Bangladesh has successfully maintained the top position in the list of most corrupt countries in the world for four successive years. Education is a part of this system, in which the public, private and private voluntary sectors play an equally unaccountable and non-transparent role based on unholy partnerships with each other. There are exceptions; but generally speaking, it is the poor end-users who pay the price. Inefficiency, including corruption and low quality education in the public sector is no more a secret. The privileged parents increasingly send their children to private schools. Some of these schools are acceptable, but they often indirectly coerce the parents to make donations toward expansion of the schools. This could be a good strategy to generate resources for the benefit of a larger number of students, but the conditions on ground are different. Such private sector school initiatives are purely business motivated, and they find education as a means to exploit the rich people. On the other hand, the poor people are reportedly exploited by many private voluntary organisations, which receive funds from (foreign) donor agencies as well as the government to operate (mostly) non-formal schools.

In the end, the issues and concerns boil down to "governance". The government may have a policy (or, policy guidelines), but it is not working simply because the tools and the supporting methods & techniques to improve quality, accountability and transparency in the delivery of basic education are largely non-existent. Under these conditions, higher budgetary allocations will only encourage further inefficiency and corruption. The situation cannot be changed overnight, but actions to improve the conditions are needed:

1. Provide guidelines, with (measurable) standards for the private sector to establish new schools; and also to continue the existing schools.

2. Provide specific guidelines for the schools to mobilise resources and establish international partnerships.

3. Establish a new generation of chartered teacher training institutes to produce qualified teachers.

4. Establish an indicative planning framework, clearly defining the objective(s) of basic education; standards, with parameters and monitoring and evaluation indicators; and methods & techniques to improve accountability and transparency.

5. Establish a functionally effective private-public partnership regime to improve "process management" in the delivery of basic education by the private sector.

I would request the actors in both public and private sectors to demonstrate their commitment by initiating concrete actions instead of words to help prepare new generation(s) with quality basic education to impact on poverty.