Dhaka Thursday February 25, 2010

Education for All
Beyond business as usual

Rasheda K. Choudhury
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Star File Photo

Primary education in Bangladesh is compulsory by law. The government is responsible to provide such education to all. Again, Bangladesh is committed to its people and the international community to provide quality primary education equally to all children so that they can complete the full cycle of primary education by 2015. A number of initiatives have been taken over the years by both the government and the non-government agencies for achieving the objectives. Introduction of competency based curriculum, provision of free textbook for all students of primary and secondary levels and stipend (upabritti) for the poorer students, recruitment of new teachers and providing them training, improvement of physical facilities under PEDP-II are the major initiatives taken by the government. In addition, setting up of non-formal schools, mostly by NGOs, have been offering a second chance to the poor and the disadvantaged.

The country is proud of its high enrolment rate with gender parity but the literacy situation and overall quality of education are far below the expectations. A few years back, UNESCO warned, through an annual 'EFA Global Monitoring Report', that Bangladesh would not be able to reach its EFA/MDG goals for 2015 with a “business as usual” approach. How much of this have been taken into cognisance is a pressing question.

A recent study carried out by Education Watch (2008) has found out that in terms of physical facilities, teachers' education and training and learning provisions, the primary education system in Bangladesh improved as a whole during the past decade. However, the improvement was uneven. Educational institutions still vary depending on their management responsibility and location. Madrasas and the non-government primary schools lack basic minimum standard of enabling condition. There are lots of gaps in the teachers' subject based training, management training of the heads of the institutions and effective functioning of the school managing committees. Dependency on private supplementary tutoring has increased over time that indicates an ever increasing “quality divide” in our education system.

Education Watch 2008 has also found out that the share of the government schools has been systematically decreasing over time. This is definitely a trend that encourages more and more private providers but if proper regulatory mechanisms and effective monitoring instruments are not in place then such a growth, particularly mushrooming of commercially run institutions might create more inequality among different sections of the society.

Almost half of the enrolled children in Bangladesh drop out before completing class V which again indicates serious quality problems, major loss of resources and thus highly inefficient system.

Students' achievement of the nationally set competencies by the National Curriculum and Text Board (NCTB) has increased over the years; however, it does not meet the level of expectation. Students' learning achievement depended much on their background characteristics and private supplementary tutoring than the school related factors.

It's interesting to know from both government and non-government sources that girls are ahead of the boys in terms of enrolment, attendance, survival up to class V and completion of the full cycle of primary education. However, irrespective of school type, they lag behind the boys in competencies achievement. Number of women in teaching profession has increased significantly but their participation in the headship of institutions and school managing committees is still far from satisfactory.

Lower educational provision in the madrasas has been lagging them behind in most of the quality indicators. These institutions do not only use separate textbooks, majority do not have basic minimum infrastructure for education and learning facilities. Lack of trained teachers is a serious problem in the madrasas. Women's participation in teaching, headship and SMC is found to be the lowest in the madrasas.

Owing to continuous effort in school enrolment, level of education and literacy status of the population increased over time. Increase of population ever schooled and completed primary education with a rate of 1.4 percentage points per year was modest but very little could be done in secondary education completion rate.

Although gone up, literacy rate could not cross 50 percent. Spread of literacy in 78.5 percent of the households having at least one literate person (Education Watch 2008) in the household is definitely a sign of progress but not enough to meet the challenges of the 21st Century.

For the public education system to receive enough funding, the government must dedicate a consistent and significant portion of its budget to the sector. The current proportion could be increased, as other developing countries which have put education at the top of the policy agenda have done. But more generally, in order to invest in education and ensure sustainable, long-term funding, Bangladesh must work on improving domestic revenue collection and particularly raise its tax-to-GDP ratio. But, unfortunately, Bangladesh is still a long way to go in generating enough revenue which has a direct, negative impact on how much can be spent on education and other social sectors.

The ratio of tax to GDP, which was around 8.5 percent in 2008, is 4 percent lower than the average for other countries in the region at similar level of development. Of late, there has been some improvement in revenue collection. For example, during 2008 an improved system to raise income tax meant that the government had 27 percent more revenues to draw from.

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 change in teacher education capable of impacting in classroom culture and school discipline, subvention to the schools and madrasas to create minimum standard of educational facilities towards reducing inequity among the educational institutions and establishing a strong monitoring mechanism should be the priority activities with this allocation.

The donors interested in education in Bangladesh have demonstrated a consistent pattern of funding but not enough to meet the ever increasing demands. In 2007, aid to basic education per primary school-age child was 7 US$, against an average of 4$ in South and West Asia. This is much lower, however, than other developing regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa which received around 14 US$ per child in 2007.

In order to come out of the 'business as usual' approach, which must be dealt with appropriate strategies by all stakeholders, who must come together with strong political commitment for a major overhaul in the education sector. 'Vision 2021' or the 'Digital Bangladesh' or any other developmental goals would be difficult to achieve without proper development of our human resources. Can we afford to wait any longer to make it happen?

The author is Member Secretary, Education Watch.

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