Propaganda I’m not falling for: The Bangladeshi Dream 

The July Revolution changed nothing and everything. There I said it. Students bled on the streets demanding systemic change, but here I am today in my 10th semester at IUB as I sit and see the same educational machinery spit out another generation of minds. The revolution exposed the corruption in our political system, but the rot in our education system remains untainted, festering beneath layers of bureaucratic indifference and capitalistic exploitation.

Every year, students of SSC and HSC become examophobic; a pathological assessment fear that forces them to delay their entire future rather than going through three days of exams.

But the most terrifying aspect is how every day we hear another report of a student, taking their life because of a failed education system and we just scroll on. How do we sleep at night knowing that one in four students would rather die than cope with our system of evaluation? This is systemic psychological conditioning which instructs students that their worth in life hinges on their ability to vomit up material under pressure. I live this nightmare myself, watching bright friends convince themselves that they were failures before they even get started. The system imposes this fear deliberately because frightened students are compliant students, and compliant students never question why they’re memorizing outdated information instead of learning how to think.

This emphasis on memorization is directly connected with why our education system produces followers, not leaders. Students learn to swallow packaged information rather than assemble knowledge, to comply rather than defy, to recite rather than create. The outcome is as sure as can be: students who are able to regurgitate dictionary definitions but not actual problems, who are able to execute orders but not create, who are able to pass tests but not make a real-world difference. This intellectual subservience serves directly the needs of those who gain from an educated but unthinking workforce.

Brain drain crisis is imminent if you look at this situation. Students do not move from Bangladesh because the opportunity is higher in some other nation; they move because Bangladesh never offers any opportunity for growth for intelligent or creative people.

Are we surprised that our brightest minds are leaving a system that literally kills children? See, our system is not able to perceive our potential because it’s only for excluding rather than including, for building walls rather than tearing them down. All for money.

These walls are fundamentally economic, and this is where hypocrisy is too much to handle. Students pay lakhs for basic education with universities providing regressive facilities and overworked teaching staff. Some departments receive token grants as “charity cases” while funds disappear into black holes of administration. Where is the money going? Nobody knows, and nobody is supposed to know. This money invisibility shows us the capitalistic basis of our whole education system: our universities are running as black holes draining students of money, devouring resources and offering little in return in terms of education. How many more students will we bleed financially before we recognize that our institutions are machines of extraction masquerading as schools of education?

The job market provides an equally brutal paradox. Everyone informs us there are “so many opportunities,” yet new graduates cannot find employment. The circular impossibility is glaring: hiring managers require experienced new graduates, yet experience requires employment. Startups as solutions to employment exploit young minds with unpaid internships and unsustainable work arrangements. The system does not prepare students for existing jobs while simultaneously failing to create new employment opportunities.

Not to mention, corruption pervades at all levels because nothing is for the greater good. Universities are institutions of learning second and businesses first. Profit maximization, not student welfare, dictates every policy decision. The psychic harm caused under the guise of examophobia, the false hierarchies of divisions and the economic exploitation masquerading as educational opportunity are all serving the same function: preserving an group of people  that siphons money from students while delivering little of value in exchange. It seems that no matter how many political groups might take over, the exploitation will persist. 

When knowledge is monetized and marketed as a commodity, when students are only customers that they can’t shop elsewhere, when success measurements are compliance rather than creativity, the psychological weight is intolerable. Students are anxious, depressed, and desperate because they somehow subconsciously know that the system is designed to break them and not build them. They swore on their motherland and buried the Bangladeshi Dream alive. 

The July Revolution showed that students can effect systemic change if they organize themselves on shared grievances. But is it not ironical that we shed blood on the streets in order to make ourselves heard? These protests were motivated by deeper grievances on issues of governance and corruption, increasing economic disparities and denial of access to enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights. We protested every day in solidarity against a system that did not care to listen to our voices, and what is our reward? The same broken education system that continues to produce hopelessness. We need educational revolution along with political revolution. This has to include the complete replacement of our education system. I dont advocate for a make-believe  reform, but deep rethinking about what education needs to do and how it needs to function.

I know this letter was expected to propose  solutions. The truth is I can’t. Not one person or one essay can untangle this systemic mess. The walls of greed, the fake promises, and the widespread loss of hope among students are too massive for simple fixes.

All I can do is urge a change. Educate for the greater good, not for profit. Education is a birthright, not a commodity to harvest tuition.