Science and humanities

     A serious problem in Bangladesh is the gap between academe and mass media. Professors of humanities, with all their leftist/rightist fantasies, seem to have little firsthand knowledge of Bangladeshi life and no impact whatsoever on public policy. I think most of us feel that it is a responsibility of the humanities to try to help better the conduct of human beings in their lives and manifold professional activities. The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology. The notion that every well-educated person would have a mastery of at least the basic elements of the humanities, sciences, and social sciences is a far cry from the specialised education that most students today receive, particularly in the public universities.
     However, the important distinction between understanding a subject and scoring well in the examination needs to be inculcated among students . Students cannot , given limited time, both understand a subject and score well. Because science is a scoring subject, and medicine and engineering have become standard career options , many merely want to score high marks.Schools should focus on making students understand subjects until they reach a stage where they have to opt for a stream. The mania behind science-based career options should also be deflated. It is true that advances in technology will continue to reach far into every sector of our economy. Future job and economic growth in industry, defence, transportation, agriculture, health care, and life sciences is directly related to scientific advancement.
      Moreover, our government has to pay more attention with respect to funding of our higher education institutions. While the government 's move of paying more attention to science is welcome, the neglect of social sciences and liberal arts is worrisome. Only students who are not good enough for science or commerce streams take up the non-job-oriented social sciences. This attitude fails to embrace values that come along with a democratic polity-that require a flourishing regime of history, sociology, law, philosophy, political science, why, even a rationalist study of religions. Successive governments have completely ignored these areas, except when they wanted to write their own version of history now and then.