Recently the Primary Education Development Program (PEDP)-II has been taken with its stake of $100 million in credits from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The total cost of the project is estimated at US$ 1.815 billion for improvement of primary education. The project, which was initiated in the mid-'90s, completed its first phase in June this year. The second phase will continue until June 2009.

The government will provide US 1.161 billion or 64 % of the total cost of PEDP II from its own resources, while $ 250 million is coming from the ADB and the World Bank ($ 150 million through IDA) as loans. The rest $404 million is expected as grants from a consortium of development partners.

British Department for International Development is likely to provide $150 million as grants to the PEDP II while European Commission $100 million. The governments of the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Canada are contributing $50 million, $40 million, $29 million and $20 million respectively through their external development wings.

UNICEF and Australian Agency for International Cooperation are giving $12 million in partnership while $3 million is coming from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)-both as grants.

The project would increase enrolment of poor children by 3.2 million, bringing a total of 11.7 million poor children into primary education. Over 17 million pupils in 78,000 primary schools are expected to derive benefit from the in-service training of more than 320,000 teachers. The targeted schools will include both the fully government primary schools and the registered ones.

Some 30,000 classrooms will be built to accommodate increasing numbers of students, while Primary Teacher Training Institutes (PTIs) will be renovated to impart advanced training to the teachers. The government realizes that contact hours between pupils and teachers are below the international average, even the lowest in the region. Dropout rate is around 35 per cent.

I am putting forward some suggestions here for using the large sum of money of the Primary Education Development Program (PEDP) so that actual welfare can take place.

Primary Schools

Number of villages in Bangladesh is about 85,000 (not only 68,000 as ex-President Ershad announced and though the figure became a popular political stunt!). So if we count a school for every village, the number 78,000 is short of over 7,000. The published news of the closure of about 10,000 satellite and community schools, were pertaining education to classes 1-2 and perhaps not included in the total number 78,000. Even if this is the case the structures of those schools may be used and upgraded to full primary schools provided that there is no school in the village where that satellite school was located. It was declared that some 30,000 classrooms would be built to accommodate increasing numbers of students. Any way, the closure of about 10 thousands of satellite and community primary schools is a matter of discussion at both the intellectual and general people of the country. May be the project period is over, but something is to be done for these children and the teachers employed in these schools. Anyway every village can logically have a primary school and that should be done having share of money from the PEDP-II.

Primary Grades

Bangladeshi primary schools pertain education up to grade 5 in the primary schools. The 5th grade was introduced in the early fifties of the last century during Pakistan time before which the primary education was up to grade 4. The government of Bangladesh has been planning to elevate this level of education to 8 since 1974. But we could not do that in the last 30 years. Perhaps, the plan has been an over-ambitious one and one school pertaining education to 8/9 (including the usual pre-primary grade, the number of classes obviously becomes 9!) classes is virtually impossible. Directed by the Ministry of Education, the curriculum specialists of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) collected and compiled the primary and secondary curriculum of 14 countries including Bangladesh. I did most of the website searching job and being inspired from that practice, later on, I could collect education system of 181 countries in total from the Internet.

The data show that out of those 181 nations, 86 countries have the primary education up to grade 6, in 28 countries the primary education is up to grade 8, in 19 countries up to grade 5, in 16 countries up to grade 9, in 15 countries up to grade 7, in 11 countries up to 4 years and in only 3 countries each up to grade 10 and 3. The 6-year primary seems to be universal in Asia, Africa, the Americas and in Oceanic. Only in the cold European countries primary education up to grade 6 (yet having the highest number, the second category becoming 10 of up to grade 8) is in 13 nations.

The countries of the world that has primary education up to grade 6 are Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Hong-Kong, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Macao, Malaysia, North Korea, Oman, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand and UAE of Asia (in 24 out of 49 countries); Benin, Burkina-Faso, Burundi, Central Africa, Chad, Comoros Islands, Congo, Cote d'voire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Togo and Zaire of Africa (in 25 out of 48 nations); Bahamas, Barbados, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Trinidad and the USA (ranges from 4-7, 6 years predominant) of North America (in 14 out of 18 countries); Ecuador, Guyana, Netherlands Antilles, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay of South America (in 6 out of 13 nations); Australia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tonga of Oceania ( in 4 out of 8 nations); and Belgium (Flemish), Belgium (French), Cyprus, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, UK and Vatican City of Europe (in 13 out of 45 nations).

Our neighbouring India (since 1992) and Pakistan (1998) have has also plan of elevating the primary education up to grade 8 from the present 5, but they are failing to materialize it. Therefore, we can better follow the rather universal plan of primary education up to grade 6. This is a feasible plan and can be materialized in the present infrastructure only through appointing some more teachers.

Some Illustrated Problems

In some national dailies (both Bangla and English), some writers pointed to the inadequacy of drinking water and sanitation, less facility of library, the use of cane in the classroom, less sincerity of teachers, private tuition, taking some money in distributing free books and the stipend money etc. The first two are associated with the infrastructure that is the function of the government or the philanthropists who established the school and maintain those. The problems like caning, less sincerity lies with the teachers. Private tuition has roots both in the teachers' character and income, and also because of large student-teacher ratio. Taking some money from the stipend and some during distribution of books has the root in essentiality of paying something during the receipt of those by the teachers. Besides, the transportation cost should not be borne by the poor teachers! All should realize also the poor livelihood of the primary teachers that may be elaborated under the next point.

The Teachers

The educational qualification and moral quality (since the job should be missionary) are crucial for teachers. Measuring the second parameter is very difficult, but the first one can be done easily. At present the SSC passed women and HSC passed men are eligible to apply for the post of an assistant teacher in primary schools. The criterion is very discriminatory and education only up to SSC is not enough to teach well up to grades 6 (my proposal of elevating to). The female education in rural areas is now free up to HSC. So the qualification is to be equal for both ladies and gents and that should be HSC from the next recruitment.

For having better education for the children, the livelihood of the teachers should be fair, if cannot be made solvent. Now, the trained assistant teachers of primary school receive a monthly salary of TK 1875/- (16th national scale out of 20), while the untrained ones get only TK. 1750/- (17th national scale). The Headmaster receives only an advance increment over the assistants for the managerial job! The teachers' salary is nearer to the least (TK 1500/- of the peon). So how can they work sincerely?

I was in class 2 in 1968, and used to see my class teacher working in the rice field while going to school at 9:45-50 a.m. Why did this happen and perhaps still happens? This is just because they must do something else to maintain the family. The pulling students to private tuition is also a bi-product of this ill payment of teachers. The salary of primary teachers may be at best two grades below (i.e. 12th grade 2375/-) to that of the high school teachers (now at the 10th grade TK. 3400/-) or just one grade below (11th grade TK. 2550/-). Since most of the primary school teachers live in their own houses, the house rent need not be increased.

The number of teachers in a single primary school is now at least 4. The number should be increased by one for the present grade and if the primary education is elevated to grade 6, the number should be at least 7 including the Headmaster. For above changes, the percentage of cost for education may need to be enhanced from only 2.3% of GDP to more than 3% (the expected ratio in Pakistan from the present 2.2 in the Education Policy 1998-2010). In Malaysia, the cost of education is 25% of GNP!

School Hours

It is very good news that the government realized that contact hours between pupils and teachers are below the international average, even the lowest in the region. During my primary school days, I had only 2 hours at grades 1-2 and 4 hours at grades 3-5 in school. To have training on materials development, I was (along with other 3 colleagues) in Malaysia for 4 months in 2003. We observed that the duration at school there is about 5 hours, irrespective of the grades 1 to 6. Bangladesh can try at least to increase the ceiling by 1 hour each and then the teachers would require completing 8 (3+ 5 if in two shifts) hours in the school.

Teaching Learning Method

Conventionally our teaching learning method has been mostly teacher-centered. But both the psychologists and the modern educationists want the effective method to be student-centered. This is learning by doing-the most effective way. Obviously our teachers are not wishful followers of the traditional lecture method. Instead they also want their students to have some simple direction from them and do their own. Then what's the barrier to this better practice? The barrier is the number of students per teacher. As mentioned in the UNESCO document, the primary school student-teacher ratio in 1995 was 71.1 and that was lessened somewhat in 1999-2000 to 59. Isn't the number still very big for a teacher to guide, observe and assess the works of so many students? The ratio should further decrease to a level of about 40-the usual number per teacher in Cadet Colleges. If we can materialize this, the private tuition spree is bound to decrease, if not rooted out completely. This must be very much possible because the teaching learning in the school would then be effective enough and private couching would lose its necessity.

Methods of Assessment

Process of assessment is actually intertwined with the teaching learning method. If the teachers assess students' works throughout the year (formative assessment), the lengthy terminal and annual testing (summative ones) of their achievement would not have so importance. We know the summative tests eat away many of our school hours since during this practice there are no lessons in the schools. The newly introducing School Based Assessment (SBA) in the secondary level may also work for the primary stage.

Academic Supervision

In our primary school days, there were academic supervision by Inspectors of schools and sometimes also by the administrators like the Sub-divisional Officers (SDOs). But after independence, the auditors do audit the financial matters and number of the students etc. but I find the academic supervision being zero. This is a major cause of degrading the standard of education in the country. It is said that the Upazila Education Officers and the Assistant Officers do supervise the primary schools academically. But I doubt the efficacy of their practice since these officers are more busy with collecting and distributing stipend money, books etc. To have good academic supervision, some decidedly moral giants teaching in schools and colleges may be deputed to the posts of Inspectors of schools and colleges. The teachers deputed to the posts of Inspectors may have some incentives as the TA and DA during their visits from which amount some may be saved over the actual costs of such visiting. I am proposing 'deputation' instead of appointing full-fledged Inspectors, because no system in Bangladesh is leak-proof and those 'decidedly moral giants' may lose their moral quality for various reasons. If so happens, they would better be sent back to schools and colleges and new ones may be deputed.

Abdus Sattar Molla is Specialist, Materials Development Unit (MDU), NCTB, Dhaka.