The Bangladesh Today (12-02-2018)
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EDITORIAL<br />
MoNDAY,<br />
FeBrUArY <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2018</strong><br />
4<br />
Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam<br />
Telephone: +88<strong>02</strong>-9104683-84, Fax: 9<strong>12</strong>7103<br />
e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com<br />
Monday, February <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2018</strong><br />
reforming and improving<br />
the civil services<br />
It is high time to take up the tasks of carrying out<br />
deep and driving reforms in the country's civil<br />
services. <strong>The</strong> reformative activities in the country's<br />
civil services have become all the more important and<br />
justified in the backdrop of the recently increased<br />
raises in the salaries and perks of civil services<br />
members across the board. It is too simplistic to think<br />
that these showering of higher salaries and benefits on<br />
civil servants will prompt them to become more<br />
dedicated, honest and sincere in attending to their<br />
tasks. For experiences show all too clearly that<br />
members of civil services were always too good on<br />
absorbing any pay rise and other benefits as if these<br />
were their birth rights.<strong>The</strong>y never felt any<br />
mentionable pricks of conscience that they should al<br />
so deliver better to deserve the higher salaries and<br />
benefits. Thus, there is every reason to think that this<br />
time around also they will just perceive their added<br />
monetary and other gain sas their legitimate dues<br />
without feeling that they have a duty of care to<br />
respond to these added payments by discharging their<br />
services with greater scrupulousness and efficiency.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re fore it is high time to ensure that civil servants<br />
are only obliged to earn their increased earnings and<br />
privileges.<br />
Reformsofthecivilservicesshould start basically with<br />
making the present system of recruitment to the<br />
services completely free from corruption. This<br />
corruption was reflected in the leakage of question<br />
paper and other ills in the recruitment examinations<br />
of the services. <strong>The</strong> next task is proper training of the<br />
new civil servants. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Bangladesh</strong> Public<br />
Administration Training Centre (BPTAC) in the main<br />
trains new members of the civil services. But<br />
allegedly, the standard of this body has deteriorated<br />
over the years. <strong>The</strong> trainers themselves are considered<br />
as not sufficiently resourceful to train well. <strong>The</strong>refore,<br />
BPTAC itself needs restructuring and at the centre of<br />
such restructuring should be appointment of persons<br />
of proper background and competence as the trainers.<br />
Besides, teaching of morality and service to people<br />
should be important parts of the training<br />
programmes so that the new members in the civil<br />
services can go to their first posts with a sharpened<br />
conscience.<br />
In many cases, government offices are found<br />
overstaffed particularly at the lower and mid-levels.<br />
Such overstaffing should be dealt with to conserve<br />
resources and reduce bureaucracy. In other cases, a<br />
dearth of specialist manpower is seen in some<br />
departments, particularly at the higher levels, that<br />
hampers the efficient functioning of these<br />
departments. <strong>The</strong> cases of such understaffing should<br />
be addressed by recruiting such specialist manpower<br />
on contract and other basis with special incentive<br />
salary and other facilities, where necessary. <strong>The</strong>y may<br />
be inducted into the civil services by amending the<br />
present uniform rules of the services as special cases.<br />
Such recruitment will end the unwanted domination<br />
of the services by generalists who cannot give<br />
specialist decisions or attend to decision making of a<br />
complex or technical or managerial character and,<br />
thus, lend dynamism to the functioning of the<br />
services.<br />
<strong>The</strong> present system of promotion in the civil services<br />
is based mainly on seniority. <strong>The</strong> annual confidential<br />
report (ACR) on a civil servant produced by a senior<br />
officer is also taken into account while promoting a<br />
person. But such ACRs presently have no way of<br />
assessing the officer's true worth, efficiency, integrity<br />
and attainments. In most cases, the officers are<br />
blindly promoted to the next higher posts on<br />
completion of a certain number of years in their<br />
services. <strong>The</strong>refore, in order to truly reward the<br />
efficient and the capable, promotion should be mainly<br />
based not on seniority but on the basis of the actual<br />
efficiency, dedication to the job and achievements of<br />
the person to be promoted. For this purpose, more<br />
than the ACR, a system should be devised in which the<br />
civil servants will be given targets to fulfill at the start<br />
of a year. <strong>The</strong> targets may range, say, from meeting<br />
tax collection targets to the number of sterilisation<br />
operations carried out in the family planning<br />
programme.<br />
Target attainment and meeting of other standards<br />
should become the basis of promotion and not just<br />
seniority as is the case now. Besides, failure to attain<br />
targets and noted lapses in other areas should lead to<br />
suffering of penalties such as withholding of<br />
increments to event dismissal from services. In other<br />
words, civil servants must be made to perform under<br />
the awareness that they are accountable for their jobs<br />
and that their jobs are not sinecures. <strong>The</strong>y could<br />
expect rewards for the right things they do and<br />
penalised for what they do not do or do wrongly. Only<br />
an accountable structure of this sort-- and enforced<br />
rigorously-- has any chance of improving the standard<br />
of the civil services. All elected governments from<br />
now on should also resolve not to try and politicise the<br />
administration during their tenures. This would<br />
contribute to not only efficiency of the civil<br />
administration but lend to the country's political<br />
stability as well.<br />
how far is China to blame for America’s ‘Cold War mentality’?<br />
IT has been five years since the bill<br />
ensuring the right to free and<br />
compulsory education was passed<br />
unanimously by the National Assembly.<br />
Article 25-A of the Constitution says: "<strong>The</strong><br />
state shall provide free and compulsory<br />
education to all children of the age of five to<br />
16 years...".<br />
In these five years, since Article 25-A<br />
came into action, a few noteworthy<br />
initiatives have been taken by the federal<br />
and provincial governments to ensure that<br />
this promise to Pakistani children is<br />
fulfilled. Despite this constitutional<br />
obligation as well as many official<br />
statements by senior government officials,<br />
much more needs to be done to make this<br />
commitment a reality. Policy reforms and<br />
quality implementation need to be<br />
urgently amplified and expanded to tackle<br />
the education emergency in Pakistan,<br />
especially in Sindh.<br />
Lack of infrastructure and facilities in<br />
government schools is a basic critique of<br />
the education system in Sindh. This was<br />
recently highlighted in a report to the<br />
Sindh chief minister, after which<br />
immediate action was ordered to be taken<br />
in 4,000 primary schools and 524 middle<br />
and secondary schools. <strong>The</strong> initiative<br />
involves improvement and rehabilitation<br />
of schools focusing on the provision of<br />
electricity, washrooms, boundary walls,<br />
drinking water, and furniture. However,<br />
there is a long way to go before basic<br />
facilities can be ensured in all Sindh's<br />
<strong>The</strong> year <strong>2018</strong> will be a year of<br />
major social changes for the<br />
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
changes are expected to dramatically<br />
change Saudi society as we once knew<br />
it.<br />
To begin with, the feared Saudi<br />
religious police that once permeated<br />
every level of Saudi society has almost<br />
become a non-entity in most of the<br />
major cities, a fact that makes many<br />
happy but also distresses a few who still<br />
long for the days of religious control.<br />
<strong>The</strong>ir messages and exhortations of<br />
following a strict and unyielding<br />
interpretation of the religion has today<br />
been generally recognised as the fuel<br />
that has misguided some Saudi youth.<br />
<strong>The</strong> arrival of young Crown Prince<br />
Mohammad Bin Salman in the Saudi<br />
leadership has provided the impetus to<br />
tackle what many have termed as a<br />
growing menace and an impediment to<br />
progress.<br />
Many Saudi social scientists and<br />
intellectuals had privately grumbled<br />
that the powerful religious police was<br />
intent on taking the country back to the<br />
Stone Ages. But Mohammad was astute<br />
enough to realise that none of his grand<br />
plans, such as Vision 2<strong>02</strong>0 and Vision<br />
2030, would take a foothold unless he<br />
dealt with this establishment head-on.<br />
And he did.<br />
By stripping them of most of their<br />
earlier acquired powers, he essentially<br />
left them dormant. <strong>The</strong> wave of<br />
appreciation that followed this singular<br />
Cold War mentality" is the<br />
catchphrase that China typically<br />
uses when it is criticized by the<br />
United States and other Western<br />
countries, such as Australia.<br />
In 2009, when the Barack Obama<br />
administration published its National<br />
Intelligence Strategy (NIS), in which<br />
China - together with North Korea, Iran<br />
and Russia - was listed as a country that<br />
challenged US interests, Beijing<br />
immediately urged Washington "to<br />
abandon Cold War mentality and<br />
prejudices." On several occasions over<br />
the past two years, Beijing has similarly<br />
accused Australia of adopting a "Cold<br />
War mentality" vis-à-vis the communist<br />
power. <strong>The</strong> phrase has been used with<br />
increasing frequency in relation to the US<br />
since the advent of Donald Trump's<br />
presidency, as Washington has hardened<br />
its view of the one-party state.<br />
In the 2009 NIS, China was listed third<br />
among America's four main challengers<br />
and the document's description of the<br />
country wasn't very hostile.<br />
In contrast, in the Trump<br />
government's National Security Strategy<br />
(NSS), National Defense Strategy (NDS)<br />
and Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), all of<br />
which were published over the last two<br />
months, China is painted much more<br />
adversely. In the first two documents, the<br />
People's Republic is put first among the<br />
top security threats facing the US. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
also include Russia, two "rogue states"<br />
(namely North Korea and Iran), and<br />
terrorist groups. In the last strategy, it is<br />
placed second, after Russia.<br />
That's why, immediately after the<br />
publication of these three documents,<br />
Chinese officials, including Chinese<br />
foreign ministry spokespersons,<br />
denounced them and urged the US to<br />
discard what they call an "outdated coldwar<br />
mentality and zero-sum game<br />
mindset."<br />
A Chinese foreign ministry<br />
spokesperson sang the same chorus after<br />
Trump's State of the Union address on<br />
January 30 because. In that speech, the<br />
American president said: "Around the<br />
world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist<br />
groups, and rivals like China and Russia<br />
that challenge our interests, our<br />
economy, and our values."<br />
Though very brief, such a reference to<br />
China in his 80-minute address<br />
infuriated Beijing. A Chinese academic<br />
told the party-run Global Times: "It is<br />
alarming and provocative for Trump to<br />
call China a US rival again and especially<br />
to lump China together with rogue<br />
regimes and terrorist groups."<br />
US President Donald Trump talks to<br />
China's President Xi Jinping during the<br />
G20 leaders summit in Hamburg,<br />
Germany July 7, 2017. Photo: Reuters /<br />
Philippe Wojazer US President Donald<br />
Trump talks to China's President Xi<br />
Jinping during the G20 leaders summit<br />
in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017.<br />
government schools. <strong>The</strong>re is an urgent<br />
need for not only improving the basic<br />
infrastructure but also achieving parity<br />
between primary to middle and high<br />
school ratios in the province. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
enhancements can only be mobilised by<br />
timely and effective utilisation of the<br />
education budget. More needs to be done<br />
to reform education in Sindh.<br />
Secondly, the teacher absenteeism<br />
problem which had been one of the core<br />
causes of failure for the education sector in<br />
Sindh, has been tackled to some extent<br />
through the Sindh School Monitoring<br />
System. According to the government's<br />
statistics, 210,000 education staff and<br />
more than 26,200 schools have been<br />
verified through this system, which<br />
depends on data collected by the field staff<br />
XUAN loC DoAN<br />
Photo: Reuters / Philippe Wojazer<br />
Indeed. Washington's China posture<br />
has radically shifted. <strong>The</strong> globe's most<br />
powerful authoritarian state is now seen<br />
as the top security threat facing America,<br />
representing a menace in everything<br />
from the military and economic spheres<br />
to the cultural and ideological. This<br />
change in Washington could potentially<br />
develop into a full-blown rivalry between<br />
the world's incumbent and rising<br />
superpowers. Should this happen, it<br />
in contrast, in the Trump government's National<br />
Security Strategy (NSS), National Defense Strategy<br />
(NDS) and Nuclear Posture review (NPr), all of<br />
which were published over the last two months,<br />
China is painted much more adversely. in the first<br />
two documents, the People's republic is put first<br />
among the top security threats facing the US. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
also include russia, two "rogue states" (namely<br />
North Korea and iran), and terrorist groups. in the<br />
last strategy, it is placed second, after russia.<br />
would cause huge and dire<br />
consequences, not only for the two<br />
biggest economic and military powers on<br />
earth, but also for the world at large. An<br />
antagonistic American-Chinese enmity<br />
in the 21st century might well be far<br />
graver than the Cold War between the<br />
US and the communist-ruled Soviet<br />
Union of the last century. Worse still, if<br />
escalated, it could lead to a devastating<br />
military conflict, possibly a third world<br />
war. Given such a danger, it's wise and<br />
vital that Beijing calls for cooperation, not<br />
confrontation, "through concrete<br />
actions," because, as it correctly<br />
Unfulfilled promise<br />
SAAD AMANUllAh KhAN<br />
being accurate and reported in real-time to<br />
the education and literacy department as<br />
well as the monitoring and evaluation<br />
directorate. This exercise, however, is<br />
currently being undertaken in only 15<br />
districts, and needs to be expanded to<br />
include all districts and schools.<br />
It is universally recognised that quality<br />
teachers are an integral part of ensuring<br />
Secondly, the teacher absenteeism problem which had been<br />
one of the core causes of failure for the education sector in<br />
Sindh, has been tackled to some extent through the Sindh<br />
School Monitoring System. According to the government's<br />
statistics, 210,000 education staff and more than 26,200<br />
schools have been verified through this system, which depends<br />
on data collected by the field staff being accurate and reported<br />
in real-time to the education and literacy department as well<br />
as the monitoring and evaluation directorate.<br />
act must have sent a strong signal to the<br />
Crown Prince that the country and the<br />
people were ready for change. "Arrival<br />
of young Crown Prince Mohammad Bin<br />
Salman in Saudi leadership has<br />
provided the impetus to tackle a<br />
growing menace and impediment to<br />
progress.""<br />
He interjected several revolutionary<br />
concepts to the society that had for the<br />
past three decades or so remained<br />
buried under layers of restrictions.<br />
People welcomed the moves as part of<br />
his vision to transform the kingdom.<br />
Mohammad supported a newlyformed<br />
entertainment authority that<br />
has taken to staging concerts and<br />
comedy shows for an entertainmentstarved<br />
Saudi audience that used to get<br />
its fill of culture and the arts by<br />
travelling to neighbouring Arab states.<br />
No more, Mohammad vowed. We shall<br />
quality education for the students.<br />
However, in Pakistan, teacher recruitment<br />
has always been laced with political<br />
influence and manipulation. To address<br />
this, the Sindh Education Department<br />
implemented a programme to ensure<br />
merit-based recruitment via the National<br />
Testing Service, through which more than<br />
1,000 head teachers have been recruited.<br />
Apparently, these teachers have passed<br />
be as progressive as the rest of them was<br />
the message. <strong>The</strong> bizarre obsession of<br />
extremists against the idea of free<br />
mingling of people from both genders<br />
was swiftly addressed when the<br />
government announced that men and<br />
women could attend together many of<br />
the entertainment fixtures that were<br />
being introduced. This was followed by<br />
an announcement that starting this<br />
year, female residents of the country<br />
could attend sporting events, such as a<br />
football match, along with males in key<br />
stadiums across the metropolitan cities.<br />
While it may have left many a cleric<br />
privately aghast and shell-shocked, it<br />
was yet another move widely<br />
appreciated by the public, the majority<br />
of whom are young.<br />
This was soon followed by an<br />
announcement that the kingdom would<br />
issue licences for cinema halls to<br />
maintains, that is "the only right choice"<br />
for China and the US to "ensure the<br />
sound and steady development of [their]<br />
relations" and to "maintain world<br />
stability and prosperity."<br />
But whilst it is noble to make such a<br />
call, it isn't enough. Moreover, Beijing is<br />
being quite disingenuous when it paints<br />
itself as cooperative, responsible and<br />
benign with regard to the US.<br />
Trump's NSS states: "China and Russia<br />
challenge American power, influence,<br />
and interests, attempting to erode<br />
American security and prosperity. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
are determined to make economies less<br />
free and less fair, to grow their militaries,<br />
and to control information and data to<br />
repress their societies and expand their<br />
influence."<br />
With some justification, many would<br />
agree with such a description of China.<br />
Take the Asian giant's trade policies for<br />
example. On many occasions, Trump<br />
has, implicitly or explicitly, called for<br />
Beijing to curb some of the unfair<br />
practices (e.g. steel overcapacity,<br />
intellectual property rights abuses and<br />
market access restrictions) that lead to<br />
America's chronic trade imbalance with<br />
China. While his concerns about the<br />
deficit and lack of fairness and reciprocity<br />
in US-China economic relations are<br />
legitimate, these haven't been addressed.<br />
America's deficit in goods with the<br />
world's biggest market increased from<br />
US$347 billion in 2016 to US$375 billion<br />
(the highest level) last year. Indeed, in a<br />
call with his Chinese counterpart, Xi<br />
Jinping, last month, Trump "expressed<br />
disappointment that the [US's] trade<br />
deficit with China has continued to grow"<br />
and "made clear that the situation is not<br />
sustainable."<br />
Source : Asia Times<br />
rigorous screening and testing and are<br />
competently serving in schools across<br />
Sindh. Although this is a positive step, the<br />
department has yet to figure out a<br />
mechanism to compensate these teachers,<br />
who have not been paid since the start of<br />
their tenure. <strong>The</strong> Sindh government also<br />
announced a private school census to be<br />
conducted in January <strong>2018</strong>. This should<br />
not only give a holistic picture of education<br />
in the province, but also provide the<br />
government a basis to make informed<br />
decisions for the future. It is seen as an<br />
opportunity for the government to obtain<br />
details of the teaching staff of private<br />
schools, including their salaries, perks and<br />
other privileges. <strong>The</strong>se details can facilitate<br />
the government in aligning the incentive<br />
system for government teachers with that<br />
in private institutions.<br />
Low-cost private schools which are not<br />
registered with the concerned authorities<br />
can also be regulated by the government<br />
using this census. However, to ensure its<br />
long-term impact, this census will have to<br />
be a sustained effort in the years to come.<br />
To enhance the tracking of key<br />
performance measures in Sindh, the<br />
creation of a school management<br />
committee, consisting of elected<br />
representatives of the local authority,<br />
parents/ guardians of children admitted in<br />
such schools, and teachers, should be<br />
mandatory.<br />
Source : Dawn<br />
Tide of change sweeps through Saudi Arabia<br />
TAriq A. Al MAeeNA<br />
Mohammad supported a newly-formed<br />
entertainment authority that has taken<br />
to staging concerts and comedy shows<br />
for an entertainment-starved Saudi<br />
audience that used to get its fill of culture<br />
and the arts by travelling to neighbouring<br />
Arab states. No more, Mohammad<br />
vowed. We shall be as progressive as the<br />
rest of them was the message.<br />
operate - a ban that had been in effect<br />
for decades and could be traced back to<br />
the rise of influence of clerics in the<br />
early 1980s, following a failed takeover<br />
attempt of the Holy Mosque in Makkah<br />
by a band of religious extremists.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first theatres are expected to be<br />
ready by later next month and the<br />
public, by and large, is eagerly looking<br />
forward to this pleasant diversion.<br />
Perhaps the biggest change<br />
introduced to Saudi society was the<br />
lifting of the ban on women driving.<br />
Come June, women will get behind the<br />
wheel. Clerics had been successful for<br />
decades in enforcing a ban on women<br />
motorists.<br />
This was by far the biggest of the<br />
barriers to fall, as Saudi Arabia had<br />
earlier carved a unique distinction of<br />
being the only country in the modern<br />
world not to grant their females citizens<br />
or residents the right to drive.<br />
With Vision 2030 in mind and a<br />
youthful population by his side,<br />
Mohammad is set to tackle all previous<br />
impediments to Saudi progress to bring<br />
the country at par with developing<br />
nations.<br />
He has begun by removing some of<br />
the previously installed taboos and<br />
there are expectations of more barriers<br />
to fall. With such a vision, many in<br />
Saudi Arabia are hopeful that finally,<br />
the country will take its rightful place on<br />
the global stage.<br />
Source : Gulf News