling conditions may not be used to justify lower standards, delayed enforcement, differentiated credibility, or parallel</p>
<p>certification routes. Health and nutrition cannot be invoked to excuse progression without mastery. Equity cannot be invoked to legitimise separate expectations. Technology cannot be invoked to substitute visibility for verification. Pathways cannot be invoked to absorb pressure through alternative credentials. Where any of these moves occur, they constitute retreat, regardless of intent.</p>
<p>Political leadership is thus protected rather than constrained by this framing. It provides a principled basis for responding to pressure without reopening foundational decisions. Leaders can invest in wellbeing, inclusion, digital systems, and transitions while holding learning integrity fixed. They can point to this chapter as evidence that support is being expanded, even as standards remain enforced.</p>
<p>This insulation is essential because reform rarely fails at the level of design. It fails when political actors are forced to choose between appearing responsive and sustaining coherence. By defining the terms on which responsiveness is permitted, this chapter removes that false choice. It makes clear that responsiveness is legitimate only when it reinforces the learning spine and the five system dynamics described in Chapter 3.</p>
<p>Taken together with Chapters 7 and 8, this chapter closes a critical loophole. It prevents the re- entry of ambiguity through adjacent agendas, well-intentioned accommodation, or symbolic action. It ensures that the conditions surrounding schools strengthen, rather than substitute for, learning enforcement.</p>
<p>Learning reform survives not because pressure disappears, but because the system knows where pressure is allowed to land. This chapter defines that boundary.</p>
<h2><strong></strong><strong></strong>Chapter 10. System Learning, Adaptation, and Course Correction</h2>
<p><strong>This chapterdefines system learning as a governance function rather than a technical or reflective exercise, and shows why unmanaged learning becomes a mechanism for avoiding enforcement rather than strengthening it.explains how adaptation, experimentation, and evidence have historically been absorbed defensively in Bangladesh through reinterpretation, delay, and parallel practice rather than authorised correction.distinguishes between safe-to-fail experimentation and evidence that must be unsafe to ignore, establishing inevitability of response as the core condition for meaningful learning.shows why pilots and innovation fail to reshape system behaviour when evidence lacks an institutional destination and authority to act on it.sets out a disciplined model of adaptation in which methods, supports, and routines may change, but mastery expectations, assessment credibility, and the learning spine cannot be reopened.examines how inconvenient evidence is neutralised in systems that retreat, and specifies how governed learning reallocates responsibility upward rather than dissipating pressure through ambiguity.concludes that governed learning is the final defence of coherence once enforcement produces disruption, and that systems either learn in ways that strengthen authority or retreat behind pragmatism and narrative management.This chapterdefines system learning as a governance function rather than a technical or reflective exercise, and shows why unmanaged learning becomes a mechanism for avoiding enforcement rather than strengthening it.explains how adaptation, experimentation, and evidence have historically been absorbed defensively in Bangladesh through reinterpretation, delay, and parallel practice rather than authorised correction.distinguishes between safe-to-fail experimentation and evidence that must be unsafe to ignore, establishing inevitability of response as the core condition for meaningful learning.shows why pilots and innovation fail to reshape system behaviour when evidence lacks an institutional destination and authority to act on it.sets out a disciplined model of adaptation in which methods, supports, and routines may change, but mastery expectations, assessment credibility, and the learning spine cannot be reopened.examines how inconvenient evidence is neutralised in systems that retreat, and specifies how governed learning reallocates responsibility upward rather than dissipating pressure through ambiguity.concludes that governed learning is the final defence of coherence once enforcement produces disruption, and that systems either learn in ways that strengthen authority or retreat behind pragmatism and narrative management. </strong><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">defines system learning as a governance function rather than a technical or reflective</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">exercise,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">unmanaged</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">becomes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">mechanism for avoiding enforcement rather than strengthening it.</span><span style="color: #000000">explains how adaptation, experimentation, and evidence have historically been absorbed</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">defensively</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">in</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Bangladesh</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reinterpretation,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">delay,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">parallel practice rather than authorised correction.</span><span style="color: #000000">distinguishes between safe-to-fail experimentation and evidence that must be unsafe</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">ignore,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">establishing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inevitability</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">response</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">as</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">core</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">condition</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">for meaningful learning.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pilots</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">innovation</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fail</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reshape</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">behaviour</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">evidence lacks an institutional destination and authority to act on it.</span><span style="color: #000000">sets out a disciplined model of adaptation in which methods, supports, and routines</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">may</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">change,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">mastery</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">expectations,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">credibility,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the learning spine cannot be reopened.</span><span style="color: #000000">examines</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inconvenient</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">evidence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">neutralised</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">in</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">systems</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and specifies how governed learning reallocates responsibility upward rather than dissipating pressure through ambiguity.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes that governed learning is the final defence of coherence once enforcement produces disruption, and that systems either learn in ways that strengthen</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">authority</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">behind</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pragmatism</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">narrative</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">management.</span><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">defines system learning as a governance function rather than a technical or reflective</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">exercise,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">unmanaged</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">becomes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">mechanism for avoiding enforcement rather than strengthening it.</span><span style="color: #000000">explains how adaptation, experimentation, and evidence have historically been absorbed</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">defensively</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">in</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Bangladesh</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">through</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reinterpretation,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">delay,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">parallel practice rather than authorised correction.</span><span style="color: #000000">distinguishes between safe-to-fail experimentation and evidence that must be unsafe</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">ignore,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">establishing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inevitability</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">response</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">as</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">core</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">condition</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">for meaningful learning.</span><span style="color: #000000">shows</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">why</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pilots</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">innovation</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">fail</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">to</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reshape</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">system</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">behaviour</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">when</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">evidence lacks an institutional destination and authority to act on it.</span><span style="color: #000000">sets out a disciplined model of adaptation in which methods, supports, and routines</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">may</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">change,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">mastery</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">expectations,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">credibility,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the learning spine cannot be reopened.</span><span style="color: #000000">examines</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">how</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">inconvenient</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">evidence</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">is</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">neutralised</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">in</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">systems</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and specifies how governed learning reallocates responsibility upward rather than dissipating pressure through ambiguity.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes that governed learning is the final defence of coherence once enforcement produces disruption, and that systems either learn in ways that strengthen</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">authority</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">retreat</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">behind</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">pragmatism</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">narrative</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">management.</span></p>
<p>This chapter defines how the education system learns without losing coherence, authority, or credibility<strong>. </strong>It addresses a recurring failure in reform: when learning and adaptation become substitutes for enforcement rather than mechanisms for strengthening it.</p>
<p>No reform can anticipate all behavioural responses, institutional frictions, or contextual variation. Some adaptation is therefore necessary. However, adaptation is not neutral. In systems without clear governing rules, learning becomes a way to reopen settled decisions, defer accountability, or absorb pressure without visible retreat. Evidence circulates, pilots multiply, and reflection replaces decision, while core commitments quietly erode.</p>
<p>Bangladesh’s education system has struggled to learn in ways that reinforce reform. New methods generate discomfort, threaten established interests, and expose uneven capacity. Imported models fail without contextualisation, while locally generated ideas lack institutional destinations. As a result, adaptation has tended to occur informally and defensively, through reinterpretation, delay, or parallel practice, rather than through authorised course correction.</p>
<p>This chapter establishes a disciplined logic for system learning. It specifies how experimentation can occur without fragmenting signals, how evidence can trigger tightening or redesign without loss of face, and how ideas can enter governance rather than circulate at the margins. Learning here is not openness for its own sake. It is a governed function, oriented toward strengthening the learning spine rather than renegotiating it.</p>
<p>In doing so, the chapter acts as an insurance policy against retreat disguised as learning. It ensures that adaptation works toward coherence, not away from it, and that correction strengthens authority rather than undermining it.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Why System Learning Is a Governance Problem, Not a Technical One</li>
</ul>
<p>Education systems inevitably operate under uncertainty. Classrooms differ. Teacher capability varies. Communities face distinct constraints. Policies interact in ways that cannot be fully predicted at design stage. No reform, however well conceived, survives intact once it encounters daily practice.</p>
<p>The central question is therefore not whether adaptation is required, but how adaptation is authorised, constrained, and directed<strong>.</strong></p>
<p>In Bangladesh, adaptation has historically occurred informally and defensively. When outcomes disappoint, explanations proliferate. Context is emphasised. Responsibility diffuses across institutions. Authority retreats behind complexity. This is not a failure of intelligence or effort. It is a rational response to incentives in a system where learning has no clear institutional destination.</p>
<p>When system learning is unmanaged, it becomes a mechanism for avoiding enforcement rather than improving it. Evidence circulates without consequence. Reviews accumulate without reallocation of responsibility. Reflection becomes performative rather than corrective. The system appears active and thoughtful while behaviour remains unchanged.</p>
<p>A coherent system requires a different settlement. Learning must be institutionalised, directional, and bounded<strong>. </strong>It must operate within fixed commitments rather than reopening them. Without these constraints, learning does not strengthen reform. It dissolves it.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>From Projects to System Learning</li>
</ul>
<p>Bangladesh does not lack experimentation. Across curriculum, assessment, teacher training, technology, nutrition, and service delivery, discrete initiatives have repeatedly demonstrated local success. Pilot programmes have improved attendance, raised short-term learning gains, and strengthened teacher practice in specific settings.</p>
<p>Yet these gains have rarely reshaped system-wide behaviour. The same problems reappear. New initiatives replicate old designs. Institutional routines remain largely unchanged. This pattern reflects not failure of innovation, but failure of learning loops.</p>
<p>Projects generate insights, but the system lacks routines that convert those insights into collective capability<strong>. </strong>Pilots end. Reports are produced. Lessons are acknowledged. Then the system resets. Knowledge remains local while authority remains static.</p>
<p>A learning system treats pilots differently. Pilots are not proof-of-concept exercises or political signals. They are diagnostic instruments<strong>. </strong>Their purpose is to reveal where institutional incentives break, where authority fails to travel, and where routines absorb pressure instead of correcting it.</p>
<p>For learning to scale, evidence must have an institutional destination. Someone must be authorised to interpret it. Someone must be required to act on it. Without this, pilots multiply while learning stagnates, and experimentation becomes insulation rather than adaptation.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Safe-to-Fail Experimentation, Unsafe-to-Ignore Evidence</li>
</ul>
<p>A coherent system distinguishes clearly between experimentation and evidence. Experimentation must be safe to fail. Officials, teachers, and institutions must be able to test approaches without fear that every deviation will trigger sanction. Without this protection, risk aversion dominates. Innovation collapses into compliance. The system becomes brittle precisely where flexibility is needed.</p>
<p>Evidence, however, must be unsafe to ignore. Once an intervention has been tested, once patterns are visible, once outcomes repeat across contexts, the system must respond. At that point, continued inaction is no longer caution. It is retreat. The refusal to act on evidence becomes an active choice to preserve institutional comfort over learning integrity.</p>
<p>Bangladesh’s administrative culture has often collapsed this distinction. Fear of blame suppresses experimentation, while fear of consequence neutralises evidence. The result is a system that neither innovates nor corrects. New methods are resisted, and old failures are tolerated.</p>
<p>Governed learning requires separating these functions. Freedom to test must coexist with inevitability of response. Only then can experimentation generate improvement rather than fatigue.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Local Adaptation Without Imported Illusion</li>
</ul>
<p>Bangladesh cannot import education solutions wholesale. Pedagogies, technologies, and governance models developed elsewhere reflect different institutional histories, political settlements, and social expectations. Direct transplantation often produces surface compliance without functional change.</p>
<p>At the same time, Bangladesh cannot afford to reinvent solutions unnecessarily. Global evidence matters. Comparative experience matters. Ignoring it wastes time and resources.</p>
<p>System learning therefore serves a specific purpose: to translate global knowledge into local function<strong>. </strong>The task is not originality for its own sake, but fitness for context. The metaphor is not invention, but engineering. The wheel already exists. The challenge is to make it work on Bangladesh’s roads.</p>
<p>This requires disciplined adaptation. Borrowed ideas must be tested against local feedback loops: readiness, motivation, trust, feedback, and coherence. What strengthens those dynamics should be adapted and scaled. What weakens them should be rejected, regardless of international endorsement or donor enthusiasm.</p>
<p>Innovation in this sense is not experimentation without anchor. It is selective adjustment in service of fixed learning goals. Without this discipline, innovation becomes theatre rather than transformation.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Learning, Data, and the Dual Role of Governance</li>
</ul>
<p>Data and evidence do not serve learning alone. They also serve governance. In Bangladesh, data have historically been used primarily for compliance, surveillance, and distribution. This has shaped behaviour. Reporting becomes defensive. Indicators multiply. Measurement crowds out meaning. Learning recedes as institutions optimise for visibility rather than improvement.</p>
<p>A coherent system repurposes data without abandoning authority. Information must still support accountability, but it must also inform redesign. Evidence should not only reward and punish. It should clarify where routines fail, where incentives misfire, and where authority must intervene upstream rather than shifting pressure downward.</p>
<p>This learning function of governance is often overlooked. Many of the system’s most important insights, including those documented in Appendix A and Appendix B, did not emerge from administration. They emerged from research. Ideas had to be generated before they could be governed.</p>
<p>A system that assumes ideas already exist governs blind. It enforces without understanding and retreats when enforcement produces unintended consequences. A learning state invests deliberately in idea generation, synthesis, and interpretation as part of its governing capacity.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Controlled Adaptation, Not Continuous Negotiation</li>
</ul>
<p>Learning does not imply constant adjustment. Continuous renegotiation erodes credibility.</p>
<p>A coherent system distinguishes between parameters that are fixed and routines that are adaptable<strong>. </strong>Learning is permitted to redesign methods, supports, sequencing, and institutional processes. It is not permitted to reopen mastery expectations, assessment credibility, progression rules, or the learning spine itself.</p>
<p>When this boundary is unclear, adaptation becomes indistinguishable from retreat. Standards soften incrementally. Timelines stretch. Exceptions accumulate. Reform survives rhetorically while coherence dissolves operationally.</p>
<p>Controlled adaptation strengthens authority precisely because it signals that learning occurs within limits. The system listens, adjusts, and corrects, but it does not bargain with its own commitments. This balance is difficult, but essential. Without it, learning becomes the language through which authority abdicates responsibility.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Where Inconvenient Evidence Goes</li>
</ul>
<p>The decisive test of system learning is not whether evidence exists, but what happens when it becomes inconvenient. In Bangladesh, inconvenient evidence has historically followed predictable paths. It is delayed until relevance fades. It is reframed as context-specific rather than systemic. It is displaced by new indicators that restore comfort. Or it is acknowledged rhetorically while routines remain unchanged. These responses are not accidental. They are institutional strategies for absorbing pressure without reallocating responsibility.</p>
<p>When learning outcomes threaten legitimacy, systems face a choice. They can tighten alignment and correct practice, or they can dissipate pressure through ambiguity. The latter is easier in the short run. It preserves institutional calm, protects informal settlements, and avoids visible disruption. But it also entrenches fragility. Over time, the system becomes dependent on narrative management rather than performance. Under coherence, this pathway must be closed.</p>
<p>Evidence that contradicts expectations must trigger a defined response chain. Data cannot circulate without destination. When assessment outcomes shift, when progression stalls, or when variation widens, the system must know in advance where that evidence goes, who interprets it, and what forms of adjustment are authorised. Without this, information accumulates while behaviour remains static, and learning collapses into documentation.</p>
<p>This does not imply automatic sanction or mechanical response. It implies inevitability of consequence. Sometimes the response will be tighter enforcement. Sometimes it will be redesign of support, sequencing, or institutional routines. Sometimes it will be retirement of practices that no longer serve learning. What matters is that evidence cannot simply be absorbed by time.</p>
<p>In systems that retreat, inconvenient evidence is managed until it disappears. In systems that learn, inconvenient evidence is governed until it produces adjustment.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Learning as the Final Defence Against Retreat</li>
</ul>
<p>This chapter frames system learning not as a technical capability, but as the final defence of coherence when pressure intensifies.</p>
<p>Chapters 5 and 6 defined what coherence requires in classrooms and institutions. Chapter 7 showed why sustaining it is politically difficult once enforcement begins to bite. Chapter 8 established the non-negotiables that prevent retreat through reinterpretation. Chapter 9 set boundaries around enabling conditions so that support does not fragment the learning spine. This chapter completes the logic by addressing what happens when reality refuses to cooperate.</p>
<p>Every serious reform encounters moments where results destabilise familiar narratives. Pass rates dip. Variation becomes visible. Previously hidden weaknesses surface. At these moments, authority is tested. Systems either govern adaptation or retreat behind pragmatism.</p>
<p>If learning is weak or unmanaged, authority reacts defensively. Enforcement is softened. Standards are quietly recalibrated. Accountability is postponed. The system stabilises in appearance while learning remains shallow and unequal. Retreat occurs without announcement.</p>
<p>If learning is governed, authority holds. Evidence is allowed to reallocate responsibility upward. Adjustment occurs within fixed commitments. Discomfort is absorbed through redesign rather than denial. Coherence survives because the system learns without reopening what was meant to be settled.</p>
<p>There is no neutral path between these outcomes. Learning either strengthens authority or undermines it. Systems that cannot learn eventually rely on symbolism, coercion, or silence. Systems that can learn preserve legitimacy precisely because they are willing to adjust in the</p>
<p>open. Bangladesh does not require perfect plans or imported certainty. It requires a system capable of learning under pressure without losing direction, authority, or coherence. This chapter defines the conditions under which that is possible.</p>
<p>It is not a call for experimentation without limits, nor for flexibility without discipline. It is a statement that in a system committed to learning at scale, governed learning is not optional. It is the only mechanism through which coherence survives contact with reality.</p>
<h2><strong></strong><strong></strong>Chapter 11. A National Compact for Learning and the Test of Credibility</h2>
<p><strong>This chapterargues that Bangladesh’s learning crisis persists not because of weak intent, but because the system repeatedly avoided the political and institutional costs of enforcing learning integrity.defines a national compact that makes explicit, reciprocal demands on teachers, families, institutions, and the state once learning becomes visible and enforcement begins.sets out the state’s core commitments, including non-withdrawal of coherence, preservation of assessment credibility, bounded phasing without exemption, and refusal to manage results for appearance.reframes state accountability as responsibility for protecting learning integrity over time, not merely expanding access, infrastructure, or certification.concludes that the Vision will be judged not by its analysis or ambition, but by whether coherence is defended when enforcement becomes politically uncomfortable.This chapterargues that Bangladesh’s learning crisis persists not because of weak intent, but because the system repeatedly avoided the political and institutional costs of enforcing learning integrity.defines a national compact that makes explicit, reciprocal demands on teachers, families, institutions, and the state once learning becomes visible and enforcement begins.sets out the state’s core commitments, including non-withdrawal of coherence, preservation of assessment credibility, bounded phasing without exemption, and refusal to manage results for appearance.reframes state accountability as responsibility for protecting learning integrity over time, not merely expanding access, infrastructure, or certification.concludes that the Vision will be judged not by its analysis or ambition, but by whether coherence is defended when enforcement becomes politically uncomfortable. </strong><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">argues</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Bangladesh’s</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">crisis</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">persists</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">because</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">intent,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but because the system repeatedly avoided the political and institutional costs of enforcing learning integrity.</span><span style="color: #000000">defines</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">national</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">compact</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">makes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">explicit,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reciprocal</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">demands</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">on</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">teachers, families, institutions, and the state once learning becomes visible and enforcement begins.</span><span style="color: #000000">sets out the state’s core commitments, including non-withdrawal of coherence, preservation</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">credibility,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">bounded</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">phasing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">without</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">exemption,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and refusal to manage results for appearance.</span><span style="color: #000000">reframes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">state</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accountability</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">as</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">responsibility</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">for</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">protecting</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">integrity over time, not merely expanding access, infrastructure, or certification.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Vision</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">will</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">be</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">judged</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">its</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">analysis</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">ambition,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by whether coherence is defended when enforcement becomes politically </span><span style="color: #000000">uncomfortable.</span><span style="color: #000000">This</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">chapter</span><span style="color: #000000">argues</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Bangladesh’s</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">crisis</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">persists</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">because</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">weak</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">intent,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but because the system repeatedly avoided the political and institutional costs of enforcing learning integrity.</span><span style="color: #000000">defines</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">a</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">national</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">compact</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">makes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">explicit,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">reciprocal</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">demands</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">on</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">teachers, families, institutions, and the state once learning becomes visible and enforcement begins.</span><span style="color: #000000">sets out the state’s core commitments, including non-withdrawal of coherence, preservation</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">of</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">assessment</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">credibility,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">bounded</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">phasing</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">without</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">exemption,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">and refusal to manage results for appearance.</span><span style="color: #000000">reframes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">state</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">accountability</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">as</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">responsibility</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">for</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">protecting</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">learning</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">integrity over time, not merely expanding access, infrastructure, or certification.</span><span style="color: #000000">concludes</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">that</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">the</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">Vision</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">will</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">be</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">judged</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">not</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">its</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">analysis</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">or</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">ambition,</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">but</span><span style="color: #000000"> </span><span style="color: #000000">by whether coherence is defended when enforcement becomes politically </span><span style="color: #000000">uncomfortable.</span></p>
<p>This Vision has made a deliberate choice. It has described Bangladesh’s education crisis not as a failure of effort or intention, but as the result of a stable equilibrium in which weak learning was tolerated, managed, and defended alongside expanding credentials and visible success. That equilibrium did not persist because problems were unknown. It persisted because confronting them carried political, institutional, and economic costs that the system repeatedly chose not to bear.</p>
<p>This final chapter sets out what it would take to break that equilibrium. It does not propose another programme, initiative, or reform layer. It defines the national compact required for coherence to survive once learning becomes visible, enforcement begins to bite, and familiar accommodations are no longer available.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>What the System Is Asking For</li>
</ol>
<p>If this Vision is taken seriously, it makes concrete demands of every actor in the system.</p>
<p>From teachers and school leaders, it asks for professional accountability under conditions of clarity. Expectations will be explicit. Progression without mastery will no longer be normalised. Instructional avoidance cannot be absorbed indefinitely once support is in place. This is not a demand for heroism, but for professionalism within a system that aligns curriculum, assessment, supervision, and support.</p>
<p>From families, it asks for tolerance of transition. As assessment credibility is restored, results may initially become more volatile. Familiar shortcuts may no longer work. Coaching markets will lose some of their protective value. This Vision asks families to accept short-term uncertainty in exchange for long-term integrity: credentials that once again mean learning, and pathways that do not require private risk management to navigate.</p>
<p>From institutions, it asks for something harder. It asks for a willingness to enforce standards even when doing so is costly. It asks institutions to resist the reflex to absorb pressure through delay, reinterpretation, or quiet adjustment. It asks them to place capable people where learning integrity requires them, not where convenience or patronage dictates. It asks them to allow evidence to reallocate responsibility upward, rather than pushing consequences downward onto classrooms and households.</p>
<p>These demands are uncomfortable by design. They challenge practices that have stabilised the system for decades.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>What the State Commits in Return</li>
</ol>
<p>A compact cannot be one-sided. If the system is asked to change behaviour, the state must bind itself to clear commitments.</p>
<p>First, coherence will not be withdrawn. Curriculum priorities, assessment standards, and progression rules will not be softened quietly when results become politically inconvenient. The learning spine will not be treated as provisional.</p>
<p>Second, assessment credibility will not be managed for appearances. Pass rates will not be restored through marking adjustment. Volatility will not be hidden through recalibration. When outcomes shift, the response will be support, enforcement, or redesign, not distortion.</p>
<p>Third, expectations will not be shifted back onto classrooms. When learning outcomes fall short, responsibility will not be displaced downward through blame or rhetoric. Evidence will be allowed to travel upward, triggering institutional correction where authority and resources actually sit.</p>
<p>Fourth, phasing will not mean exemption. Sequencing will be used to build capability, not to reopen settled commitments. Transition periods will be bounded. The end state will remain fixed.</p>
<p>Finally, governance will protect learning institutions from routine politicisation. Bodies responsible for curriculum, assessment, supervision, and certification will not be treated as sites for accommodation, patronage, or pressure absorption. Appointments, postings, and decisions that shape learning integrity will be governed accordingly, because without this constraint, no technical reform can survive.</p>
<p>These are not promises of perfection. They are promises of restraint.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>Accountability of the State</li>
</ol>
<p>Chapter 2 showed that weak learning persisted not because the system lacked rules, but because enforcement was selective and reversible. Authority was applied where it produced visible order and relaxed where it threatened stability or exposed uncomfortable truths.</p>
<p>This Vision insists on a different accountability settlement. The state will be accountable not only for expanding access, delivering infrastructure, or issuing credentials, but for protecting the integrity of learning outcomes over time. When learning fails, the response will not be symbolic action or narrative management. It will be governed adjustment.</p>
<p>This requires accepting that some practices must end. Quiet grade manipulation. Automatic progression to preserve calm. Appointments that weaken core institutions. Data used to perform upward and punish downward, but never to redesign. These practices are not neutral. They are how retreat has historically been managed. The compact requires that these escape routes be closed.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong></strong><strong></strong>The Line That Will Not Be Crossed</li>
</ol>
<p>Bangladesh does not lack ambition. It does not lack effort. It does not lack people who care.</p>
<p>What it has lacked is a credible commitment to protect learning from the everyday practices that undo reform while preserving surface stability. This Vision draws a clear line. Learning integrity will not be traded for administrative convenience or political comfort.</p>
<p>That line applies when assessment results destabilise familiar narratives. It applies when enforcement produces resistance. It applies when institutional routines are tested. It applies when pressure arrives to restore calm by softening standards, shifting responsibility, or diluting signals.</p>
<p>Ideas will need to be generated. Evidence will need to be interpreted. Adaptation will be necessary. But these will occur within fixed commitments, not at their expense. This is the test of credibility.</p>
<p>Bangladesh does not lack knowledge of its education crisis. It lacks a record of holding course when reform becomes politically uncomfortable. This Vision succeeds or fails not on its analysis or design, but on whether coherence is defended when resistance emerges and old accommodations become tempting. There is no technical fix for this choice. Only a governing one.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>Appendix A: System diagnosis: why schooling has expanded but learning has not</h3>
<p>This appendix consolidates the diagnostic evidence that underpins the reform priorities set out in the Vision and Implementation Framework. It draws together system-wide reviews, administrative statistics, sector performance reporting, and independent monitoring to provide a grounded account of how Bangladesh’s education system currently functions in practice.</p>
<p>The purpose of this appendix is not to restate policy aspirations or reform intent. Throughout this appendix, ‘learning’ refers to demonstrable mastery of foundational literacy and numeracy, the ability to reason and apply knowledge, and the development of transferable skills required for progression to further education, work, and civic participation. The appendix documents observed patterns in learning outcomes, system behaviour, and implementation performance, and identifies the institutional arrangements and incentive dynamics that help explain why sustained expansion in schooling has not translated into commensurate gains in learning.</p>
<p>Several aspects of the diagnosis touch on politically and institutionally sensitive areas, including governance, accountability, assessment credibility, and resource use. For this reason, the analysis is explicitly evidence-led and triangulated across multiple system-facing sources, rather than relying on any single report or study. Where political incentives and public signalling are discussed, they are treated as analytical features of system behaviour rather than as normative judgements about individual actors.</p>
<p>At the same time, the diagnosis recognises a harder pattern that emerges across multiple sources: the system did not only tolerate weak learning. Over time, it frequently managed around it, using administrative discretion, assessment design, and public signalling to stabilise politically salient outcomes even as independent learning evidence remained weak<strong>. </strong>Success was often produced through visible proxies (coverage, infrastructure, enrolment, headline results), while the integrity of learning signals and the discipline of follow-through remained weak. In periods where learning evidence was persistently poor, the system’s most reliable consequences were attached to administrative outputs, compliance, and politically salient indicators. This created space for discretion in enforcement, assessment stringency, and reporting standards, and it enabled rent-bearing behaviours to stabilise in predictable places, including examinations, tutoring markets, and local resource chains.</p>
<p><u>Evidence</u><u> </u><u>base</u><u> </u><u>and</u><u> </u><u>citation</u><u> conventions</u></p>
<p>The diagnosis in this appendix relies primarily on a small set of system-wide sources that are cited repeatedly across sections because they provide one or more of the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>national coverage,</li>
<li>official administrative or sector reporting, or</li>
<li>independent monitoring at scale.</li>
</ul>
<p>For readability and consistency, each core source is assigned a short title that is used throughout the appendix.</p>
<ul>
<li>White Paper</li>
</ul>
<p>White Paper on the State of the Bangladesh Economy: Dissection of a Development Narrative (2025), Chapter 14 (Education)</p>
<ul>
<li>Task Force Report</li>
</ul>
<p>Re-strategising the Economy and Mobilising Resources for Equitable and Sustainable Development (2025)</p>
<ul>
<li>Consultation Committee Report</li>
</ul>
<p>Consultation Committee Report on Primary and Mass Education (2025)</p>
<ul>
<li>BANBEIS 2023 Statistics</li>
</ul>
<p>Bangladesh Education Statistics 2023 (published 2024)</p>
<ul>
<li>ASPR 2022–2023</li>
</ul>
<p>Annual Sector Performance Report: Education Sector (2022; 2023)</p>
<ul>
<li>Education Watch</li>
</ul>
<p>Education Watch reports (multiple rounds, CAMPE)</p>
<p>These sources are used because they recur across national policy discussion and collectively cover the core dimensions required for system diagnosis: learning outcomes, assessment and credential signals, resourcing and financing, governance and accountability, service delivery performance, and equity and stratification.</p>
<p>Other studies and specialised analyses (including governance micro-studies and programme- specific evaluations) are used selectively to illuminate mechanisms or confirm patterns and are footnoted locally when introduced. They are not treated as primary system diagnostics.</p>
<p><u>How</u><u> </u><u>to</u><u> </u><u>read</u><u> </u><u>this</u><u> </u><u>diagnosis</u></p>
<p>Appendix A is structured as a system diagnosis, not a thematic literature review. Each section examines a core subsystem of education delivery and traces how observed outcomes emerge from the interaction between policy design, institutional arrangements, incentives, and behaviour at scale.</p>
<p>The diagnosis proceeds in six linked parts:</p>
<ol>
<li>A1.1 Learning foundations, classroom practice, and progression</li>
</ol>
<p>Examines how early readiness gaps, weak foundational learning, and classroom realities interact to produce cumulative learning deficits across grades.</p>
<ol>
<li>A1.2 Assessment, credentials, and learning signals</li>
</ol>
<p>Analyses how public examinations, grading practices, and integrity failures shape behaviour, distort incentives, and weaken the signalling value of credentials.</p>
<ol>
<li>A1.3 Governance failures, incentives, and resource leakages</li>
</ol>
<p>Examines how fragmented authority, weak accountability, and low-powered enforcement affect teacher effort, supervision, and resource use.</p>
<ol>
<li>A1.4 Education financing, expenditure efficiency, and cost shifting</li>
</ol>
<p>Assesses both the level and composition of public spending, and how weak linkage between finance and learning outcomes has shifted effective costs onto households.</p>
<ol>
<li>A1.5 Equity and inclusion</li>
</ol>
<p>Diagnoses how poverty, gender, geography, disability, and language interact to produce cumulative disadvantage in participation, learning, and progression.</p>
<ol>
<li>A1.6 Education streams and stratification</li>
</ol>
<p>Analyses how parallel education streams function as stratified pathways with unequal learning conditions, credentials, and mobility.</p>
<p>Across sections, the diagnosis emphasises patterns rather than isolated failures. Weak learning outcomes, assessment volatility, governance leakage, household risk management, and stream stratification are treated as mutually reinforcing features of the current system equilibrium, not as independent problems.</p>
<p>Where possible, claims are triangulated across administrative data, independent assessments, household surveys, and sector performance reporting. Where evidence is incomplete or uneven, this is made explicit. The aim is not attribution of blame, but identification of the structural constraints and incentive dynamics that any credible reform agenda must address.</p>
<p>Taken together, Appendix A provides the empirical and analytical foundation for the Vision and Implementation Framework. It explains not only what is not working<strong>, </strong>but why, and therefore clarifies where reform effort is most likely to unlock sustained improvements in learning.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>A1 Learning foundations, classroom practice, and progressions.</h3>
<p>This section examines how learning foundations, classroom practice, and progression interact to shape student outcomes across the school cycle. It traces how early readiness gaps emerge before school entry, how weak foundations persist through primary and lower secondary education, and how day-to-day instructional practices and curriculum pressures reinforce these patterns over time.</p>
<p>Taken together, the evidence highlights a system in which students progress through grades without consistent mastery, as classroom realities, instructional time constraints, and curriculum design combine to widen learning gaps rather than close them.</p>
<h3>A1.1 School readiness and pre-primary foundations</h3>
<p>Learning gaps in Bangladesh do not begin in Grade 1. They begin before school starts, and the evidence indicates that early-childhood access and developmental readiness remain structurally constrained relative to the size of the cohort. A recent joint study by the Department of Primary Education and UNICEF<a href="">2</a> shows that of the 11.3 million children aged 3–5 in Bangladesh, only</p>
<p>3.5 million receive early learning opportunities across all school types. Similarly, Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) data indicate that only 18.9 per cent of children aged 3–5 are accessing early learning programmes, while 25.5 per cent are not developmentally on track.</p>
<p>Policy intent exists, as shown by the launch of a pilot in 3,214 government primary schools in 2023, but implementation readiness is uneven. Crucially, the feasibility study finds that “availability” at the policy level did not automatically translate into enrolment at the community level: in piloting school catchment areas, enrolment was 16.6 per cent for children aged 4+ and 27.6 per cent for children aged 5+. The study also documents constraints that matter directly for readiness outcomes, including shortages of qualified teachers, gaps in age- appropriate WASH and learning or play materials, and uneven community understanding of play-based pedagogies, all of which reduced enrolment and engagement.</p>
<p>These constraints imply that the system is attempting to deliver primary schooling to a cohort in which many children begin formal learning without consistent prior exposure to structured</p>
<p>2 DPE & UNICEF. (2025) Study on the Feasibility of Scale-up of the Two-year Pre-primary Education in Government Primary Schools in Bangladesh, Government of Bangladesh and UNICEF.</p>
<p>early learning routines, language-rich interaction, and age-appropriate foundational development. Readiness is therefore not only an “early years” issue but a delivery design problem: when early learning provision is thin, uneven, or perceived as low value, the system inherits avoidable heterogeneity in readiness at the start of primary school. This heterogeneity then amplifies classroom difficulty in the early grades and contributes to widening learning gaps as children progress through the system</p>
<h3>A1.2 Foundational learning outcomes and progression from primary to lower secondary</h3>
<p>Evidence from national assessments shows that a large share of students complete primary education without mastering foundational competencies, and that these gaps persist into lower secondary education. The National Student Assessment at Grade 5 provides the clearest benchmark of learning at the end of primary school. In the 2017 cycle, only 44 percent of students achieved grade-level proficiency in Bangla, while 35 percent achieved expected proficiency in mathematics (NSA 2017)<a href="">3</a>. The 2022 cycle shows no meaningful improvement in Bangla and a decline in mathematics proficiency to around 30 percent, despite five additional years of policy reform and investment (NSA 2022)<a href="">4</a>. This implies that roughly two-thirds of students complete primary school without grade-level numeracy, and more than half without grade-level literacy.</p>
<p>Similarly, household-based assessments reinforce the scale of the problem. Education Watch reports from 2022 and 2024 show that approximately 50 percent of students in Grades 3 and 5 are unable to read a Grade 2-level text fluently, and between 45 and 55 percent cannot correctly perform basic two-digit subtraction. These findings indicate that weak learning is not confined to assessment samples but is visible at household and classroom level.</p>
<p>Lower secondary assessments show that these deficits are not systematically remediated. The National Assessment of Secondary Students at Grade 8 reports that a majority of students fail to meet expected competency thresholds in mathematics and science, particularly on items requiring reasoning rather than recall. In mathematics, fewer than ~ 40 percent of students demonstrate competency aligned with grade expectations, and performance drops sharply on multi-step or applied questions.</p>
<p>This learning bottleneck coincides with rising dropout. BANBEIS 2023 statistics show that while survival to Grade 5 exceeds 85 percent, dropout accelerates in lower secondary education. By Grade 10, cumulative dropout exceeds 30 percent, with the steepest losses occurring between Grades 8 and 10. These patterns are consistent with assessment evidence showing that students struggle to cope with increased curricular abstraction in the absence of secure foundational learning.</p>
<p>By higher secondary education, learning gaps have largely hardened. Reviews conducted in the Task Force Report and reflected in other national policy analysis note that many students reaching Grade 12 lack proficiency in analytical writing, problem-solving, and independent learning, even when they pass public examinations. Employers and tertiary institutions consistently report that new entrants require remediation in basic reasoning and communication skills.</p>
<p>3 National Student Assessment 2017 (Grades 3 and 5). Government of Bangladesh.</p>
<p>4 National Student Assessment 2022 (Grades 3 and 5). Government of Bangladesh.</p>
<p>Recent examination cycles provide additional confirmation. Where grading practices were less accommodative, pass rates and grade distributions fell sharply, revealing gaps in student preparedness rather than sudden deterioration in cohort ability. These outcomes suggest that earlier examination performance overstated learning achievement and masked accumulated deficits. Detailed analysis of assessment credibility and inflation is presented in the following section, but the learning evidence here indicates that weak results reflect long-standing gaps rather than short-term shocks.</p>
<p>Taken together, the evidence shows that Bangladesh’s education system enables grade progression without ensuring mastery at key transition points. Weak foundations at the end of primary school persist into lower secondary education, and by higher secondary level many students remain under-prepared for the cognitive demands of further study or skilled employment.</p>
<h3>A1.3 Classroom practice and instructional time</h3>
<p>Evidence from classroom observations and administrative data indicates that weak learning outcomes are closely linked to how instruction is organised and delivered on a day-to-day basis. Across primary and lower secondary classrooms, teaching practices prioritise syllabus completion and examination preparation over mastery, while effective instructional time is substantially lower than implied by official timetables.</p>
<p>Education Watch classroom observations conducted across multiple rounds show that rote- based practices dominate the majority of observed lessons. In typical primary classrooms, a large share of instructional time is devoted to copying from the board, choral repetition, and mechanical exercises aligned to anticipated examination questions. Activities associated with effective foundational learning, including guided reading, structured problem-solving, discussion, and formative feedback, are observed far less frequently. Across observation rounds, fewer than one in three lessons include any sustained opportunity for students to explain reasoning or receive individual feedback.</p>
<p>These instructional patterns persist across school types and regions. Importantly, they are observed not only in poorly resourced schools but also in schools with adequate buildings and textbook supply. This suggests that pedagogy is shaped primarily by system incentives and assessment pressures rather than by material shortages alone.</p>
<p>Effective instructional time is further constrained by teacher absence and non-teaching demands. Education Watch unannounced school visits report teacher absence rates ranging from 15 to 25 percent, with higher absence in rural areas, char regions, and urban informal settlements. In schools with fewer teachers, the absence of even one teacher results in class cancellations or ad hoc supervision, further reducing learning time.</p>
<p>When teachers are present, a significant proportion of the school day is absorbed by administrative and non-instructional tasks. Sector performance reporting further confirms these constraints. The Annual Sector Performance Reports (ASPR) for 2022 and 2023 record repeated disruptions to instructional time arising from non-teaching assignments, emergency response activities, and administrative directives issued through multiple channels. While these disruptions are treated as operational issues in sector reporting, their cumulative effect is to reduce effective teaching time and reinforce coverage-oriented pedagogy. The Consultation Committee Report similarly documents that teachers and head teachers are frequently engaged</p>
<p>in data reporting, stipend administration, examination logistics, and other tasks assigned by multiple authorities. As a result, the actual time devoted to focused instruction falls well below scheduled instructional hours, particularly in government primary and secondary schools.</p>
<p>Large class sizes amplify these constraints. BANBEIS 2023 statistics show that pupil–teacher ratios in government primary schools commonly exceed 40 students per teacher, and exceed 50 students per teacher in many disadvantaged locations. In classrooms of this size, even motivated teachers face severe limits on their ability to monitor individual learning, diagnose misconceptions, or provide corrective feedback. As a result, instruction defaults to whole-class methods that privilege coverage over understanding.</p>
<p>Multi-grade teaching remains widespread in remote and hard-to-reach areas. BANBEIS 2023 statistics and Education Watch fieldwork indicate that a significant share of rural primary schools operate with multi-grade classrooms, often without specialised training or materials to support such teaching arrangements. This further reduces effective instructional time per grade and increases reliance on self-directed copying and repetition.</p>
<p>Curriculum pacing pressures reinforce these patterns. Teachers report strong expectations to complete prescribed syllabi within fixed timeframes, regardless of student readiness. Following COVID-19 school closures, curricula were largely reinstated without systematic prioritisation or catch-up sequencing, despite evidence of learning loss. Under these conditions, teachers rationally prioritise coverage of examinable content, even when large numbers of students have not mastered prerequisite skills.</p>
<p>Taken together, the evidence shows that students receive significantly less effective instruction than policy frameworks assume. Reduced instructional time, large class sizes, rote-dominated pedagogy, and administrative overload interact to constrain learning, particularly for students who enter classrooms with weak foundations. Without changes to how instructional time is protected and used, improvements in curriculum or assessment design alone are unlikely to translate into better learning outcomes.</p>
<h3>A1.4 Classroom conditions and curriculum pressures across grades</h3>
<p>Curriculum expectations and classroom conditions interact to shape what teachers are realistically able to deliver. Evidence from national reviews, administrative data, and field- based studies shows that dense syllabi, limited prioritisation of foundational competencies, and sharp transitions in cognitive demand place sustained pressure on instructional practice. These pressures intensify as students move through the system, particularly in contexts characterised by large classes, limited instructional time, and shortages of subject-qualified teachers.</p>
<p><em>Primary</em><em> </em><em>education</em><em> </em><em>(Grades</em><em> </em><em>1–5)</em></p>
<p>At primary level, curriculum density relative to available instructional time is a recurring concern. The Consultation Committee Report documents that the prescribed primary syllabus requires teachers to cover a wide range of content each year, with limited guidance on prioritisation when students fall behind. In practice, this places pressure on teachers to move through material at pace, even when a substantial share of students have not mastered prerequisite skills.</p>
<p>The White Paper reinforces this diagnosis, noting that the primary curriculum places insufficient emphasis on consolidation of foundational literacy and numeracy in the early grades, particularly in Grades 1 and 2. Where remediation mechanisms exist, they are not systematically embedded in classroom routines. As a result, students who fall behind early are carried forward without targeted support, contributing to the accumulation of learning gaps observed at the end of primary school.</p>
<p>Classroom conditions amplify these curriculum pressures. Large class sizes and limited instructional time reduce opportunities for teachers to slow down instruction or revisit earlier content. Under these constraints, coverage-oriented teaching becomes a rational response to syllabus expectations, reinforcing rote practices documented in classroom observations.</p>
<p><em>Lower</em><em> </em><em>secondary</em><em> </em><em>education</em><em> </em><em>(Grades</em><em> </em><em>6–8)</em></p>
<p>Curriculum pressures intensify at the transition to lower secondary education. The White Paper and the Task Force Report both highlight a sharp increase in abstraction and content load beginning in Grades 6 to 8, particularly in mathematics and science (White Paper; Task Force Report). Students are expected to shift rapidly from basic operations to algebraic reasoning, and from factual recall to conceptual understanding, often without sufficient bridging or diagnostic support.</p>
<p>This transition coincides with evidence of weak foundational learning at the end of primary school. As a result, many students enter lower secondary education without the literacy and numeracy required to engage meaningfully with the curriculum. Education Watch classroom observations at lower secondary level indicate continued reliance on whole-class instruction and memorisation, with limited adaptation to varied student readiness.</p>
<p>Teacher deployment patterns further constrain delivery. BANBEIS 2023 statistics show that shortages of subject-qualified teachers in mathematics, science, and English are concentrated in rural and disadvantaged schools. Where subject specialists are unavailable, teachers are often required to teach outside their area of training, reducing instructional depth precisely at the stage when curricular demands increase most sharply.</p>
<p><em>Higher</em><em> </em><em>secondary</em><em> </em><em>education</em><em> </em><em>(Grades</em><em> 11–12)</em></p>
<p>At higher secondary level, curriculum demands remain dense and examination-oriented. The Task Force Report notes that syllabi at Grades 11 and 12 prioritise coverage of examinable content, leaving limited space for extended problem-solving, analytical writing, or independent inquiry. While assessments require demonstration of higher-order skills, classroom instruction remains constrained by time pressure and syllabus breadth.</p>
<p>The White Paper further observes that higher secondary curricula are weakly aligned with the competencies required for tertiary education and skilled employment, particularly in areas such as critical reasoning, applied knowledge, and communication. As a result, many students complete higher secondary education having met formal curriculum requirements without developing the skills expected at the next stage of education or work.</p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these challenges. Despite documented learning losses during prolonged school closures, curriculum expectations at lower and higher secondary levels were largely reinstated without systematic compression or reprioritisation (White Paper;</p>
<p>Task Force Report). Teachers reported pressure to complete the syllabus within shortened effective school years, reinforcing surface learning strategies and limiting opportunities for remediation.</p>
<p>Language of instruction compounds curriculum difficulty across grades. In multilingual regions, students are required to engage with increasingly abstract content in Bangla or English, even when these are not their home languages. Evidence cited in national reviews indicates that this reduces comprehension and participation, particularly in science and mathematics at lower secondary level (White Paper).</p>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>
<p><strong>Diagnostic</strong><strong> </strong><strong>domain</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Indicator</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Magnitude</strong><strong> </strong><strong>/</strong><strong> </strong><strong>pattern</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Source</strong></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>School readiness</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Children 3–5 accessing ECE</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>18.9%</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>DPE–UNICEF / MICS</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>School readiness</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Children not developmentally on track</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>25.5%</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>DPE–UNICEF / MICS</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Foundations</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Grade 5 Bangla</p>
<p>proficiency</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>~44%</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>NSA 2017</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Foundations</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Grade 5 mathematics</p>
<p>proficiency</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>~35% → ~30%</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>NSA 2017–2022</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Foundations</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Early grade skill failure (Grades 3–5)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>~50%</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Education Watch</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Progression</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Grade 8 math/science competence</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><40%</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>NASS</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Progression</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Cumulative dropout by Grade 10</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>>30%</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>BANBEIS 2023</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Classroom practice</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Rote-dominated</p>
<p>instruction</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Majority</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Education Watch</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Classroom practice</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Lessons with feedback</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><30%</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Education Watch</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Teacher availability</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Absence (unannounced)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>15–25%</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Education Watch</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Staffing</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>PTR >40:1</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Widespread</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>BANBEIS 2023</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Staffing</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Subject-teacher shortages</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Concentrated in disadvantaged</p>
<p>areas</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>BANBEIS 2023</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Curriculum pressure</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Transition shock (Grades</p>
<p>6–8)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Sharp increase in abstraction</p>
<p>without bridging or remediation</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>White Paper; Task</p>
<p>Force</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>System response</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Post-COVID curriculum</p>
<p>reprioritisation</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Minimal</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>White Paper; Task</p>
<p>Force</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>Table A1.1 Evidence on learning foundations, classroom constraints, and progression</p>
<p>Taken together, the evidence shows that curriculum design and pacing are misaligned with classroom realities across the school cycle. Dense syllabi, abrupt transitions in cognitive demand, shortages of subject-qualified teachers, and limited flexibility to adapt content to student readiness reinforce instructional practices that prioritise coverage over mastery. These pressures accumulate across grades, making it increasingly difficult for students who fall behind to recover as they progress through the system</p>
<h3>A1.5 Summary of key diagnostic findings</h3>
<ol>
<li><strong>Learning</strong><strong> </strong><strong>deficits</strong><strong> </strong><strong>begin</strong><strong> </strong><strong>before</strong><strong> </strong><strong>school</strong><strong> </strong><strong>entry.</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>A majority of children enter Grade 1 without consistent exposure to structured early learning. Pre-primary access remains limited relative to cohort size, and utilisation is substantially lower than policy availability, producing wide variation in school readiness at the point of entry.</p>
<ol>
<li>Foundational learning outcomes remain persistently weak.</li>
</ol>
<p>Fewer than half of students achieve grade-level literacy, and roughly one-third achieve grade-level numeracy, by the end of primary school. These outcomes have shown little improvement across successive national assessment cycles, indicating a structural rather than transitional problem.</p>
<ol>
<li>Learning gaps widen rather than close as students progress.</li>
</ol>
<p>Weak foundations at the end of primary school are not remediated in lower secondary education. Grade 8 assessment evidence shows continued underperformance in mathematics and science, particularly on tasks requiring reasoning rather than recall, coinciding with rising dropout.</p>
<ol>
<li>Grade progression frequently occurs without mastery.</li>
</ol>
<p>Students advance through key transition points despite significant learning gaps. By higher secondary level, many students who pass public examinations lack readiness in analytical writing, problem-solving, and independent learning, revealing a growing divergence between credentials and actual competence.</p>
<ol>
<li>Classroom instruction is constrained by incentives and conditions.</li>
</ol>
<p>Teaching practice is dominated by syllabus coverage and rote methods, while effective instructional time is substantially lower than scheduled time due to teacher absence, administrative burden, large class sizes, and multi-grade teaching. These constraints make mastery-oriented instruction difficult to sustain.</p>
<ol>
<li>Curriculum design and pacing are misaligned with classroom realities.</li>
</ol>
<p>Dense syllabi, limited prioritisation of foundational competencies, and sharp increases in abstraction at lower secondary level place sustained pressure on teachers and students. Post-pandemic reinstatement of curricula without systematic reprioritisation has reinforced surface learning strategies.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Teacher supply and deployment constraints amplify learning gaps. </strong>High pupil– teacher ratios and shortages of subject-qualified teachers (particularly in mathematics, science, and English in rural and disadvantaged areas) reduce instructional attention and make curriculum transitions harder to manage.</li>
</ol>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>A2 Assessment, credentials, and learning signals</h3>
<p>Assessment is the main mechanism through which Bangladesh’s education system allocates progression and opportunity. Public examinations shape not only transitions between levels, but also the daily behaviour of teachers, students, school leaders, and households. The evidence reviewed here shows that the system’s assessment signals have been weakened by a combination of grade inflation, integrity failures, and a growing reliance on household expenditure to manage risk. These dynamics encourage credential seeking over mastery and reduce the extent to which exam results can be interpreted as stable evidence of learning.</p>
<h3>A2.1 Signal dilution through grade inflation and divergence from learning evidence</h3>
<h3></h3>
<p>A central diagnostic problem is the growing separation between examination outcomes and independent measures of learning. The National Student Assessment 2022 reports that ~50% of Grade 5 students are “proficient and above” in Bangla, while only ~30% of Grade 5 students are “proficient and above” in mathematics. These levels are not consistent with a system in which most students are mastering grade-level competencies.</p>
<p>In contrast, public examination indicators have historically presented a much more optimistic picture. The White Paper documents a long-run increase in SSC success and top grades, noting that the average SSC pass rate rose from 35.22% (2001) to 83.04% (2024), while the number of students securing GPA-5 increased to 1,63,845 (2024). These figures illustrate a steep improvement in credentials over time, but they sit alongside persistently low proficiency measured independently by NSA, particularly in mathematics.</p>
<p>This divergence matters because it weakens the interpretability of results. When formal exam outcomes rise sharply while independently measured proficiency remains modest, grades become less reliable signals of mastery. That uncertainty then becomes a system driver in its own right, shaping how households and schools respond.</p>
<h3>A2.2 The 2025 SSC and HSC “correction” and what it reveals about discretion</h3>
<p>Recent examination cycles show how sensitive outcomes can be to decisions about marking stringency, moderation, and enforcement. In SSC 2025, national reporting indicates a sharp fall in outcomes compared with the previous year. The pass rate fell to 68.45% and GPA-5 fell to 139,032, compared with 83.03% pass rate and 182,129 GPA-5 in 2024. The same pattern appears at the higher secondary level. For HSC 2025, bdnews24 reports a pass rate of 58.83% and 69,097 GPA-5, compared with 77.78% pass rate and 145,911 GPA-5 in 2024, implying an</p>
<p>18.95 percentage point year-on-year drop in pass rates and a decline of 76,814 in GPA-5 recipients.</p>
<p>Analytically, this volatility is important for diagnosis. A shift of this scale cannot plausibly be explained by changes in curriculum or classroom instruction within a single year. It indicates that examination outcomes are highly responsive to administrative discretion and enforcement regimes. This does not remove learning as the underlying problem. It instead shows that the public examination system has been capable of producing very different headline outcomes under different rules of stringency, which reinforces the broader concern about the stability and credibility of assessment signals.</p>
<h3>A2.3 Integrity failures and weak credibility of the exam system</h3>
<p>A second diagnostic problem is that assessment credibility is repeatedly undermined by integrity failures. The White Paper contains a dedicated discussion of “Question paper Leakage in Public Exams” and notes that the tendency allegedly became rampant after 2014, including regular leakage claims involving public examinations and admission tests. While the White Paper discussion is not primarily presented as a statistical series, it clearly treats leakage as recurrent rather than exceptional and ties it to systemic vulnerabilities (paper setting, distribution, intermediaries, and weak accountability).</p>
<p>The Task Force Report is more prescriptive but diagnostic in what it implies. It explicitly calls for ending “auto pass” provisions and for stopping question paper leaks, stating that “no auto pass should be allowed” and pointing to the need for action against those involved in leakage.</p>
<p>This is a strong signal that system actors view integrity and enforcement weaknesses as sufficiently serious to warrant explicit prohibition, not incremental adjustment.</p>
<p>Where integrity is uncertain, households and schools rationally treat examinations as high- stakes contests with uncertain rules, rather than as credible measurement. This is one of the mechanisms through which the system shifts away from learning and toward risk management.</p>
<h3>A2.4 Political economy of assessment: discretion, shadow markets, and signal control</h3>
<p>The assessment system does not only measure learning. It organises incentives, distributes advantage, and creates opportunities for extraction where stakes are high and governance is weak. The diagnostic evidence suggests three mechanisms that matter for system behaviour.</p>
<p>First, examination outcomes have been demonstrably sensitive to choices about marking stringency, moderation, and enforcement. Large year-to-year shifts in pass rates and top grades are analytically difficult to reconcile with gradual changes in classroom instruction. The more plausible interpretation is that administrative discretion has been able to expand or tighten success thresholds, which weakens the credibility of results as stable learning signals and increases uncertainty for households. This discretion did not operate in an informational vacuum. Independent assessments, employer feedback, and sector reviews consistently indicated weak mastery, yet enforcement choices repeatedly favoured visible stability over learning credibility.</p>
<p>Second, where credibility is weak and stakes remain high, a parallel “shadow assessment” economy grows. The White Paper identifies the way question leakage and compromised integrity interact with coaching and guidebook markets, including a reported nexus between question setters and coaching centres, and the downstream role of guides and private coaching as strategies for managing a high-risk contest rather than building mastery. In such conditions, tutoring functions less as enrichment and more as insurance.</p>
<p>Third, these dynamics create a self-protecting equilibrium. If high-stakes assessment remains the dominant pathway to progression, and if system credibility is periodically threatened, the political and institutional incentive is often to restore visible stability through controllable outputs rather than confront the harder work of rebuilding assessment integrity and classroom learning. This strengthens a cycle in which learning remains secondary to signal management, and households rationally increase private spend.</p>
<p>This political economy framing is not an allegation about every actor. It is a description of the incentive landscape that emerges when high-stakes signals, weak credibility, and discretionary enforcement coexist. It also helps explain why reforms that aim to reduce examination dominance often face organised resistance from groups whose income, influence, or legitimacy depends on the old regime.</p>
<h3>A2.5 Household risk management: private coaching as a shadow assessment system</h3>
<p>The weakening of assessment signals is reflected most clearly in household behaviour. When examination outcomes become volatile, inflated, or weakly linked to demonstrated learning, households respond by treating formal assessment as a high-stakes risk event rather than a</p>
<p>reliable measure of mastery. Private tutoring and coaching emerge in this context as a shadow assessment system that households use to manage uncertainty.</p>
<p>Education Watch data illustrate the scale of this response. In 2022, average annual household expenditure on education was BDT 13,882 for primary students and BDT 27,340 for secondary students, with private tutoring and coaching forming the single largest cost component in both cases. In the first six months of 2023 alone, households had already spent 62 per cent (primary) and 83 per cent (secondary) of their previous full-year education expenditure, indicating rapidly rising investment in examination preparation.</p>
<p>Analytically, these patterns are best understood as risk insurance. When grading standards, moderation practices, and enforcement regimes shift from year to year, households cannot infer future outcomes from past performance. Tutoring therefore becomes a hedge against uncertainty, designed to secure credentials under unpredictable assessment conditions rather than to complement classroom learning.</p>
<p>This behaviour reinforces credential-seeking over mastery. Coaching aligns tightly to anticipated examination formats, marking schemes, and question patterns, further narrowing the curriculum and strengthening rote strategies. Over time, this weakens the signalling function of examinations even further, creating a feedback loop in which assessment instability drives greater private investment, which in turn entrenches teaching to the test.</p>
<p>The implications for assessment credibility are profound. When progression increasingly depends on private risk management rather than demonstrable learning, public examinations lose their role as transparent, system-wide signals of competence. The financing and equity consequences of this shift are examined separately in A1.4.</p>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>
<p><strong>Diagnostic</strong><strong> </strong><strong>domain</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Indicator</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Magnitude</strong><strong> </strong><strong>/</strong><strong> </strong><strong>pattern</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Source</strong></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Learning signal at end of primary</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Grade 5 Bangla proficiency</p>
<p>(“proficient and above”)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>~50% of students</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>National Student Assessment 2022</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Learning signal at end of primary</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Grade 5 mathematics</p>
<p>proficiency (“proficient and above”)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>~30% of students</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>National Student Assessment 2022</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Credential expansion over time</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>SSC average pass rate</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Increased from 35.22%</p>
<p>(2001) to 83.04% (2024)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Education White Paper</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Top-grade expansion</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>SSC GPA-5 recipients</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>1,63,845 students in 2024</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Education White Paper</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Signal divergence</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Exam outcomes vs independent learning</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Credentials rise while mastery remains modest</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>NSA; White Paper (triangulated)</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Examination volatility (SSC)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>SSC pass rate and GPA-5 count</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Pass rate 68.45%; GPA-5 139,032 in 2025, sharp</p>
<p>decline from 2024</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Ministry Admin Data</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Examination volatility (HSC)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>HSC pass rate and GPA-5 count</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Pass rate 58.83%; GPA-5</p>
<p>69,097 in 2025 (–18.95 pp YoY)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Ministry Admin Data</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Administrative discretion</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Sensitivity of outcomes to enforcement</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Large year-on-year swings under different marking</p>
<p>regimes</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Media synthesis; policy analysis</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Integrity risk</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Question paper leakage</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Treated as recurrent, system-level problem</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Education White Paper</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>
<p>Enforcement weakness</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Auto-pass provisions</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Explicit call to abolish auto pass</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Task Force Report</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Household risk response</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Primary education expenditure</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>BDT 13,882 annually; tutoring largest cost item</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Education Watch 2023</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Household risk response</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Secondary education expenditure</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>BDT 27,340 annually; tutoring dominant</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Education Watch 2023</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Cost acceleration</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Six-month expenditure vs</p>
<p>annual (secondary)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>83% of previous full-year</p>
<p>cost spent in six months</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Education Watch</p>
<p>2023</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Shadow assessment system</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Role of private coaching</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Coaching functions as progression insurance under</p>
<p>weak signals</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Education Watch; triangulated</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>Table A1.2 Evidence on assessment, credentials, and learning signals</p>
<h3>A2.6 Summary of key diagnostic findings</h3>
<ol>
<li><strong>Assessment</strong><strong> </strong><strong>signals</strong><strong> </strong><strong>are</strong><strong> </strong><strong>weakly</strong><strong> </strong><strong>aligned</strong><strong> </strong><strong>with</strong><strong> </strong><strong>actual </strong><strong>learning.</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Independent assessments show modest mastery by the end of primary school, particularly in mathematics, placing a hard constraint on what public examination results can credibly signal about student competence.</p>
<ol>
<li>Credentials have expanded faster than learning.</li>
</ol>
<p>Public examination outcomes, including pass rates and top grades, have risen sharply over time despite persistently weak proficiency measured independently, creating a widening gap between credentials and mastery.</p>
<ol>
<li>Examination outcomes are highly sensitive to administrative discretion.</li>
</ol>
<p>The sharp year-to-year swings observed in SSC and HSC results indicate that marking, moderation, and enforcement regimes exert a strong influence on outcomes, undermining result stability.</p>
<ol>
<li>Integrity failures further weaken credibility.</li>
</ol>
<p>Recurrent concerns around question leakage and the repeated re-emergence of “auto pass” provisions indicate systemic vulnerabilities in examination governance rather than isolated incidents.</p>
<ol>
<li>Households respond rationally to weak signals through private risk management.</li>
</ol>
<p>As assessment reliability declines, households increasingly invest in tutoring and coaching as insurance against uncertainty, treating examinations as high-stakes risk events rather than transparent measures of learning.</p>
<ol>
<li>Private coaching reinforces credentialism over mastery.</li>
</ol>
<p>Coaching aligns tightly to examination formats and marking schemes, narrowing learning and further weakening the signalling value of public assessments, creating a self-reinforcing cycle.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>A3 Governance failures, incentives, and resource leakages in education delivery</h3>
<p>Evidence across national reviews, administrative data, and field-based studies indicates that governance failures materially constrain the conversion of education spending into learning. These failures are not episodic. They reflect incentive structures that tolerate leakage, weaken enforcement, and prioritise procedural compliance over instructional performance.</p>
<h3>A3.1 Fragmented authority and weak horizontal accountability</h3>
<h3></h3>
<p>Bangladesh’s education system is governed through multiple ministries, directorates, and boards, with limited coordination at delivery level. The White Paper documents that curriculum, textbooks, assessment, teacher management, and supervision are administered through separate institutional chains, reducing coherence between what is taught, assessed, and monitored.</p>
<p>The Consultation Committee Report notes that local government bodies and school management committees have no formal authority over teacher discipline, transfers, or performance appraisal, limiting their ability to hold schools accountable for learning outcomes. Oversight therefore flows upward, through reporting and audits, rather than outward to parents, communities, or peer institutions, resulting in weak and uneven horizontal accountability for learning. Notably, the district and upazila levels operate primarily as transmission and reporting nodes rather than as empowered problem-solving tiers, limiting their ability to diagnose learning issues locally or adapt responses in real time.</p>
<p>Evidence from recent governance analysis of primary schools reinforces this diagnosis. A recent study by BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) <a href=""><strong>5</strong></a><strong> </strong>on primary school governance shows that the vertical governance structure involves multiple actors with overlapping but incomplete authority, creating fragmentation and diffusion of responsibility. Formal monitoring is dominated by reporting and procedural compliance, while verification of actual school-level conditions is limited. The study finds that where informal horizontal checks exist, such as community scrutiny or third-party verification, governance quality improves through increased visibility and reputational pressure. However, these mechanisms operate unevenly and cannot substitute for system-wide accountability arrangements.</p>
<p>As a result, accountability is largely procedural. Schools and local offices are incentivised to submit complete reports on time, but face limited consequences for persistent underperformance in attendance, instructional quality, or learning outcomes.</p>
<h3>A3.2 Resource leakage at school level</h3>
<p>The most detailed empirical evidence on leakage comes from the joint study by BIGD and SOAS University<a href="">6</a> on resource leakages in government primary schools. Based on intensive fieldwork in ten government primary schools, the study documents systematic inflation of enrolment figures, diversion of school grants, and informal payments linked to access to funds.</p>
<p>In sampled schools, reported enrolment exceeded observed regular attendance by around 10 per cent on average, with higher discrepancies in schools located near private institutions where students were formally registered but not regularly present. While the study is not nationally representative, similar concerns are recorded in consultation findings and Education Watch observations, suggesting that weak enrolment verification is not isolated.</p>
<p>Misuse of School Level Improvement Plan (SLIP) funds is also documented. The BIGD-SOAS study records inflated procurement costs and informal deductions at multiple points in the disbursement chain. The Task Force Report corroborates these concerns by explicitly calling</p>
<p>5 BIGD. (2025). Primary school governance in Bangladesh. Dhaka: BIGD.</p>
<p>6 BIGD & SOAS. (2025). Resource leakages in primary schools in Bangladesh: Do horizontal checks have an effect on the quality of governance? Dhaka and London: BIGD & SOAS.</p>
<p>for stronger financial oversight and transparency at school level, indicating that such practices are recognised as systemic.</p>
<h3>A3.3 Teacher effort, absenteeism, and low-powered incentives</h3>
<p>Teacher effort represents one of the most direct channels through which governance affects learning. Education Watch unannounced school visits consistently report teacher absence rates in the range of 15 to 25 per cent, with higher absence in rural and disadvantaged locations.</p>
<p>The BIGD-SOAS study provides explanatory context for these patterns. It documents irregular supervision, limited sanctions, and the role of political or social connections in insulating teachers from consequences. Where promotion and career progression are largely seniority- based, the marginal return to instructional effort is low.</p>
<p>The White Paper confirms that teacher appraisal systems focus primarily on attendance records and qualifications, with limited linkage to classroom performance or student learning. Head teachers, according to the Consultation Committee Report, have restricted authority to discipline staff or reallocate teaching responsibilities, further weakening incentives for consistent effort.</p>
<h3>A3.4 Supervision, discretion, and enforcement gaps</h3>
<p>Formal supervision mechanisms exist at scale, but evidence indicates that their impact is limited. The Consultation Committee Report notes that supervisory visits often prioritise checklist compliance and data verification rather than instructional observation or corrective action. This pattern is reinforced by the ASPR for 2022 and 2023, which document persistent and recurrent gaps between planned activities and actual implementation at school and upazila levels. Despite high reported completion of administrative targets, the ASPR highlights uneven supervision coverage, limited follow-up on monitoring findings, and weak linkage between identified problems and corrective action. These findings support the conclusion that governance systems generate information but do not reliably translate it into instructional improvement.</p>
<p>BANBEIS and directorate systems collect extensive administrative data, yet these data are primarily used for upward reporting rather than local problem-solving. As a result, weak performance is documented but not made visible in ways that trigger action, peer scrutiny, or local correction. Where underperformance is identified, responses typically involve additional reporting requirements or centrally designed programmes rather than targeted enforcement or support.</p>
<p>This creates high discretion with low consequence. When learning problems remain largely invisible beyond compliance reports, rules exist, but their application is uneven, and sanctions for non-compliance are uncertain. In such an environment, effort reduction and rent-seeking become rational and stabilised responses.</p>
<h3>A3.5 Political incentives and outcome management</h3>
<p>Political incentives shape which education outcomes are treated as achievements and which are treated as tolerable costs. Across reform cycles, visible outputs such as enrolment</p>
<p>expansion, infrastructure delivery, stipend coverage, and headline examination results have carried clear political value. Learning outcomes have carried less immediate reward, particularly when they require confrontation with entrenched interests, enforcement costs, or credibility risks.</p>
<p>The White Paper documents the long-run rise in public examination success rates and top grades alongside persistent evidence of weak mastery measured independently. It also discusses recurrent integrity failures, including question leakage, and links these vulnerabilities to systemic weaknesses in governance. The Task Force Report’s explicit calls to end “auto pass” provisions and stop question leakage further imply that credibility problems are not incidental, and that they have required repeated reassertion at senior policy levels.</p>
<p>Analytically, the key issue is enforcement asymmetry. Where the system is able to enforce compliance and reporting, those behaviours become reliable. Where the system is less able or less willing to enforce learning integrity and sanction malpractice consistently, those domains become discretionary. Discretion, in turn, creates both uncertainty and opportunity. It strengthens risk management by households, it expands shadow markets, and it discourages bureaucratic dissent when speaking plainly is costly and follow-through is uneven.</p>
<p>This pattern is consistent with an equilibrium in which outcome management becomes a rational political strategy, and administrative caution becomes a rational bureaucratic strategy, even as learning evidence deteriorates.</p>
<h3>A3.6 Governance as an equilibrium</h3>
<p>Across reports, a consistent picture emerges. Governance failures persist not because actors lack awareness, but because incentive structures normalise certain behaviours. Where enforcement is weak, discretion is high, and outcomes are politically sensitive, practices such as enrolment inflation, fund leakage, and reduced effort become stable equilibrium responses.</p>
<p>Instances of stronger performance are often associated with informal horizontal accountability, such as active community pressure or influential local actors. However, these conditions are uneven and cannot be relied upon as a system-wide solution.</p>
<h3>A3.7 Summary of key diagnostic findings</h3>
<ol>
<li><strong>Governance</strong><strong> </strong><strong>arrangements</strong><strong> </strong><strong>prioritise</strong><strong> </strong><strong>procedural</strong><strong> </strong><strong>compliance</strong><strong> </strong><strong>over</strong><strong> </strong><strong>learning </strong><strong>accountability.</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Oversight systems emphasise reporting and formal processes, while accountability for instructional quality and learning outcomes remains weak.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Authority is fragmented across multiple actors with incomplete mandates. </strong>Overlapping institutional responsibilities diffuse accountability and weaken vertical coherence, limiting the system’s capacity to enforce standards consistently.</li>
<li>Horizontal accountability mechanisms are weak and uneven.</li>
</ol>
<p>Local government bodies, school management committees, and communities have limited formal authority, resulting in minimal peer or community pressure for learning performance.</p>
<ol>
<li>Resource allocation is distorted by weak verification.</li>
</ol>
<p>Enrolment inflation and limited attendance verification lead to misallocation of funds at school level, weakening the link between resources and actual service delivery.</p>
<ol>
<li>Teacher effort is governed by low-powered incentives.</li>
</ol>
<p>Absenteeism and reduced instructional effort persist where supervision is irregular, sanctions are weak, and promotion is largely seniority-based.</p>
<ol>
<li>Enforcement gaps normalise leakage and underperformance.</li>
</ol>
<p>When rules exist but consequences are uncertain, effort reduction and informal extraction become rational equilibrium behaviours.</p>
<ol>
<li>Political incentives favour visible outcomes over substantive learning.</li>
</ol>
<p>Emphasis on enrolment, infrastructure, and headline examination results encourages outcome management while deferring structural learning problems.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>A4 Education financing, expenditure efficiency, and resource leakages</h3>
<p>Education financing shapes what the system can deliver, but also how the system behaves. Where spending is low, rigid, and absorbed by recurrent costs, schools and local offices have limited discretionary capacity to address learning gaps. Where allocation and utilisation are weakly linked to performance, and where leakage occurs, additional spending does not reliably translate into improved instruction. The evidence across multiple reports and studies suggests that Bangladesh faces a dual constraint. Public education spending is low relative to stated ambitions, and the spending that does occur is not consistently converted into learning because incentives, discretion, and accountability are misaligned. The binding constraint is therefore not funding alone, but the way financing interacts with incentives, verification, and accountability to shape behaviour across the system.</p>
<h3>A4.1 Low spending relative to ambition and international benchmarks</h3>
<p>The White Paper reports that public education spending as a share of GDP has not shown a progressive trend, and notes a decline in the education budget share of GDP from <strong>1</strong>.9 per cent to 1.69 per cent in FY2025. The same section links this to underachievement against national targets and highlights the mismatch between ambition and fiscal commitment.</p>
<p>The White Paper also explicitly references international benchmarks under the Education 2030 Framework for Action, stating that it recommends countries allocate 4–6 per cent of GDP to education, and notes that Bangladesh is “way behind” that benchmark. Further it shows that that education’s share of the total budget fluctuates around the low teens, with values in the range of approximately 10.4 to 14 per cent across the period shown</p>
<h3>A4.2 Composition and rigidity of public spending</h3>
<p>Beyond the level of spending, the composition of spending constrains learning investment. The White Paper notes a “budget utilisation bias towards non-development expenditure” and reports that actual non-development spending has been significantly greater than development expenditure in education over the period discussed. This matters because non-development spending is typically salary and routine administration, which is necessary but leaves limited fiscal room for learning materials, teacher coaching, remediation supports, or school-level problem-solving.</p>
<p>The Task Force Report reinforces this diagnosis through its discussion of budget allocation and teacher incentives. It includes a figure on ministry and division-wise education sector allocation, drawing on budget briefs between 2021–24. The figure shows multiple allocation</p>
<p>values for the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education and the Secondary and Higher Education Division and then links low teacher salary to motivation and private tutoring, stating that primary and secondary teacher salaries are among the lowest in South-East Asia.</p>
<p>This combination of low overall spending, salary-heavy composition, and limited discretion reduces the system’s ability to finance learning improvement as a routine function rather than as time-bound projects.</p>
<h3>A4.3 Expenditure efficiency and leakage in delivery chains</h3>
<p>Even where funds exist, evidence indicates that resources do not reliably reach intended learning uses. The BIGD–SOAS study on resource leakages in primary schools, multiple leakage mechanisms in government primary schooling, including enrolment inflation and diversion of school grants are identified. In the study’s sampled schools, the report documents that recorded enrolment exceeded observed regular attendance by around 10 per cent on average, indicating systematic incentives to over-report enrolment where enrolment-linked resources or benefits exist. The study also documents irregularities in the use of school-level funds, including inflated procurement and informal deductions at multiple points in the chain.</p>
<p>This is not only a “corruption” story. It is a fiscal efficiency story. When monitoring focuses on paperwork rather than verification, and when sanctions are uncertain, leakage becomes a rational equilibrium response for actors who face low risk of enforcement and high upside from informal extraction.</p>
<p>The Consultation Committee Report supports the institutional logic behind these patterns by documenting constraints on enforcement and school-level authority, including the limits on local accountability mechanisms and the strong upward compliance orientation. In this environment, increased spending without governance reform can increase the size of the pool available for leakage without increasing learning.</p>
<h3>A4.4 Cost shifting to households and the rise of private financing</h3>
<p>Private tutoring and coaching also reveal a deeper financing problem: the progressive transfer of the effective cost of learning and progression from the public system to households. Where public spending is low, rigid, and weakly linked to learning outcomes, families increasingly finance the conditions needed to progress through schooling.</p>
<p>Education Watch provides clear evidence of this shift. In 2022, households spent on average BDT 13,882 per year on primary education and BDT 27,340 on secondary education, with tutoring and coaching accounting for the largest share of expenditure in both cases. By mid- 2023, household education spending had already reached levels equivalent to 62 per cent of the previous year’s total for primary students and 83 per cent for secondary students, implying sharp real increases in private costs.</p>
<p>This pattern indicates more than supplementary spending. It reflects a de facto privatisation of progression, in which households purchase learning time, examination preparation, and academic support that the public system is unable to deliver reliably. As a result, the financial burden of securing educational outcomes is shifted away from the state and onto families.</p>
<p>The consequences are structural. When progression depends on household expenditure, public schooling becomes less able to function as an equalising institution. Students from wealthier households are better positioned to compensate for weak instruction, large class sizes, and limited remediation, while poorer households face higher risks of falling behind despite formal access to schooling.</p>
<p>This cost shifting also feeds back into system behaviour. Teachers facing low salaries and weak incentives may rationally allocate effort toward private tutoring markets. Schools adapt to parental demand for coaching-oriented instruction. Over time, these responses normalise a dual system in which public provision covers credentials in name, while households finance the conditions needed to achieve them in practice.</p>
<p>Seen in this light, rising private expenditure is not an anomaly but a predictable response to low public investment combined with weak accountability for learning. Without changes to how public financing is allocated, verified, and linked to outcomes, additional household spending is likely to continue substituting for, rather than complementing, public education delivery.</p>
<h3>A4.5 Financing as a behavioural signal</h3>
<p>Financing does not only provide inputs. It signals what is rewarded. Low public spending combined with weak verification and weak linkage to learning outcomes signals that compliance, credentials, and administrative performance matter more than learning. Household responses then become rational. Families invest in tutoring as risk management. Teachers respond to low salary and low-powered incentives by shifting effort toward private tutoring markets. Local systems adapt to weak enforcement by normalising leakage and informal payments. Over time, these behaviours become stabilised and difficult to reverse without changes to both fiscal levels and the incentive architecture through which funds are allocated, used, and verified.</p>
<h3>A4.6 Summary of key diagnostic findings</h3>
<ol>
<li><strong>Public</strong><strong> </strong><strong>education</strong><strong> </strong><strong>spending</strong><strong> </strong><strong>remains</strong><strong> </strong><strong>low</strong><strong> </strong><strong>relative</strong><strong> </strong><strong>to</strong><strong> </strong><strong>ambition.</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Education expenditure as a share of GDP has stagnated or declined, falling well below international benchmarks referenced in national policy frameworks.</p>
<ol>
<li>Spending composition limits learning investment.</li>
</ol>
<p>A persistent bias toward non-development expenditure constrains fiscal space for instructional improvement, remediation, and school-level problem-solving.</p>
<ol>
<li>Higher spending does not automatically translate into better learning.</li>
</ol>
<p>Where finance is weakly linked to performance and verification is limited, additional resources are absorbed by recurrent commitments rather than improving instruction.</p>
<ol>
<li>Leakage reflects fiscal inefficiency as much as corruption.</li>
</ol>
<p>Enrolment inflation, procurement irregularities, and weak oversight persist where monitoring prioritises paperwork over verification.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Households increasingly finance progression through private expenditure. </strong>Tutoring and coaching have become the dominant components of household education spending, effectively shifting the cost of learning from the public system to families.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Cost shifting amplifies inequality.</li>
</ol>
<p>Students from wealthier households can compensate for weak public provision, while poorer households face higher risks of falling behind despite formal access.</p>
<ol>
<li>Financing arrangements shape behaviour across the system.</li>
</ol>
<p>Low public investment combined with weak accountability signals that credentials matter more than learning, reinforcing tutoring markets, leakage, and credentialism.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>A5 Equity and inclusion</h3>
<p>Bangladesh has achieved near-universal access to schooling at early stages, yet participation, learning, and progression remain unevenly distributed across socioeconomic groups, gender, geography, disability status, and language communities. Evidence across administrative data, household surveys, and consultation findings indicates that equity gaps are not confined to access alone. They reflect cumulative disadvantages that shape attendance, classroom experience, learning progression, and transition outcomes across the education lifecycle.</p>
<p>This section diagnoses the main dimensions through which inequity is produced and sustained within the education system.</p>
<h3>A5.1 Poverty, household constraints, and uneven participation</h3>
<p>Household income remains one of the strongest predictors of educational continuity and learning opportunity. Education Watch consistently reports that students from low-income households face higher risks of irregular attendance, repetition, and dropout, particularly beyond primary education. These risks are shaped not only by direct costs, but also by opportunity costs, household labour demands, and limited learning support at home (Education Watch, various rounds).</p>
<p>BANBEIS 2023 statistics show that while enrolment at primary level remains high nationally, dropout accelerates sharply at secondary level, with higher attrition among students from poorer households and marginal locations. Education Watch findings further indicate that learning outcomes differ substantially by wealth quintile, with students from poorer households significantly less likely to demonstrate grade-level literacy and numeracy by the end of primary school.</p>
<p>Rising household expenditure on education intensifies these inequities. As shown in A1.4, private tutoring and coaching constitute the largest share of household education spending, particularly at secondary level. Where households cannot afford supplementation, students are more likely to fall behind, reinforcing income-based learning gaps.</p>
<h3>A5.2 Gender, adolescence, and dropout</h3>
<p>Bangladesh has achieved and sustained gender parity in enrolment at primary level, and girls’ enrolment exceeds boys’ at early secondary levels. However, this parity does not translate into equitable progression through adolescence. BANBEIS 2023 statistics show that secondary dropout remains higher for girls than for boys, with cumulative dropout exceeding 30 per cent by Grade 10, and girls experiencing particularly sharp attrition between Grades 8 and 10.</p>
<p>Education Watch and the Consultation Committee Report identify multiple drivers of female dropout during adolescence, including early marriage, safety concerns, household responsibilities, and social norms that restrict mobility. While stipend programmes have supported enrolment, they have not fully addressed these structural constraints, particularly where schooling quality is perceived as low or where examination pressure increases household risk.</p>
<p>The White Paper notes that girls are overrepresented among youth who are not in education, employment, or training (NEET), particularly in the 15–24 age group, indicating that transition failures extend beyond schooling into labour market outcomes (White Paper). These patterns suggest that gendered disadvantage shifts form across the education lifecycle rather than disappearing.</p>
<h3>A5.3 Geography, mobility, and marginal locations</h3>
<p>Geographic location strongly conditions access to stable schooling and effective learning time. BANBEIS 2023 statistics show persistent disparities in class size, teacher availability, and infrastructure quality between urban centres and rural or hard-to-reach areas, including char, haor, and coastal regions.</p>
<p>Education Watch field studies report that students in urban informal settlements, char regions, and migration-prone households experience high levels of attendance irregularity. In some contexts, around one in four students is absent on a typical school day, reflecting seasonal migration, household instability, and labour demand. Urban poverty presents a distinct but comparable risk profile: despite physical proximity to schools, children in informal settlements experience overcrowded classrooms, unstable attendance, and weak instructional continuity, producing learning outcomes that are often no better than those in remote rural areas. Irregular attendance reduces cumulative instructional time and undermines progression, particularly for students with weak foundational skills.</p>
<p>Geographic inequities were amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Education Watch surveys conducted during school closures show that access to remote learning resources was substantially lower in rural areas and urban slums than in better-resourced urban households. Post-reopening assessments indicate slower learning recovery in these locations, reinforcing pre-existing gaps.</p>
<h3>A5.4 Disability, language, and inclusion gaps</h3>
<p>Children with disabilities face persistent barriers to participation and learning. BANBEIS 2023 statistics data indicate that a minority of schools have accessible infrastructure such as ramps, adapted toilets, or inclusive learning materials, and teacher training in inclusive pedagogy remains limited. Education Watch reports that children with disabilities are more likely to enrol late, attend irregularly, and drop out before completing primary education.</p>
<p>Language is another significant axis of exclusion. In multilingual areas, including the Chittagong Hill Tracts and other indigenous regions, many children begin school in Bangla despite not speaking it at home. The White Paper notes that early instruction in a non-home language reduces comprehension, confidence, and classroom participation, particularly in early grades. These early disadvantages carry forward into later learning stages, especially in mathematics and science where language demands increase.</p>
<p>The Consultation Committee Report emphasises that existing inclusion policies have not been systematically operationalised at classroom level. While frameworks exist for disability inclusion and mother-tongue instruction, implementation capacity, materials, and teacher support remain uneven, limiting their impact on actual learning conditions.</p>
<h3>A5.5 Cumulative disadvantage and system-wide implications</h3>
<p>Across these dimensions, inequity operates cumulatively rather than independently. Poverty interacts with geography; gender norms intersect with household constraints; disability and language barriers compound early learning gaps. As a result, students who begin school at a disadvantage are more likely to experience weaker instruction, irregular attendance, and higher examination risk, and less likely to benefit from private supplementation.</p>
<p>The evidence reviewed suggests that equity challenges in Bangladesh’s education system are not primarily about access. They are about differential exposure to effective learning conditions over time. Without targeted mechanisms to address these cumulative disadvantages, system- wide improvements in averages are unlikely to close persistent gaps.</p>
<h3>A5.6 Summary of key diagnostic findings</h3>
<ol>
<li><strong>Equity</strong><strong> </strong><strong>gaps</strong><strong> </strong><strong>extend</strong><strong> </strong><strong>beyond</strong><strong> </strong><strong>access</strong><strong> </strong><strong>to</strong><strong> </strong><strong>differential</strong><strong> </strong><strong>learning</strong><strong> </strong><strong>exposure.</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Disparities are driven by differences in attendance stability, instructional quality, and cumulative learning time rather than enrolment alone.</p>
<ol>
<li>Poverty shapes both participation and learning outcomes.</li>
</ol>
<p>Low-income households face higher dropout risk and are less able to compensate for weak classroom instruction through private supplementation.</p>
<ol>
<li>Gender parity in enrolment masks sharp adolescent dropout.</li>
</ol>
<p>Girls experience disproportionate attrition during lower and upper secondary education, with disadvantages re-emerging during key transition points.</p>
<ol>
<li>Geography strongly conditions learning opportunity.</li>
</ol>
<p>Students in rural, hard-to-reach, and informal urban settlements experience larger classes, weaker staffing, and more irregular attendance.</p>
<ol>
<li>Mobility and instability disrupt instructional continuity.</li>
</ol>
<p>Migration-prone households and informal settlements face chronic disruptions that reduce cumulative learning time.</p>
<ol>
<li>Disability and language barriers remain weakly addressed in practice.</li>
</ol>
<p>Limited accessible infrastructure, uneven teacher preparation, and non-home language instruction constrain participation and comprehension.</p>
<ol>
<li>Disadvantage accumulates across the education lifecycle.</li>
</ol>
<p>Early gaps compound over time, making later remediation increasingly difficult and reinforcing intergenerational inequality.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>A6 Education streams and stratification</h3>
<p>Bangladesh’s education system is organised across multiple parallel streams, including general education, madrasah education, English-medium institutions, and technical and vocational education and training (TVET). While this diversity has expanded access and responded to varied social preferences, evidence indicates that the streams function as stratified pathways</p>
<p>rather than equivalent routes, producing systematically different learning conditions, credentials, and transition opportunities.</p>
<p>This section diagnoses how stream differentiation contributes to unequal preparation for examinations, further education, and employment.</p>
<h3>A6.1 Size and distribution of education streams</h3>
<p>BANBEIS 2023 statistics show that the general education stream enrols the majority of students, while madrasah education accounts for a substantial minority, particularly in rural areas. English-medium institutions enrol a relatively small share of students but are concentrated in urban centres and serve households with greater economic and social capital. TVET enrolment remains modest relative to general secondary education despite longstanding policy emphasis on skills development.</p>
<p>The White Paper notes that while multiple streams operate under national policy frameworks, coordination across streams is limited, and planning often occurs in parallel rather than through integrated mechanisms. This fragmentation affects curriculum alignment, assessment comparability, and student mobility between streams.</p>
<p>Planning, regulation, curriculum development, assessment, and certification across streams are overseen by separate authorities and boards, with limited coordination or shared accountability mechanisms. As a result, stream-level decisions are made largely in parallel rather than within a unified system logic, weakening vertical coherence and reducing the state’s ability to ensure equivalent learning expectations or pathways across streams.</p>
<h3>A6.2 Differences in learning conditions and instructional quality</h3>
<p>Evidence from Education Watch and national reviews indicates that learning conditions vary substantially across streams. Students in English-medium schools typically experience smaller class sizes, longer instructional time, and greater access to supplementary learning resources, including private tutoring. These conditions are associated with higher average proficiency, though outcomes within this stream are highly unequal and concentrated in a subset of elite institutions.</p>
<p>In contrast, many general education and madrasah schools operate with larger class sizes and more constrained instructional environments, particularly in rural and disadvantaged locations. BANBEIS 2023 statistics show that shortages of subject-qualified teachers in mathematics, science, and English are more prevalent in general and madrasah institutions outside major urban centres. Education Watch classroom observations indicate that rote-based instruction is common across these streams, with limited remediation or enrichment opportunities.</p>
<p>Madrasah education plays a crucial access role for many communities, yet curriculum balance differs. The White Paper and Task Force Report note that in many madrasahs, instructional time devoted to religious studies reduces exposure to science, mathematics, and English, particularly where staffing is limited. This affects preparedness for higher secondary science streams and tertiary education.</p>
<h3>A6.3 Assessment alignment and credential differentiation</h3>
<p>Assessment arrangements further reinforce stratification. While public examinations nominally apply across streams, preparation pathways differ. Students in English-medium schools often follow international curricula and sit separate examinations, while students in general and madrasah streams rely on national boards.</p>
<p>As shown in A1.2, public examination outcomes in general education have expanded over time, but learning mastery remains uneven. The Consultation Committee Report notes that credential comparability across streams is limited, and that employers and tertiary institutions often treat qualifications from different streams differently, regardless of formal equivalence</p>
<p>These dynamics weaken the signalling value of credentials and increase reliance on informal screening, coaching, or institutional reputation, which advantages students from better- resourced streams.</p>
<h3>A6.4 TVET pathways and constrained upward mobility</h3>
<p>TVET programmes are intended to provide applied skills and faster entry into employment, yet enrolment remains low relative to general secondary education. BANBEIS 2023 statistics indicate that TVET accounts for a small share of secondary-level enrolment, and participation is uneven across regions.</p>
<p>The Task Force Report notes that while some TVET graduates transition successfully into work, pathways from TVET into higher education or higher-productivity employment are not consistently articulated, limiting upward mobility. Where TVET is perceived as a terminal track rather than a flexible pathway, it attracts fewer high-performing students, reinforcing its lower status.</p>
<h3>A6.5 Private supplementation and stream reinforcement</h3>
<p>Household behaviour further entrenches stream stratification. Education Watch data show that access to private tutoring and coaching is substantially higher among students in general and English-medium schools than among madrasah or TVET students. As tutoring increasingly functions as a parallel system for learning and examination preparation, streams with greater access to private supplementation gain further advantage.</p>
<p>This dynamic shifts stratification from formal policy design to household capacity to pay. Over time, it amplifies inequalities in learning, examination performance, and transitions, even when formal access is nominally open.</p>
<h3>A6.6 Limited horizontal and vertical mobility</h3>
<p>Evidence across reports suggests that mobility between streams is limited. Transitions from madrasah to general education or from TVET to higher secondary or tertiary education are possible in principle, but face curricular mismatches, assessment barriers, and institutional gatekeeping (White Paper; Consultation Committee Report).</p>
<p>As a result, early stream placement has long-term consequences. Students who enter less- resourced streams with weaker learning conditions face increasing difficulty moving into higher-status pathways later, even when motivation and ability are present.</p>
<h3>A6.7 Summary of key diagnostic findings</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Education</strong><strong> </strong><strong>streams</strong><strong> </strong><strong>function</strong><strong> </strong><strong>as</strong><strong> </strong><strong>stratified</strong><strong> </strong><strong>pathways</strong><strong> </strong><strong>rather</strong><strong> </strong><strong>than</strong><strong> </strong><strong>equivalent</strong><strong> </strong><strong>routes. </strong>Parallel systems produce systematically different learning conditions, credentials, and transition opportunities.</li>
<li>Stream governance is fragmented and weakly coordinated.</li>
</ul>
<p>Separate authorities oversee curriculum, assessment, and certification, reducing vertical coherence and comparability across pathways.</p>
<ul>
<li>Learning conditions differ sharply by stream.</li>
</ul>
<p>English-medium institutions offer smaller classes and greater supplementation, while general and madrasah streams face more constrained environments.</p>
<ul>
<li>TVET remains marginal and weakly linked to upward mobility.</li>
</ul>
<p>Limited scale and unclear pathways into higher education or skilled employment reinforce its lower status.</p>
<ul>
<li>Assessment and credential signalling vary across streams.</li>
</ul>
<p>Formal equivalence masks informal differentiation by employers and tertiary institutions.</p>
<ul>
<li>Private tutoring reinforces stream advantages.</li>
</ul>
<p>Household ability to pay increasingly determines learning and examination outcomes, intensifying stratification.</p>
<ul>
<li>Mobility between streams is limited.</li>
</ul>
<p>Early placement has long-term consequences, with institutional and curricular barriers constraining later movement.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>A7 Conclusion: Why learning has not followed schooling</h3>
<p>Appendix A set out to explain a central paradox in Bangladesh’s education system: sustained expansion in access and credentials has not translated into consistent gains in learning. The evidence reviewed across learning assessments, assessment behaviour, governance arrangements, financing patterns, and household responses shows that this disconnect is not the result of isolated implementation failures. It reflects a stable equilibrium in which incentives, institutions, and behaviours interact in ways that reproduce weak learning outcomes over time.</p>
<p>At the centre of this equilibrium is misalignment between what the system measures, what it rewards, and what it can credibly enforce. Students progress through grades without secure mastery because curriculum pacing, assessment signals, and classroom realities are weakly aligned. Public examinations, rather than functioning as reliable measures of competence, have become vulnerable to integrity failures and administrative discretion, encouraging credential- seeking behaviour by schools and risk management by households. Governance systems prioritise procedural compliance and upward reporting, while accountability for instructional quality and learning remains diffuse. Financing is low, rigid, and weakly linked to verified learning improvement, which accelerates cost shifting to families and amplifies inequality. Parallel education streams further stratify opportunity, with limited mobility once pathways diverge.</p>
<p>These dynamics reinforce one another. Weak assessment credibility expands private tutoring markets. Private tutoring reshapes teaching practice and parental expectations. Weak governance and low-powered incentives make effort reduction and leakage rational for some actors, while fear of speaking plainly becomes rational for others. Over time, the system’s most reliable consequences attach to controllable outputs, not learning integrity. In such a system, underperformance is not aberrant. It is predictable.</p>
<p>This predictability reflects not only institutional inertia but repeated choices about what is politically valuable, what is administratively feasible, and what is allowed to persist. The diagnosis therefore identifies binding constraints that recur across subsystems: weak learning signals, fragmented authority, enforcement asymmetry, low-powered incentives, limited protected instructional time, cost shifting to households, and stratified pathways with limited mobility. Addressing any one of these in isolation is unlikely to shift outcomes.</p>
<p>Appendix A provides the empirical and analytical foundation for the Vision and the National Learning Implementation Framework. It clarifies not only what is not working, but why, and therefore where reform effort must concentrate to move the system from schooling expansion to sustained learning improvement.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>Appendix B: The Feedback Architecture of Bangladesh’s Education System</h3>
<p><strong>B1.</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Purpose and </strong><strong>scope</strong></p>
<p>This appendix sets out the feedback architecture that explains why Bangladesh’s education system behaves as it does, why weak learning outcomes persist despite repeated reform efforts, and where leverage for change lies. It is designed to be readable as a standalone chapter. A reader should be able to start here and understand the system logic without needing to have read Chapters 1 – 4, while still seeing clearly how this appendix underpins the system diagnosis in Chapter 3 and the learning journey in Chapter 4.</p>
<p>Education systems do not behave randomly. They produce recognisable patterns over time because they are organised through structures, incentives, information flows, and relationships that generate particular forms of behaviour. These patterns are sustained through feedback processes that link actions in one part of the system to responses in another, often with delays that obscure cause and effect (Meadows, 2008; Sterman, 2000). Understanding these feedback processes is essential for explaining why some reforms gain traction while others fade, and why effort alone is insufficient to change outcomes.</p>
<p>A feedback loop describes how a change reinforces or moderates itself over time. Reinforcing feedback strengthens a direction of change, allowing learning gains to accumulate or deterioration to compound. Balancing feedback stabilises behaviour by dampening change, sometimes productively and sometimes in ways that protect ineffective routines. Systems behave as they do not because of stated intentions, but because of the feedback structures that govern how information, incentives, and risk circulate through the system (Meadows, 2008).</p>
<p>This appendix maps approximately thirty recurring loops that, taken together, constitute a practical model of Bangladesh’s education system behaviour. These loops are not exhaustive, nor are they unique to Bangladesh. They are structural patterns that recur across evidence and explain observed outcomes. The aim is not to claim that every school is the same, but to explain why familiar system-wide patterns reappear even when local effort is high.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>B2. Analytical lenses and an anchoring example</h3>
<p>This appendix analyses Bangladesh’s education system using three complementary analytical lenses: systems thinking, behavioural realism, and adaptive governance. These lenses clarify how the system is being interpreted before the feedback architecture is presented. Without this framing, complex system behaviour is often misread as technical abstraction, or as a critique of individual actors. The argument here is different: outcomes persist because the system is structured in ways that generate predictable patterns of behaviour over time (Meadows, 2008; Sterman, 2000).</p>
<p>Lens 1: Systems thinking – outcomes emerge from feedback structure Lens 2: Behavioural realism – actors adapt rationally to incentives and risk</p>
<p>Lens 3: Adaptive governance – reform succeeds when the system can learn and adjust safely</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B2.1 Lens 1: Systems thinking</h3>
<p>Systems thinking treats education not as a linear delivery chain, but as a complex system composed of interacting parts. Cause and effect are often separated in time and space.</p>
<p>Decisions taken in curriculum design, assessment rules, or administrative accountability can shape classroom behaviour years later, in ways that are not immediately visible to decision- makers (Sterman, 2000). Large investments can coexist with weak learning if the underlying feedback structure remains unchanged. Conversely, relatively small structural shifts can generate disproportionate effects when they alter how feedback and incentives work (Meadows, 2008).</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B2.2 Lens 2: Behavioural realism</h3>
<p>Behavioural realism begins from a simple premise. Teachers, officials, students, and families generally behave in ways that are sensible given the incentives, risks, and signals they face. Behaviour adapts to consequences, not to intentions (Simon, 1957; March and Olsen, 1989). In high-stakes, low-trust environments, risk avoidance becomes rational. When rewards for improving learning are uncertain and costs of deviation are high, actors prioritise behaviours that are safer, more visible, or more predictable. Reforms that assume actors will behave differently without changing the conditions they face tend to be absorbed (Pritchett, 2015).</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B2.3 Lens 3: Adaptive governance</h3>
<p>Adaptive governance recognises that education systems operate under uncertainty, fragmentation, and political constraint. Authority is distributed, information is imperfect, and control is partial. Reform therefore cannot succeed through blueprint design alone (Andrews, Pritchett and Woolcock, 2017). Systems improve when they can learn from their own experience. That requires feedback that is timely, credible, and safe to act on. It also requires sequencing, because some conditions must be stabilised before others can be strengthened. In contexts like Bangladesh, reforms that raise stakes without first strengthening credibility and trust often trigger defensive behaviour rather than improvement (Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky, 2009; OECD, 2017).</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B2.4 Anchoring example: why learning does not automatically follow schooling</h3>
<p>Over the past two decades, schooling in Bangladesh expanded rapidly. Classrooms were built, enrolment increased, and examination participation rose. From a linear perspective, learning should have improved as a result.</p>
<p>A systems view explains why that did not follow automatically. Expansion changed some visible parts of the system while leaving key behavioural drivers largely intact. The incentive logic inside classrooms remained anchored in examination pressure. Administrative accountability remained anchored in compliance and reporting. Feedback from learning evidence to day-to-day practice remained weak.</p>
<p>A behavioural view explains why sensible people reinforced the pattern. Teachers narrowed instruction toward exam-relevant coverage because deviation carried professional and social risk. Officials prioritised reporting and procedural compliance because these behaviours were monitored and carried lower personal risk. Families invested in private tutoring to manage uncertainty, especially where classroom learning did not reliably translate into predictable results.</p>
<p>An adaptive governance view explains why evidence did not trigger correction. Data travelled upward, but actionable feedback rarely returned to classrooms in time to matter. Reform</p>
<p>initiatives were often added as new activities rather than used to reshape the feedback relationships stabilising low learning.</p>
<p>The result was a stable pattern: expanding access alongside weak learning. No single actor caused this outcome. It emerged from the interaction between structure, incentive-shaped behaviour, and limited capacity for system-level learning and correction. This mirrors global experience in many systems where schooling expanded faster than learning (World Bank, 2018).</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>B3. The feedback architecture in four layers</h3>
<p>The remainder of this appendix sets out the feedback architecture as four nested layers. These layers connect lived learning experience to deeper system dynamics and clarify where leverage for change lies. The layers are mutually reinforcing. They should not be read as a hierarchy of importance, but as a map of where behaviour is produced and stabilised.</p>
<p>Layer 1 explains the learning dynamics that determine whether learning accumulates or collapses in everyday experience. Layer 2 explains the domains that produce and constrain those dynamics. Layer 3 sets out the feedback loops that stabilise behaviour within and across domains, using Table B-1 as the organising map. Layer 4 identifies leverage points where structural shifts can change which loops dominate.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>B4. Layer 1: Learning dynamics that determine whether learning accumulates</h3>
<p>Chapter 3 identifies five learning dynamics that recur as decisive in Bangladesh’s system diagnosis, and Chapter 4 makes them concrete through lived experience: readiness, motivation, feedback, trust, and alignment. In this appendix they serve a specific purpose. They are the “surface conditions” that the deeper loops are producing.</p>
<p>These dynamics are not programmes or policies. They are conditions. When they are present, learning becomes possible and cumulative. When they are weak, learning fragments regardless of effort.</p>
<p><strong>Readiness </strong>refers to whether learners can participate meaningfully in instruction from the first day they arrive. It includes early childhood development, health and nutrition, home language familiarity, emotional security, and basic exposure to print and talk. Readiness is not a one- time threshold. It is a continuing condition that can improve or deteriorate with attendance, classroom experience, and home stress. Weak readiness makes instruction feel like noise, which quickly weakens motivation and attendance.</p>
<p><strong>Motivation </strong>refers to whether effort feels worthwhile. Motivation is shaped by early success, peer belonging, perceived fairness, and whether learning appears to lead somewhere. When motivation weakens, learners do not simply “try less”. They ration effort, disengage, and shift toward whatever activity feels safest for progression. In high-stakes settings, this often means a narrow focus on exam-relevant tasks and coaching, even when those tasks do not build durable competence.</p>
<p><strong>Feedback</strong><strong> </strong>refers to whether learners and teachers can adjust in time. Feedback must be frequent enough to be actionable, clear enough to interpret, and safe enough to respond to. When feedback is delayed, ambiguous, or punitive, it does not guide improvement. It trains</p>
<p>avoidance. Teachers teach to what is tested. Learners guess what matters. Families hedge through tutoring.</p>
<p><strong>Trust </strong>refers to whether actors feel safe to act on learning evidence. Teachers must trust that slowing down for mastery will not be punished through supervision or exam results. Families must trust that assessment signals are credible and that classroom learning can carry their child forward. Officials must trust that reporting problems will not carry disproportionate risk. In low-trust environments, people protect themselves through compliance and private solutions.</p>
<p><strong>Alignment </strong>refers to whether the system’s signals reinforce one another. Curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, supervision, and pathways must point in the same direction. When signals conflict, effort moves to the safest substitute. If curriculum says “competency” but exams reward memorisation, the exam signal wins. If policy says “foundations” but time is consumed by coverage pressure, foundations lose.</p>
<p>Layer 1 matters because it clarifies what “improvement” looks like in lived terms. System</p>
<p>change is not a collection of initiatives. It is a sustained shift in these five conditions.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>B5. Layer 2: System domains that produce and constrain learning dynamics</h3>
<p>The five learning dynamics do not arise in isolation. They are produced and constrained by five interacting domains. These domains are analytical rather than hierarchical. They help organise complexity without implying that any single institution controls outcomes.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B5.1 Learning and classroom dynamics</h3>
<p>This domain covers what happens inside classrooms and schools: teacher motivation, instructional practice, classroom routines, time on task, peer dynamics, and professional culture. It is the site where learning is either built or lost day by day. Importantly, this domain is highly sensitive to signals from outside the classroom. In Bangladesh, classroom behaviour is strongly shaped by the examination and accountability environment. That is why classroom- focused reforms can appear sound but fail to spread.</p>
<p>In Table B-1, the key reinforcing loops in this domain include teacher motivation (R1, R14), curriculum–pedagogy–assessment coherence (R2), time on task and learner mastery (R15, R14b), peer belonging (R16), and teacher network learning (R11). The dominant balancing pressure is high-stakes examination pressure (B1). The central issue is dominance. When B1 dominates, it suppresses or redirects the reinforcing loops that would otherwise build mastery.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B5.2 Access, equity, and human capital</h3>
<p>This domain covers the conditions that shape who can access learning, under what constraints, and with what level of readiness. It includes poverty, health and nutrition, gender norms, geography, household stress, home language, and early childhood experience. These factors shape readiness and attendance long before classroom instruction can compensate. This is why “equal provision” can still produce unequal learning.</p>
<p>In Table B-1, the compounding disadvantage loops are explicit: poverty–learning gaps (R5), health and nutrition shaping attendance and attention (R17), early childhood readiness (R18), language of instruction misalignment (B10), and the attendance–engagement cycle (R19).</p>
<p>These loops explain why gaps emerge early and widen over time, even when schools are present.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B5.3 Governance, data, and delivery systems</h3>
<p>This domain covers how the system is managed at scale: authority, budgets, deployment, supervision, reporting, and accountability. It determines what behaviours are rewarded and what risks are punished. It also determines whether the system can learn from its own experience. This is where many reforms fail, not because they are technically wrong, but because they collide with compliance incentives and risk aversion.</p>
<p>In Table B-1, the paired loops (R4/B2 and R7/B6) are central. When policy, budget, and accountability align, implementation strengthens and improvement can become reinforcing (R4). When misalignment and delays dominate, behaviour shifts toward compliance and process (B2). The same is true for data. Timely, trusted data can support adaptation (R7). Delayed or reporting-focused data strengthens inertia (B6). Bureaucratic risk aversion (B3), transparency and trust erosion (B7), and patronage and political capture (B8) are not side issues in this architecture. They are stabilisers that shape what is safe to do.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B5.4 Markets, assessment, and technology</h3>
<p>This domain covers examinations, private tutoring, digital tools, and external benchmarking signals. These are not external to the system. They are part of its behavioural logic. Market responses often reflect rational household strategies under uncertainty. Technology can strengthen learning only when it supports classroom practice and feedback. Otherwise it becomes another layer of unequal access and implementation noise.</p>
<p>In Table B-1, coaching industry expansion (R3) is a predictable response to high-stakes exams (B1). Digital adoption (R10) can become reinforcing when it supports pedagogy and feedback, but the digital divide (B11) can amplify inequity when access and teacher support are uneven. Benchmarking attention (R13/B9) often spikes and fades unless it is connected to domestic feedback loops and institutional follow-through.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B5.5 Labour markets and pathways</h3>
<p>This domain covers the relationship between schooling, skills, employment, migration, and mobility. It shapes whether learning appears meaningful beyond exams. When the labour market rewards certificates more than competence, families and learners rationally prioritise progression signals over mastery. When technical and vocational pathways deliver visible returns, legitimacy and demand can become self-reinforcing.</p>
<p>In Table B-1, credentialism (R21) captures the skill–signal tension. Pathway legitimacy (R22) captures how visible labour market success can strengthen demand and employer engagement. The long-cycle development loop (R12) links skills to productivity and fiscal space, but it only becomes politically salient when nearer-term loops align.</p>
<p>Layer 2 matters because it prevents a common error: treating learning dynamics as classroom problems only. The dynamics are produced across domains and constrained by cross-domain signals.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>B6. Layer 3: Feedback loops that stabilise system behaviour</h3>
<p>Layer 3 is the core technical layer of this appendix. It explains why the system returns to familiar outcomes even after reform efforts. Table B-1 is not an appendix to the analysis. It is the map of the analysis. The narrative below reads the table as an interacting system, showing how loop dominance produces stable outcomes.</p>
<p>Table B1: Loop/Feedback Mapping of Bangladesh Education System</p>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>
<p><strong>Domain</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Definition</strong><strong> </strong><strong>/</strong><strong> </strong><strong>System </strong><strong>Focus</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Included</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Loops</strong><strong> (summary)</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Loop</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Definition</strong></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>A. Learning and Classroom</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Micro-level teaching– learning processes that shape what happens inside classrooms —</p>
<p>teacher behaviour, student engagement, and pedagogical</p>
<p>alignment.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>R1 Teacher Motivation (Extrinsic–Status)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Higher pay and professional respect raise morale and teaching quality, reinforcing public trust and advocacy for education.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R14 Teacher Motivation (Intrinsic– Purpose/Autonomy)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Teachers who experience purpose and autonomy innovate more and sustain engagement over time.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R2 Curriculum–Pedagogy–Assessment Coherence</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>When curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment are aligned, teachers teach what matters and feedback drives improvement.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R15 Classroom Time-on-Task</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>More engaged classroom time strengthens fluency and confidence, reducing off-task behaviour.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R14b Learner Motivation and Mastery</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Early success and enjoyment build confidence, sustaining literacy and numeracy progress.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R16 Peer Learning and Belonging</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Positive peer interactions encourage participation, collaboration, and belonging.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>B1 High-Stakes Exam Pressure</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Excessive exam pressure fosters rote learning and anxiety, crowding out creativity.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R11 Teacher Network Learning (PLC or Lesson Study)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Professional learning communities share good practice and normalise reflection.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>B. Access, Equity, and Human</p>
<p>Capital</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Socioeconomic, gender, and spatial factors</p>
<p>determining who can learn and under what</p>
<p>conditions — including health, nutrition, and family context.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>R5 Poverty–Learning Gap</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Poverty limits readiness and achievement, perpetuating intergenerational disadvantage.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>B5 Gender Norms and Maternal Literacy</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Gendered expectations and low maternal literacy reduce home learning support.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R6 Urban–Rural Quality Divergence</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Urban areas attract better teachers and resources, widening rural quality gaps.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R17 Health–Nutrition–Attendance</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Good health and nutrition improve attendance, focus, and learning outcomes.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R18 Early Childhood (ECCE) Readiness</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Quality early-childhood education builds readiness and long-term momentum.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>B10 Language of Instruction Misalignment</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>When schooling begins in a non-home language, comprehension and confidence decline.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R19 Attendance–Engagement Cycle</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Regular attendance builds success and learner identity, reinforcing continued participation.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>C. Governance, Data, and</p>
<p>Delivery Systems</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>The organisational architecture and information flows that determine how</p>
<p>effectively the system learns and adapts.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>R4 / B2 Policy–Budget–Performance</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Effective policy–budget alignment creates a reinforcing cycle of clarity, resources and performance. When alignment weakens or delays accumulate, the balancing loop becomes dominant and resources are absorbed by compliance rather than learning.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R7 / B6 Data–Decision–Adaptation</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Timely, trusted data forms a reinforcing loop that supports adaptation and problem solving. When data is delayed, fragmented or used mainly for reporting, the balancing loop becomes dominant and</p>
<p>institutional inertia strengthens.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>B3 Bureaucratic Inertia or Risk Aversion</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Fear of error discourages experimentation and slows reform.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R9 Pilot–Learning–Scale</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Evaluated pilots that inform policy enable adaptive scaling and sustained learning.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>B7 Corruption–Trust Erosion</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Lack of transparency erodes efficiency and weakens accountability.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>B8 Political Capture or Patronage</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Patronage distorts staffing and resource allocation, reducing effectiveness.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R8 Public Trust–Political Will</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Visible reform success builds citizen trust and political momentum for change.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R20 Headteacher Leadership Climate</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Supportive school leaders create positive cultures and stronger teacher performance.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>D. Market, Assessment and Technology</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>External mechanisms</p>
<p>— exams, private tutoring, and</p>
<p>technology — that shape incentives and learning experiences.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>R3 Coaching Industry Expansion</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Exam pressure fuels private coaching demand, diverting energy from classroom teaching.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R13 / B9 Global Benchmark Attention</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>International rankings attract reform focus but fade without institutional follow-through.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R10 Digital Adoption and Use</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Access to digital tools enhances engagement and innovation.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>B11 Digital Divide Amplifier</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Unequal digital access widens learning gaps and directs investment toward advantaged schools.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>E. Labour Market and Pathways</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Post-school transitions linking education to employability,</p>
<p>productivity, and the</p>
<p>legitimacy of different pathways.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>R12 Demography–Skills–Productivity</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>A skilled workforce drives growth, enabling further investment in education.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R21 Signalling vs Skills (Credentialism)</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Overreliance on certificates over competence weakens motivation for genuine learning.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td>
<p>R22 TVET or Pathway Legitimacy</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Successful technical graduates elevate the status of vocational tracks, reinforcing demand and employer engagement.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><u>Note: Reading the</u><u> </u><u>Map</u></p>
<p><strong>Reinforcing</strong><strong> </strong><strong>loops</strong><strong> </strong><strong>(R)</strong><strong> </strong>generate momentum — they are the virtuous cycles that accelerate improvement once set in motion.</p>
<p><strong>Balancing</strong><strong> </strong><strong>loops</strong><strong> </strong><strong>(B)</strong><strong> </strong>stabilise the system — sometimes useful, but when too rigid, they can block innovation.</p>
<p>A simple way to interpret Table B1 is to ask two questions.</p>
<p>First, which loops generate learning momentum when conditions allow. Second, which loops stabilise the system around low learning by rewarding safer substitutes such as memorisation, compliance, and private tutoring.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B6.1 The core stabiliser: high-stakes examination pressure (B1) and its downstream effects</h3>
<p>Table B1 identifies B1 as a central balancing loop. It stabilises classroom behaviour around memorisation and narrow exam preparation. This loop is powerful because it is reinforced by rational responses elsewhere in the system.</p>
<p>When B1 dominates, it does not merely change teaching style. It changes what is considered safe professional practice. Teachers focus on coverage and predictability. Learners focus on tasks that are rewarded. Families invest in tutoring to reduce risk. These responses then reshape the system’s centre of gravity away from classroom learning and toward private solutions.</p>
<p>This is where Table B1 shows an important cross-domain link. B1 in the classroom domain interacts directly with R3 in the market domain. Exam pressure fuels coaching demand. Coaching demand normalises exam-centred learning. That normalisation increases pressure on teachers and learners to keep pace. The system stabilises around a high-cost equilibrium where households carry more of the burden and classroom learning becomes less trusted.</p>
<p>This interaction helps explain why pedagogical reforms can appear well-designed but fade. If B1 remains dominant, the system reabsorbs new pedagogy into old incentive structures.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B6.2 Why coherence is a leverage channel: R2 as the loop that makes other loops usable</h3>
<p>R2 in Table B1 is not a generic “nice to have”. It is a coherence channel that determines whether feedback can be interpreted and acted on. When curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment point in the same direction, teachers can make sensible trade-offs, feedback becomes meaningful, and learner effort has a clearer pathway to success.</p>
<p>When R2 is weak, teachers face contradictory signals. Policy says one thing. Exams reward another. Supervision monitors a third. Under behavioural realism, teachers respond by following the safest signal, which is typically the exam. This is one mechanism through which B1 neutralises reform intent.</p>
<p>This matters because R2 is the bridge between Layer 1 and Layer 3. Alignment, one of the five learning dynamics, is not achieved by messaging. It is achieved when R2 is strengthened and B1 is moderated so that signals stop fighting.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B6.3 Teacher motivation and professional culture: R1, R14, and why they do not self- activate</h3>
<p>Table B1 distinguishes two routes into teacher motivation: extrinsic status and recognition (R1) and intrinsic purpose and autonomy (R14). Both can strengthen instructional quality and persistence. However, in environments dominated by examination pressure and compliance</p>
<p>monitoring, intrinsic motivation is difficult to sustain. Autonomy becomes risky. Innovation can be punished. Teachers rationally narrow practice.</p>
<p>That is why professional learning networks (R11) matter. They provide a social infrastructure for improvement that reduces individual risk. They also create a local feedback loop where practice can evolve through peer observation and shared routines, even when system-wide feedback remains weak.</p>
<p>This is also where governance loops interact with classroom loops. If bureaucratic risk aversion (B3) is strong and supervision focuses on compliance, teachers experience reform as surveillance rather than professional growth. In that configuration, R14 weakens and R11 struggles to spread beyond pockets of practice.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B6.4 Early advantage and compounding gaps: R18, R17, B10, and R19</h3>
<p>Table B1 makes explicit that readiness is produced through interacting loops in the access and human capital domain. Early childhood experience (R18) and health and nutrition (R17) strengthen attention, stamina, and attendance. Language of instruction misalignment (B10) can stabilise low comprehension from the beginning. Attendance–engagement (R19) then becomes a compounding loop. When learners experience success, attendance reinforces learning identity. When learners experience confusion and repeated failure, absence becomes rational and disengagement becomes self-reinforcing.</p>
<p>This explains why later interventions often arrive too late. Without readiness, motivation collapses. Without motivation, feedback is not acted on. A system can therefore “provide schooling” while still failing to produce learning, because the early loops that generate learning traction never became dominant.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B6.5 Governance and data: the paired loops that determine whether the system can learn (R4/B2 and R7/B6)</h3>
<p>Table B1 includes two paired loop structures that are central to adaptive governance.</p>
<p>R4/B2 describes the policy–budget–performance channel. When priorities, budgets, and accountability are aligned, implementation strengthens and performance can become reinforcing (R4). When alignment weakens or delays accumulate, a balancing loop dominates (B2) where behaviour shifts toward compliance, reporting, and process absorption.</p>
<p>R7/B6 describes the data–decision–adaptation channel. When data is timely, trusted, and used locally, it supports problem solving and adaptation (R7). When data is delayed, fragmented, or used mainly for upward reporting, inertia strengthens (B6). Information accumulates without consequence.</p>
<p>These paired loops explain a common Bangladesh reality: the system can “know” learning is weak without being able to correct it. Evidence exists, but the feedback return path is broken. Schools do not receive actionable diagnosis. Officials do not receive safe signals that encourage experimentation. Instead, the system defends itself through process.</p>
<p>This is why Layer 3 has to be central. Weak learning persists not only because of classroom issues, but because governance and data loops prevent correction.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B6.6 Trust erosion and control escalation: B7 and its interaction with B3 and B2</h3>
<p>Table B-1 includes corruption–trust erosion (B7) and political capture or patronage (B8). These are often treated as political context, but in a feedback architecture they behave as stabilisers. When trust is low, systems typically respond by increasing control, supervision, and compliance routines. That strengthens B2 and B3. Those loops then reduce experimentation and honest reporting, which further reduces trust. The system becomes trapped in a low- learning, high-control equilibrium.</p>
<p>This is also why reforms that add monitoring without strengthening credibility can backfire. They increase fear and box-ticking, not learning.</p>
<h3><strong></strong><strong></strong>B7. Layer 4: Leverage points and why sequencing matters</h3>
<p>Layer 4 translates the feedback architecture into practical leverage points. Leverage points are places where a small structural shift changes which loops dominate, altering system behaviour without requiring constant enforcement (Meadows, 2008). In Bangladesh, the most effective leverage points tend to sit at the level of information flow, signal credibility, risk distribution, and trust.</p>
<p>The point is not to propose a reform menu here. The point is to clarify why certain kinds of moves create lasting change, while others are absorbed.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B7.1 Information flows that return to the point of action</h3>
<p>The system already generates information. The problem is return. When feedback reaches classrooms and local offices in time to guide action, loops like R7 can become dominant. When feedback remains upward and delayed, B6 dominates and the system “knows” without adjusting.</p>
<p>A practical leverage move is therefore not more data, but different data flow: shorter cycle, more local, more interpretable, and connected to routines that allow action without blame. This directly strengthens the conditions for feedback and trust in Layer 1.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B7.2 Credibility of signals, especially assessment and pathways</h3>
<p>Signal credibility is the structural precondition for reducing risk management behaviour. If assessment signals reward memorisation, B1 dominates regardless of curriculum intent. If certificates matter more than competence, R21 dominates regardless of pedagogy. Credibility reform changes the reward landscape that actors respond to.</p>
<p>This is also why moderation of exam pressure is not a soft issue. It is a loop dominance issue. If B1 remains dominant, R2, R11, and learner mastery loops cannot spread.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B7.3 Risk distribution and the safety of professional judgement</h3>
<p>In compliance-heavy environments, B3 dominates because the personal cost of deviation is high. A leverage point is therefore the distribution of risk: making it safer for teachers and officials to surface problems, slow down, and adjust. This is not achieved through exhortation.</p>
<p>It is achieved through predictable protection, credible consequences, and routines that treat diagnosis as normal rather than as failure.</p>
<p>This leverage point is where behavioural realism meets adaptive governance. If acting on learning evidence is safer than avoiding it, behaviour shifts.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B7.4 Trust as a system condition, not a slogan</h3>
<p>Trust is produced by repeated follow-through. Families trust when classroom learning and assessment signals align. Teachers trust when professional judgement is supported rather than punished. Officials trust when honest reporting does not create disproportionate political or bureaucratic risk.</p>
<p>In the architecture, trust is not an aspiration. It is the condition that determines whether the system can learn. When trust is weak, control escalates, B2 and B3 strengthen, and learning loops weaken.</p>
<h3><strong></strong>B7.5 Why sequencing matters in this architecture</h3>
<p>Sequencing is not about preference. It is about loop interactions.</p>
<p>If stakes rise before credibility improves, defensive behaviour increases and B1 and B3 strengthen.</p>
<p>If autonomy rises before coherence improves, confusion increases and R2 weakens. If data rises without safe routines, reporting expands and B6 strengthens. If pilots expand without absorption, R9 becomes noise rather than learning.</p>
<p>This is why early reform phases must concentrate on changing feedback returns, credibility, and routine coherence, not on adding initiatives. Once balancing loops that stabilise low learning weaken, reinforcing loops that support readiness, motivation, feedback, trust, and alignment can become dominant.</p>
<h1><strong></strong><strong></strong>B8. Conclusion: what this architecture clarifies</h1>
<p>This appendix has argued that weak learning persists not because effort is absent, but because the system is structured in ways that stabilise low-learning outcomes. Table B-1 makes that structure visible. It shows that the system contains both learning-strengthening loops and learning-limiting loops, and that outcomes depend on which loops dominate under current conditions.</p>
<p>The core stabilisers are clear in the table. Examination pressure (B1), compliance-oriented governance and risk aversion (B2, B3), and weak feedback return from data to practice (B6) together create an environment where rational actors protect themselves through coverage, reporting, and private solutions. In that environment, reinforcing loops that could build mastery and professional culture (R2, R11, R14b, R15) activate only locally or temporarily.</p>
<p>The practical implication is equally clear. Sustainable improvement requires shifting loop dominance by strengthening information returns, credibility of signals, safe problem-solving routines, and trust. These are not the most visible reform sites, but they are the most</p>
<p>consequential. They determine whether the system can learn from its own experience and whether improvements can spread rather than remain isolated.</p>
<p>Chapter 3 uses this architecture to diagnose why the system returns to familiar outcomes. Chapter 4 shows how these dynamics are experienced by learners, teachers, and families. The chapters that follow use the same architecture to justify sequencing, because some stabilising loops must weaken before learning-strengthening loops can take hold.</p>
<h3>References</h3>
<p>Andrews, M., Pritchett, L. and Woolcock, M. (2017). Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action. Oxford University Press.</p>
<p>Heifetz, R., Grashow, A. and Linsky, M. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World. Harvard Business Press.</p>
<p>March, J. G. and Olsen, J. P. (1989). Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. Free Press.</p>
<p>Meadows, D. H. (2008). Thinking in Systems: A Primer. Chelsea Green Publishing.</p>
<p>OECD (2017). Systems Approaches to Public Sector Challenges: Working with Change. OECD Publishing.</p>
<p>Pritchett, L. (2015). “Creating Education Systems Coherent for Learning Outcomes: Making the Transition from Schooling to Learning.” RISE Working Paper (concept framing).</p>
<p>Simon, H. A. (1957). Models of Man: Social and Rational. Wiley.</p>
<p>Sterman, J. D. (2000). Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World. Irwin McGraw-Hill.</p>
<p>World Bank (2018). World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education’s</p>
<p>Promise. World Bank.</p>
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