Our lives are full of welcomes and farewells and for so many reasons. As a faculty at the BRAC University, I teach several different topics ranging from History of Bangladesh at the graduate level to Development Communication at the master's level. So, my students are parked in different branches of life and different forests even. They take many journeys in life and to many destinations.

Like all teachers we are close to our students, some perhaps more than others and often the contact remains even after they have passed out. Some of them stay in Bangladesh and enter careers while others opt to go abroad, some to study, some to work but the trend to fly is increasing.

While for some it's a new and adventurous life, others face challenges in an unknown perhaps strange world. However, they all wear a smile as if acknowledging the fact and letting it be known that they are ready for the fight. It's their bright badge of courage.

She

She was my student in the MDS (Masters in Development Studies) course run by the BIGD (BRAC Institute in Governance and Development) a component unit of BRAC University. It's also closely linked to the mother outfit BRAC where its journey began. Thus, it brings research and teaching together making it one of the premier outfits of its kind in the Bangladeshi academic world.

After passing out she kept in touch and soon informed me that she was joining BRAC and its Migration Unit which I was closely linked with when I myself was working for BRAC. I was very happy. She had always been a sincere and devoted soul and that was obvious when she began working and soon built a positive reputation. I would sometimes drop in for a chat and she would join her colleagues in that. Between the entire lots we had so many shared years.

One day as I walked home, she stopped the bike she was riding on the back and introduced me to the driver, her husband. I have always known that teaching kids is sometimes just an opportunity to love them more and it grows with the years as do their families. Husbands, kids, relatives, friends... hello, hello, hello...

And her farewell

Just a couple of months back, as I left the BRAC office after seeing some old colleagues, she rushed over to me and said excitedly. "Sir, Sir, I am leaving at the end of next year. I have got my working visa. My husband is already there, studying and I shall be working and looking after the child. Her face was flushed with excitement and joy.' When are you coming next? We must meet before I leave. "That final meet was last week.

She will be joining her husband but will also continue to work online, which is becoming a common practice nowadays with international work rising. Once she is settled, she will look for more work and maybe one day have an office of her own. We chatted briefly in her office amidst her colleagues and we took one last picture, teacher and student, father and daughter, just two people working for a common cause. Then she bent down and touched my feet as many do and I took her in my arms in a final act of farewell. Soon she will be far away in another land, making a future for her and her family and us as well.

What do departures mean today?

This student of mine is a bit different from most of my departing students. She finished her masters, got an excellent job with a career path, a family and faced no personal or social crisis. Her move abroad is an obvious career choice with the family coming along with it. Her status as a job holder is confirmed and she will decide to make new moves in comfort without pressure. It's not a choice born out of desperation but contemplation. That is usually not the case because most want to leave because they feel they not only have a proper career path but no career to be honest. In other words, going abroad is not one of thoughtful planning but desperation.

The proportion between graduates and formal sector jobs is absurdly low and is the biggest incentive for wanting to leave. The Government births Universities regularly and private Universities generate them at three times the rate. Bangladesh is deluged with graduates and very few are employed. Higher education has become a factory for unemployment. While the government hires only public University graduates, they are a small proportion to the total number of job seekers. And the private University sector simply has very few careers to offer.

Governments have simply failed to generate employment. Most of the migrant workers are school not University graduates and do menial work. Higher education has become a burden to the graduates who they thought was a sure ticket to a job. And the limited capacity to generate jobs means that going abroad is not a way to a better life, it's to avoid an early death due to despair.

Goodbye, dear girl, best wishes to you, your family and your splendid future.