How to deal with coaching centres  

Coaching centres in many places of the country are reportedly running as usual, defying the government order to close their operations from March 29 until the end of the Higher Secondary Certificate and equivalent examinations. The education ministry, squarely blamed for the repeated question paper leaks in most public examinations, has again failed to prevail on the errant educational units called coaching centres. Now that the media has picked up the issue, chances are high that law enforcers would do the needful to have them shut in no time.

Keeping them closed, temporarily, is beside the point. Observers, especially educationists and guardians, are concerned that the very presence of coaching centres is doing more harm than it was thought they were capable of. There was a time when coaching centres were blamed for making things easy for pupils to get higher grades than helping them with their learning. Of late, the blemish that tainted these so-called learning centres is criminality of a sinister kind. Ever since the issue of question paper leak started to vitiate examinations all over the country, fingers are being pointed at these centres as cohorts of the contemptible act. The education ministry in collaboration with the law enforcing agencies has been trying to find clues to work on; in the process, their findings have come up with startling disclosures about some coaching centres being in league with the country-wide network of question paper leak.

It is difficult to fathom why some of the leading coaching centres were found involved in the nefarious act. Simple logic speaks of their money-making motive which so long was confined to alluring their students, albeit clients with short-cut routes to exam success. Indications are now there that coaching centres in Bangladesh are not alone in the nasty game. Last week, some scheduled Board examinations of class X and XII in neighbouring India were postponed due to widespread allegations of question paper leak, and the law enforcers there were quick to identify some coaching centres as the culprits playing from backstage. Given the circumstances, it remains a central question whether there is something essentially linked between coaching centres and misdeeds in the educational arena, including question paper leak.

Closing the coaching centres during public examinations is no solution. In fact, it was one of the suggestions put forth by the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) in December 2017. But the key question - no doubt a puzzling one - is that if the coaching centres are in league with other quarters in the question paper leak for well over a couple of years, why is it that the government does not straight away call them off, once and for all? The education minister who knows it full well that his ministry is presently mired by the disgrace of question paper leak, had mentioned the other day about the uselessness of coaching centres. Isn't it time the government took a bold stand on the matter?