Md. Mizanur Rahman of Natore, a rickshaw puller, handing over to its owner the mobile set he found on the street. Photo: Zamil Ahmed

A hobu-diplomat has been caught (The Daily Star April 8; Shoplifting in The Hague: Bangladeshi diplomat to face music) far away in the Netherlands, having criminally pocketed a mobile handset. I thought the land was famous for training hydrology and land reclamation from the seas. If at all, he should have 'stolen' the Dutch technology to add acreage to the teeming population of a country that gave him enough book knowledge (A for apple, B for banana…) to go through an apparently rigorous selection process. Obviously that net has not been discovered by our public services examination committee to exclude the thief before the theft.

Almost contemporaneously back at home, last Sunday to be precise, a rickshaw-puller, I dare not call him 'poor' for he is the richest among the rich, returned an iPhone 5S (worth Tk. 45K) to its rightful owner. The gentleman, the rickshaw-puller, not the disgraced trainee diplomat, called up the owner Saturday evening saying he found the set near Bashundhara City. The next morning, Md. Mizanur Rahman of Natore came to the house of the phone owner and was photographed happily handing over the set; thereby fulfilling his obligation. Salute, Mizan Bhai. You are the 'freedom-fighter' we need in our fight against corruption. We need many more.

Three alarm bells rang in The Daily Star story: One, the apprehended Bangladeshi said that he was not the first 'thief'. Two, his denial, as is the customary response based on defence counsel. Three, some 'strong lobby' is trying to help him keep his job. Why? So that in thirty years he can become our foreign secretary?

Assistant Secretary on probation, Mahbub Shahid Shisir (his real name), told the Dutch police, as mentioned in the Dutch government letter, that "he followed several of his colleagues who committed similar offences and were successful in stealing items from different shops in The Hague." Who are his colleagues? Are they Dutch? Are they continuing in the Foreign Service?

Contrary to his admission to the Dutch police, Shisir, when contacted by the newspaper, "denied his involvement in any act of stealing. He told The Daily Star that no such incident of stealing of mobile set had taken place at all", and that "he has successfully completed all trainings and examinations during his three years' service in the foreign ministry but some people are trying to frame false allegations against him". So, the Dutch ambassador should be summoned, and the Foreign Office should lodge a strongly-worded protest against the false defamatory allegation of the Dutch police.

Also in the same news item, a senior official at the foreign ministry, wishing anonymity, claimed "there is strong lobbying against any punitive measure against him…" Well, the rules as well as the strength of the interest group shall spell out the departmental action against him, but what holds for him in the future depends on how the young man handles the issue of morality. Yes, in the past, people have got away with worse, but they have also been permanent companions of insomnia, although most of them admit not in public.

The sooner the humiliated officer reflects on his singular misdemeanour the better. He should seek psychiatric help, if necessary. He needs the support of his family and friends. He should relieve MoFA the burden of a decision, and himself walk away towards a new beginning to try and wipe away the acquired stigma by some great achievement in future; it is possible.

Education and training, unless it reaches the deepest crevices of one's conscience, is not valuable, hardly useful and never effective. A degree-based education system can at best qualify one for a job. That's how the system works, or does it? But those privileged to receive formal education have no cause to look down upon the deprived. The disadvantaged may end up driving rickshaws, or slaving in a garment factory, or wiping sweat at a construction site, or sweeping the city roads at dawn, or toiling in the rice fields, or labouring as domestic help, but many of them have the dignity of an 'ambassador'.

The forthcoming city corporation elections is a case in point. Going by the revelation (DS April 8) in Chittagong alone, "fifty-nine councillor aspirants are literate and self-educated", meaning they do not have any formal education. About fifty of them have SSC and almost as many HSC degrees. Although there are a handful with bachelors and PGs, the port city is having the possibility of voting half-educated people to the city corporation, which is acceptable, as long as the elected reps carry out their responsibilities with integrity, sincerity, devotion and patriotism.

What is the point of an 'education' which does not teach us to distinguish between a tulip flower and a mobile handset? What is the use of that education which inspires fraudulent university teachers to lie in their professorial application, and stops their biased (read debauched) superiors from taking appropriate action? Where did education fail that the virtuous line distinguishing the 'learned' and the 'corrupt' has vanished?

We need to catch ethics early. Preparing for BCS or for that matter any job interview should begin at infancy, not after graduation with the purchase of Notes from Nilkhet. Moral teaching should be imparted at all levels of education, including college and university.

Degrees are positive attributes, but only if paired with integrity; for alone they are no more than empty vessels.

The author is a practising Architect at BashaBari Ltd., a Commonwealth Scholar and Fellow, a Baden-Powell Fellow Scout Leader, and a Multiple Paul Harris Fellow.