Primary education needs to be reformed

Tithe Farhana

PRIMARY education lays the foundation of higher education, which can propel and sustain economic and rural development and empower the population of a country. Education system of Bangladesh lays importance on primary education. Bangladesh has one of the largest primary education systems in the world considering 16.4 million primary school age children of 6 to 10 years. Primary education can empower the masses. The government thinks primary education can enlighten the common people and help develop democratic culture among them. A signatory to the convention of the rights of the children, Bangladesh seeks to achieve education for all and the Millennium Development Goals.
In 1950, the east Bengal government made primary education compulsory. But due to lack of financial support from the central government it could not achieve the objective. Moreover, the central government's policy of teaching Urdu as a compulsory language in schools created a serious controversy in East Bengal. The impact of the historic language movement of 1952 is too well known to recount. After the emergence of independent Bangladesh in 1971 primary education became a national responsibility. The Constitution of the Republic made it a fundamental right of the people.
The second five-year plan set the objective of Universal Primary Education enrolling 91 per cent of the primary school age children by 2000. With support from IDA, UNDP and UNESCO Bangladesh strengthened its universal primary education programme. A drastic change was brought in the 1990s by strengthening the institutional capacities for increased community participation and low cost solutions to create education opportunities. Bangladesh is committed to the goal of education for all by 2015 set by World Education Forum at its conference held in Dakar, Senegal in April 2000. The Dakar Declaration makes it an imperative to achieve Universal Primary Education (UPE), gender equality, improved literacy and education quality, and increasing life-skills and adopt early childhood education programmes by the year 2015.
Despite initiatives of different governments Bangladesh is yet to achieve the desired level of female education or improve the standard of primary education. According to a UNICEF report on quality primary education, Bangladesh has one of the largest primary education systems in the world with an estimated 16.4 million primary school students in the 6 to 10 age group. But of 365,925 primary school teachers, approximately 53 per cent of teachers and 23 per cent of the head teachers are women engaged by more than 82,218 primary schools. They include 10 types of schools, including madrasahs and government primary schools, registered non-government primary schools (RNGPS), experimental schools, community schools, non-registered non governmental primary schools, Kindergartens, NGO schools, primary sections of secondary schools, ebtedayee madrasahs, primary sections of dakhil, alim, fazil and kamil madrasahs.
Bangladesh's children in the 0-14-year age group is 45.52 million of whom 21.67 million one girls. Out of about 17.22 million primary school age children 8.58 million are girls. The drop estimated at 1.21 million is high. Due to high drop-out and low in-take female education is vulnerable. The NGOs depict a bleak picture of primary education. Key statistics of primary education is given below:

Total Boys Girls
Child population (aged 6 to 10) 16.4 million 7.9 million 8.5 million
Total enrolment Grade 1 – 5 16.0 million 7.9 million 8.1 million
Enrolment aged 6-10 year in Grade 1-5 14.9 million 7.5 million 7.4 million
Net enrolment rate in primary school 90.8% 87.9 % 94.0 %
Primary school children reaching Grade 5 55.0 % 53% 57%
Completion rate of the 5 year primary school cycle 50.7%
Stipend recipients 4.8 million
Average no. of years to complete primary school 8.6 8.7 8.5
Teacher : student ratio 1:49
Number of schools with at least 900 contact hours per year 10%

Source: Directorate of Primary Education, 2008 Annual Sector Performance Report (published in 2009) and UNICEF's report on primary education-2009




Despite programmes and projects taken by the government as well as NGOs over the past decade, Bangladesh's primary education provides a dismal picture. The primary education environment reflects a lack of cultural and social awareness. The situation calls for the reinforcement of rural education system and environment to cut down corruption and dropout. Poor quality of education and high dropout rate could be tackled, states UNICEF, by promoting equity to ensure access to education. It called for the decentralisation of education administration to address special needs and challenges that restrict primary education.
According to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey report of UNICEF for 2006 only about 50 per cent of the children living in urban slums attend school compared to the national average of 81 per cent. And about 24 per cent of the slum girls never enroll into either the formal or non-formal schools.
Again, for the enrolled, completion of primary education remains a critical issue. Only 55 per cent of the children eventually get into the secondary schools. Teaching system continues to hamper normal schooling.
The rural primary schools are mostly run by two or three teachers. According to TIB, around 73 per cent teachers in government primary schools and 70 per cent of the teachers in registered non-government primary schools do not have subject based training. The infrastructure of rural primary schools are far from satisfactory. Most schools do not have the required classrooms. Some of the schools take the classes under the open sky. Inadequate funding continues to effect education quality. Against an estimated 6580-10600 taka a primary school needs to provide proper and standard education, the government gives between Taka 3000 to 4200 per government primary school, Taka 360 to each community school and Taka 3000 to each non-government primary school.
A culture of corruption and irregularities pervades the system from top to bottom, with obvious result. Some officials in the primary education complain of inadequate pay, benefits promotions and rewards. Corruption remains a major concern. Teachers allege they have to bribe the upazila education office to get their pay. Primary school teachers had to pay to get their jobs in the first place.
Lack of equity and access remains major problems of primary education. The disadvantage of the marginal groups is a big problem. The tribal population also face the problem of access. The enrollment rate in primary schools in urban poor is not only very low, but often it is lower than in the rural areas.
The AL-led alliance government is keen to introduce a uniform curriculum to achieve a common education standard.
A reform committee has submitted its recommendations to the government in this regard.
UNICEF's cartoon character Meena, Raju and Mittu have made a significant impact by motivating families send their daughters to school. Standard and quality primary education can empower the people fight poverty.
The writer can be reached at: E-mail : tanes_of_mono@yahoo.com
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