The Culture of 'Please Consider' and Its Impact on Student Growth 

Published on: June 30, 2026 

In Freudian Concept of behavior formation amongst children, the Super Ego phase is perhaps the most crucial in developing a child’s personality as it builds internalized moral conscience. This moral conscience is shaped by exogenous factors like family, school and society. This phase drives children towards moral perfection and suppresses unacceptable primal urges. Our behavior and perception that are formed during our adolescent and young adult phase are reflections of the inner conscience that are formed in the Super Ego phase. The reason behind incorporating Freudian concept stems from the fact that the perception of outcome from education in primary, secondary and higher levels in current times could be linked back to the culture that were being exposed by students during their primitive developmental stage.

In 2026, Bangladesh experiences an inverse relationship between educational passing rates and employment outcomes. The overall national unemployment rate is around 3.7% to 4.7%, yet the graduate unemployment rate sits much higher at 13.5%. Despite high academic passing and graduation rates, educated youths face the highest joblessness. This phenomenon has been attributed by many due to lack of employable skills and lack of conceptual understanding. However, another key aspect that I want to highlight and which ahs been prevalent across all levels of educations is the culture of grace marks. This concept of passing a student by considering few marks so that a student may not fail may from the onset look a harmless gesture on the part of academicians, however, this kind gesture has gone so out of proportion that many public examinations and sadly university exams and assessment has deemed this practice as a commonality.

This commonality has led to many students thinking that they will pass their evaluation by putting minimum effort to grasp the concept and perform well in exams. This completely damages the conceptual knowledge and subject matter knowledge of a student, which in turn reflects on their interviews, external assessments and job placements. Now the basic and simple question that may arise is: who is responsible for creating this culture and what are the factors that contributes towards this culture?

My assessment of Freudian Super Ego phase exactly tries to unearth the catalyst behind formation of this culture and that is the upbringing of moral consciences, we need to understand the players affecting a child’s moral consciences. Family is a big factor in building how a child grows his/her personality, whatever the child observes, whatever the child hears he/she will replicate those in their young adult phases, sadly our young generation is not attuned to disrupt their inner perception because the willingness to learn and read and explore is so low that the inner perception that is molded in their psyche cannot be recalibrated or reshaped.

Now imagine this: from the very early stage a child is exposed to the notion of asking for consideration specially in education, when the child goes to school they are not given task that are beyond their intellect, that hampers their ability to think independently as a result students make do with the minimums, minimum effort to just pass the exam. This attitudinal problem is further exasperated by the external factors in social institute, in this case schools and colleges.

How? The answer lies with the instructors, as like their pupils, the instructors also make do with the minimums, teachers nowadays teach only to deliver their basic duties, deliver lecture, assess scripts repeat. Many schools and colleges we see teachers who do not correlate theories with practical and experimental practices. This attributes to the culture of memorization amongst students. This memorization when fails to convert the theories into a meaningful and comprehendible answer in the exam then the next phase of the act takes place- Sir, please consider..?

Now this particular act of ingratiation and submission leads to many teachers at least inflate 5% to 10% of the overall marks by more than leniently checking answer scripts and adjusting performance scores. This ‘so called’ humane act actually has now become a commonality, as a result student even after performing sub optimally in their exams are somehow confident that they shall pass. This perception also gives space on the thought that minimum studying and important topics are the only content that should be memorized, not even studied.

Aided by the fact that post COVID -19 public examinations are conducted through short syllabus, students get a leeway to minimums. Sadly, these students when graduated to university expect the same from their faculty members and more ironically the faculty members succumb to their requests thus the very core of higher education purpose is distorted, this phenomenon is mainly seen in private universities of Bangladesh, so the generalization is being done for the private universities.

This detrimental culture is thought to be perceived to be a practice and acceptance of the teachers and many point their finger at them. But, we must consider this ‘please consider..’ culture as failure of inner moral conscience which is formed at a very early age through observing and embedding the attitude, characteristics and personalities of a very important institution, which is-the family.

Why family? Because, a child in its Super Ego phases replicate, accept and acclimatize to the surroundings, behavior and personalities of the household. As a result, a child’s personality trait is built through his/her upbringing. There is a positive co-relation of a grown up’s personality trait as indicator of family’s personality, treatment, behavior and attitude which was embedded at earlier stage.

Thus, this culture of minimums and ‘please consider..’ needs to be looked at from much earlier stages od development rather than only putting the teacher’s at the spotlight. Yes, teacher’s do play a massive role in reshaping, and reordering a child’s personality but that has to be done in primary levels of teaching-hence, personal and behavioral development curriculum is a MUST in early school level teaching.

In addition, the core objectives of external stakeholders in government and educational institute, has become commercialized and revenue oriented where quantity trumps quality and where hard skills trump soft skills where outcome-based teaching trumps introspective and character building teaching.

To be honest there is also a policy level issue which is guaranteeing job security for primary teachers, this prompts lethargic attitude amongst many aged teachers in primary school whose antiquated idea and lack of acclimatization to contemporary character building and teaching essentials eventually reflects on the students-a recent survey has shown that many students studying at secondary levels (class 6 and upwards) in government primary schools in rural and semi urban geographies actually do not possess the basic math, English, communication skills of a primary level student. The question is- how did they even pass the primary stage?

The answer lies in minimums and ‘please consider..?, and all the actors involved in the earliest phases of development are responsible for this disease to spread in higher level education.

It is high time for Bangladesh to invest in family orientation programs specially in rural parts of the country focusing on building the right inner conscience in terms of education. The government must also, ensure an overhaul in teachers recruitment at primary school levels-antiquated teachers create antiquated students.