Progress and challenges

Nurture this desire to learn. Photo: A.m.ahad/ Driknews

PRIMARY education in Bangladesh is compulsory by law and, according to the constitution, the government is responsible for providing such education to all. Bangladesh is committed to achieving the second MDG by providing quality primary education. Both the government and the non-government agencies initiated programs to achieve this.
Distribution of free textbooks to all students and stipend (upabritti) for the poorer are two significant state initiatives. In addition, non-formal schools offer a second chance to the poor and disadvantaged. The latest Education Watch report captured the primary education development in Bangladesh during the past decade (1998-2008). This article provides some observations from the report.
Overall, improvement in physical facilities, teachers' education and training, and learning provisions for the primary education system was noticed during the past decade; however, the improvement was uneven. Madrasas and the non-government primary schools often lack basic minimum standards. Shortcomings were found in the teachers' subject-based training, management training of the heads and effective functioning of the school managing committees. Dependence on private tutoring has increased over time.
Net primary enrolment had increased at a rate of 1.4% during 1990-2005 (from 60% in 1990 to 87% in 2008) but became stagnant afterwards due to significant fall in some areas among children aged six years. Multiple causes were found behind dropping out of eligible children. Parental unwillingness, refusal of admission by schools, lack of interest in the children, poverty, disability, and distance between home and school are major reasons for dropping out. A huge wastage takes place in the system. Half of the enrolled children drop out before completing the full course. Such high dropout indicates lack of quality provisions, loss of secure resources and thus, inefficiency in the system.
Students' learning achievement improved, but far from expectations. Inequities in gender, school type and residence are some related issues linked to the quality of the system. Learning achievement depended more on background characteristics of the students and on private tutoring than on school-related factors.
Girls are ahead of boys in terms of enrolment, attendance, survival and completion, but are significantly behind in learning achievement. Female participation in the teaching profession increased significantly but their numbers are still low in leadership of the institutions and participation in school managing committees.
Madrasas are lagging behind in most quality indicators. Poor educational provisions in these institutions are partly to blame for this. These institutions use separate textbooks and a majority do not have basic minimum infrastructure and learning facilities. Lack of trained teachers is a serious problem in the madrasas. Women's participation in teaching, school leadership and SMC is the lowest in madrasas.
Non-formal primary schools have been contributing significantly to achieving EFA. As a supplementary to the mainstream education provision, it caters to 9.6% of the total primary enrolments. Although these schools do not have enough physical facilities, like mainstream schools, they are sometimes better endowed than other types in terms of educational software, such as teacher training, teaching-learning provisions, child-friendly environment, teacher attendance and parental participation, leading to better outcomes, such as student attendance, cycle completion and learning achievements.
To face the challenges, the government should lead in coordinating primary education in the country through decentralisation at the upazila level. A minimum standard of quality should be maintained among various types of primary schools. The state should provide necessary financial support to have basic minimum facilities in all schools.
Pre-primary education should be confined only to children below age six. To ensure admission of children of age six in class I, campaigns of various forms should be considered. Non-formal schools should be established on an urgent basis where there is no school. Collaboration between the government and agencies implementing non-formal programs through a task force could be considered as a public-private partnership (PPP) being promoted by the government.
We have reasons to be happy about the achievement of gender parity at the participation level, but there is no need to be complacent about it. More policy action is needed through affirmative actions to place more females as heads of educational institutions, including madrasas and school managing committees.
It is well understood that the "business as usual" approach will not work much. To come out of such an approach, strong political commitment for a major overhaul in the education sector is required. Vision 2021 or Digital Bangladesh or any other developmental goal cannot be achieved without proper development of our human resources. A regular education budget will not be able to do much.
A large portion of the provision of "block allocation" in the national budget 2009-10 can be utilised for education, in addition to its usual allocation. Massive changes in teacher education capable of impacting classroom culture and school discipline, subvention to the schools and madrasas to create a minimum standard for educational facilities to reduce inequities among the educational institutions and establishing a strong monitoring mechanism should be priority activities with this allocation.
Samir Ranjan Nath is a Research Coordinator at Brac and Principal Researcher, Education Watch. Email: [email protected]