Overcrowded classrooms
Teacher-student ratio is a key quality indicator of education system. In crowded classrooms, it becomes difficult to take lessons while the teacher gets less time to spend on each student. It also affects the overall education environment putting extra pressure on the school infrastructure and facilities such as common room, toilet, and playground.
Unfortunately, Bangladesh has been sliding down the achievement scale of the international standard of 1:30 at the secondary level. The recently released draft of Bangladesh Education Statistics-2016 reveals that there was one teacher for 41 students last year compared to one for 30 students in 2011. The situation is worst in the state-run secondary schools with one teacher for 103 students.
Despite encouraging progress in enrolment at secondary level, teacher shortage remains a major concern. It has turned acute due to slow teacher recruitment process and disproportionate distribution of teachers in rural areas. There is also a huge gap in the numbers of teaching staff for compulsory subjects such as English, maths and science. The education authorities should revamp the present structure of recruitment and training of teachers to employ enough new teachers. They should also set up more secondary schools to accommodate the increasing number of students.
To support these moves the government should increase budgetary allocation in education sector, particularly at the secondary level. Over the last seven years, the education budget allocation has remained stuck at around 2 per cent of GDP which is one of the lowest in the world. We urge the government to address this gap in the upcoming budget.
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