Secondary Schools: Number of students drops for third year in a row

The number of secondary school students has decreased by over 7.23 lakh last year, shows a draft government report.

It also shows the number of students at technical institutions rose by around 36,000, while students in madrasa's went up by around 4,000.

Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS) unveiled the draft report on education at its office in Nilkhet yesterday.

According to officials, this is the third straight year that the number of secondary school students saw a drop. In 2021, there were 86,528 fewer students than the year before.

The number of students dropped by 40,571 in 2022 and by 7,23,488 in 2023, they added.

"The Covid-19 pandemic was one of the main reasons behind the fall in the number of students," said Sheikh Mohammed Alamgir, chief of the statistics division of BANBEIS, while presenting the report at the programme.

A top official of the education ministry at the programme said many of these students left educational institutions permanently.

"Many parents married their daughters off during the pandemic. Some of them [students] needed to join the workforce," he told The Daily Star.

Due to the pandemic, educational institutions were closed on March 17, 2020, and partially reopened on September 12, 2021. The 543-day school closure in Bangladesh was one of the longest in the world.

Suleman Khan, secretary of the Secondary and Higher Education Division, at the programme said the report is prepared based on self-reporting by the heads of educational institutions.

"The report was not aimed at finding the reasons for the increase or decrease of students. We will need another study to find the reasons."

BANBEIS statistics chief Alamgir, in his keynote presentation, said there were 2,03,83,060 students and 6,40,639 teachers at the 39,788 post primary educational institutions.

Fifty-one percent of the students and 28 percent of the teachers were female.

The report shows that there were 28,013 students and 5,873 teachers at 123 English medium secondary schools.

DROPOUT RATES

The dropout rate at the secondary level in 2023 was 32.85 percent -- 3.13 percent lower than the previous year.

The rate of girls dropping out was 34.87 percent, which was 40.78 in 2022.

Meanwhile, the dropout rate for the higher secondary level was 21.51 percent for all and 22.45 for girls.

There were 33 students per teacher in 2023 at the secondary schools. About 72 percent of teachers were trained. 

The BANBIES report shows there were 27,58,504 students and 1,18,280 teachers at 9,259 madrasas in 2023. Around 53 percent of all students and 20 percent of teachers are female.