New textbooks to begin the New Year

There can be no better way for schoolchildren to start a year than getting their textbooks delivered to them as soon as the year starts. It's a moment of joy and celebration for them, and of relief for their parents. The nationwide free textbook distribution scheme, which was officially inaugurated on December 1, will provide 35.21 crore copies of textbooks to 4.26 crore students, from pre-primary grades to the 10th grade, over the next few weeks. The scheme has provided books to students for the last nine years, and has proved to be immensely beneficial. While we celebrate the continuation of this initiative, we hope that this momentum will be used for a sombre reflection on the quality of school education in Bangladesh.

Over the past decade, Bangladesh has invested heavily in school education which greatly increased enrolment. But it could not bring its success in numbers up to par with the quality of education noticed in some other developing countries. While our school enrolment is still high, the dropout rate is even higher, according to a report by the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS). The alarming dropout rate is in part linked to the undue pressure exerted on children through unnecessary initiatives like the Primary Education Completion (PEC) and Junior School Certificate (JSC) exams. These exams, experts say, subvert the learning process and should therefore be discontinued. There is no doubt that the school system needs reforms, not just in its testing mechanisms, but also in the curricula and teaching conventions which should be updated and modernised in light of the needs of the time.