‘We had it harder’ is not always a flex

As thousands of Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) candidates across Bangladesh struggled to sit for their examinations during one of the country's worst weeks of flooding last month, a familiar debate unfolded online.

While students questioned the government's decision not to reschedule the examinations despite severe disruption in several districts, many former English medium students responded with a different argument: "We also sat our O and A Level examinations during hartals. Some of us even took exams at midnight or 2 am."

At first glance, the comparison appears to suggest resilience. Look a little closer, however, and it begins to fall apart.

The issue is not whether one group of students suffered more than another. The issue is whether the two situations are comparable in the first place. They are not.

The phrase “we had it harder” has become a convenient way to dismiss legitimate concerns instead of engaging with them. But suffering is not evidence that future generations should continue to suffer. If anything, previous hardships should encourage institutions to make better decisions when similar crises arise.

The two examination systems operate under different authorities, different constraints and different decision-making processes. Treating them as though they are interchangeable oversimplifies an issue that deserves far greater nuance.

Bangladesh's HSC examinations are national public examinations conducted under the country's own education system. Their schedules, postponements and administrative decisions are determined by the Bangladeshi education authorities.

If students believe those decisions failed to account for extraordinary circumstances such as widespread flooding, they are entirely justified in questioning them. That is precisely how public institutions are meant to function: they make decisions, and those decisions remain open to public scrutiny.

O and A Level examinations, however, operate very differently. International boards such as Cambridge International Education and Pearson Edexcel are headquartered in the UK, and their examination calendars are designed around a global cohort of students spanning dozens of countries.

Whether examinations proceed in Bangladesh during periods of political unrest or national disruption is not a decision made by the Bangladeshi government. That distinction matters.

Criticising the Bangladeshi government for refusing to postpone HSC examinations is fundamentally different from criticising an international examination board over which local authorities exercise little or no control.

One concerns a decision made domestically. The other concerns a fixed international examination system. Conflating the two creates a false equivalence that ultimately distracts from the real discussion. More importantly, it turns hardship into a competition.

Every generation of students has its own stories of disrupted education. Some sat examinations during hartals. Others navigated a global pandemic. This year's HSC candidates faced devastating floods that left many travelling through submerged roads, damaged infrastructure and uncertain conditions simply to reach their examination centres.

None of those experiences invalidate the others. Yet public discourse increasingly rewards a different instinct: if one generation suffered, the next should simply endure the same, if not worse.

The purpose of questioning administrative decisions is not to determine which generation deserves greater sympathy. It is to ask whether avoidable difficulties could have been minimised.

The students who criticised the decision not to reschedule the HSC examinations are not asking for special treatment. They are asking whether exceptional circumstances warranted a different administrative response. That is a reasonable question.

Responding by pointing instead to the experiences of English medium students under entirely different circumstances does little to answer it.

Ultimately, the debate should not be about who endured more. It should be about who held the responsibility to act and whether that responsibility was exercised appropriately.

Every cohort of students deserves empathy rather than comparison, and every government decision deserves accountability rather than deflection.

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