By Fokor Uddin Manik
There is a question that every student and graduate of a public university in Bangladesh should occasionally ask themselves: who actually paid for our education, and what have we given back in return?

The money invested in our education did not come from some royal treasury or the generosity of an invisible benefactor. It came, in large part, from the sweat of rickshaw pullers, the overtime wages of garment workers, the hard-earned remittances of migrant workers and the sacrifices of millions of ordinary people whose own dreams often remain unfulfilled.

I am one of five brothers. Two of us studied at the University of Dhaka and three at Jagannath University. Our educational opportunities were made possible, in part, by public investment funded by people who may never have had the privilege of entering a university themselves.

Consider the rickshaw puller who struggles to afford a decent school for his own child. Part of his contribution to the national economy helps sustain the university libraries in which we study. Consider the migrant worker who spends years away from family, sending money home from a foreign land. His sacrifice helps finance the very institutions that educate the next generation.

The uncomfortable question is this: how much have we given back to the people whose contributions helped educate us? Have we become public assets, or have we simply used public money to acquire private prestige?

My wife graduated from a well-regarded public university in Bangladesh, achieving a CGPA of 3.86 in both her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. She was also recommended for appointment through Bangladesh's 44th Civil Service examination. Yet, when she travelled to London for an interview for a job directly related to her academic discipline, the feedback she received was deeply unexpected.

This was not an official assessment of the equivalence of her qualifications. It was an individual recruitment experience. Nevertheless, it raised a difficult question: why can academic achievement and professional readiness appear so far apart?

This is not merely a matter of personal disappointment. The figures point to a wider structural problem. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics' Labour Force Survey 2024, the number of unemployed university graduates stood at approximately 885,000, while unemployment among the highly educated population was reported at 13.54 per cent. An analysis published by the International Monetary Fund in 2026, drawing on 2024 labour-market data, also highlighted an unemployment rate of approximately 25 per cent among highly educated young people aged 15–29.

These figures demand more than expressions of concern. They invite a fundamental reconsideration of what our universities are producing. Are we developing human capital, or are we expanding an assembly line of academically qualified but economically marginalised graduates?

When people compare students at the University of Dhaka with pupils in the seventh grade, the immediate reaction is understandably anger and humiliation. But anger alone cannot repair a broken system. Instead of simply rejecting such criticism, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether our actual abilities live up to the historical reputation of our institutions. Have we turned the name of a university into a substitute for individual competence?

What are our universities really producing: independent thinkers, researchers, innovators and problem-solvers, or graduates who have mastered the mechanics of examinations and the pursuit of high grades? If academic excellence is measured primarily by the ability to reproduce correct answers in examination scripts, who will teach students to confront questions for which no textbook provides an answer?

The responsibility, however, does not rest with students alone. It belongs to teachers who fail to open windows beyond prescribed textbooks; university administrators who prioritise ceremony and institutional prestige over meaningful research; and policymakers who expand the number of universities without giving sufficient attention to academic standards, research facilities and employment-oriented skills.

Students and graduates must also accept their share of responsibility. We are often quick to celebrate the reputation of our institutions but reluctant to acknowledge their weaknesses. We take pride in our degrees, yet sometimes mistake the prestige of an institution for proof of our own abilities.

Perhaps the most painful irony is that we sometimes look down upon the very people whose labour helped finance our education. We may regard a rickshaw puller or a garment worker as uneducated, yet their discipline, resilience, practical intelligence and sense of responsibility may offer lessons that many formally educated people have yet to learn.

They may not know how to write an English CV, but every day they sit an examination in survival that has no university grading system. Their results are measured in meals secured, children educated and families kept alive.

The success of a public university cannot be measured merely by graduation ceremonies, medals or the number of its graduates entering the civil service. It must also be judged by the quality of its research, its contribution to innovation, the practical competence of its graduates, their civic responsibility and the difference they make to ordinary people's lives.

Self-criticism is not an act of self-humiliation. It is the beginning of accountability. A degree may represent an individual's achievement, but the public investment behind it creates a wider social obligation. When we fail to honour that obligation, our academic pride risks becoming little more than a mask concealing institutional and personal shortcomings.

The state gave us the opportunity to become educated. But have we fulfilled our responsibility to become genuinely capable human beings?

Ordinary people invested in us in the hope that universities would produce individuals who could contribute to society. If all we return are certificates without corresponding competence, then however magnificent the graduation ceremony may appear, something far more tragic is taking place behind its decorations.

The state invested in human beings, but we returned as certificates. Perhaps the day we begin to answer honestly for that failure will be the day our universities hold their first truly meaningful convocation.

✍️ Fokor Uddin Manik
Media Professional | Researcher | Social Thinker
Email: fokoruddincse@gmail.com