Editorial
Students' concerns over quota system
Rethink and review civil service recruitment process
The concerns voiced by students of Dhaka University and other public universities in recent days about the nature of recruitment to the civil service merits serious consideration. Those concerns have essentially centred on the demand that the existing quota system regarding such recruitment be done away with. It is principles that are thus involved here, those with which we largely agree. Indeed, the students' emphasis has been on a civil service system based on merit rather than quotas. Considering the background against which the civil service in Bangladesh has performed so long, one can justifiably propose that the time has arrived when serious rethinking is needed on the question, in fact on a change of approach in recruitment to government jobs.
At the moment, civil service recruitment is based on a system where less than fifty per cent of selections to government jobs are based on merit. That naturally throws up a rather disquieting picture of a quota system where reservations for particular classes, in terms of districts, freedom fighters' offspring, ethnic groups and women, assume prime importance. As can all too easily be comprehended, such a system has been at work since the liberation of the country. And it has certainly not produced the body of talented and competent men and women who could have buttressed the entire civil service. Merit has regularly been a casualty, with the result that at the different tiers of administration mediocrity and ineptitude have been a dominant theme. Quality has thus been on a slide. The difficulty with a quota-based system is that it leaves an entire administration unable to cope with the demands that are made on it in a world of interdependence and extreme competition where putting national interests across is the issue.
Let there be a caveat here. Where a quota system involves women and the various ethnic groups, we cannot but uphold the system. These two groups are yet in need of a quota support in the civil service. But rethinking in such areas as regional or district quotas is seriously called for. As for the quota relating to freedom fighters' offspring, nearly four decades after liberation one wonders whether the system can logically apply any more. Our freedom fighters, those who died on the battlefield and those who survived to usher in a free Bangladesh, will forever be the repository of the nation's abiding respect. Their objective was the creation of a social system where a flowering of opportunities would lead to an overwhelming nurturing of talent.
It is such thoughts we bear in mind as we call for a review of the recruitment process to the civil service. The sooner the review is done, the better for all those young people on whom will depend the future of this country.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments