Teacher-student ratio worsening over last 6 years
Bangladesh is far from achieving the international standard of teacher-student ratio in secondary schools with the ratio worsening since 2011, according to a draft government report.
There was one teacher for 42 students last year compared to one for 30 students in 2011, the report said.
The global standard of teacher-student ratio at secondary level is 1:30.
The National Education Policy-2010 targets achieving the ratio by 2018.
Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (Banbeis) prepared the draft report titled “Bangladesh Education Statistics-2016” and organised a workshop yesterday at its office to share the findings with different stakeholders.
The report showed that teacher-student ratio was 1:41 in 2015, 1:39 in 2014, 1:37 in 2013 and 1:36 in 2012.
The situation is worst in state-run schools with one teacher for 103 students, it added.
Education ministry officials said the teacher-student ratio was an indicator of education quality. In crowded classrooms, it becomes difficult for students to take lessons while teachers get less time to spend on each student.
The number of students in the schools has been increasing every year and the authorities are struggling to provide them with the required number of teachers, they added.
DROPOUT
A significant number of girls, more than boys, dropped out of the secondary-level education last year though their enrolment figure was quite encouraging, the report said.
Some 42.19 percent of the girls, who took admission in grade 6, didn't complete their secondary education while 33.88 percent of the boys left school. Girls' enrolment in the secondary-level education was 73.10 percent last year while that of boys was 63.85 percent.
The report also pointed out some positive trends such as a gradual decrease in dropout rate over the years from 61.38 percent in 2008. The dropout rate came down to 38.30 percent last year from 40.29 percent in the previous year.
"Dropout is a waste [of resources]. Through different initiatives by the government, we have been able to reduce this waste successfully over the years," Shamsul Alam, chief of the Statistics Division of Banbeis, said while presenting the report.
Grade 10 students accounted for one third of those who dropped out. Almost an equal number of girls dropped out of school in grade 8.
"Marriage and social security are among the main reasons behind girls dropping out of school,” Shamsul said, adding that a 2010 study found that most of the girls discontinue education from class 8.
The report also mentioned that the dropout rate at the primary level was 19.2 percent while the rate at the higher secondary level (class-XI and XII) was 20.08 percent last year.
To prepare the report, information was collected from 40,839 educational institutions across the country between September 20 and October 20 last year.
The total number of students from primary schools to universities in Bangladesh stood at 3.69 crore as of 2016 while the number of institutions was 1,67,454, the report said.
Another positive thing was that girls comprised 51.9 percent of the students at the secondary level in Bangladesh, the highest among E-9 nations that have over half of the global population as well as half of out-of-school children. The E-9 forum was formed to achieve the Unesco goal of education for all.
The other E-9 nations are Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.
The report also showed that more than 11,000 educational institutions in Bangladesh are vulnerable to disasters like flood, cyclone, landslide, river erosion and salinity.
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