The Crisis in Education

In the last two decades, Bangladesh has made significant progress in the education of its children, according to Education for Alli and Millennium Development Goalsii. Net enrollment in primary school, for example, is up from 60 percent in 1990 to above 90 percent in 2008.iii Although improved enrolment rates are indeed an important achievement, very high dropout, both at the primary and secondary levels, makes high gross and net enrollment rates virtually meaningless as indicators of access and participation [emphasis added].iv Fewer than 50 percent of the students who do enter school in Class 1 remain in the system long enough to complete Class 5. Those who are able to complete the five-year primary school cycle, take an average of 8.6 years to do so. An Education Watch report (2008) found that students who made it to the end of Class 5 achieved less than two-thirds of fundamental competencies in literacy and numeracy.v Dropout and Repetition Reported dropout rates hover between 10-15 percent each year between Class 1-4. They spike dramatically to over 25 percent during Class 5, before steadily declining during secondary school. There is a relatively high (83 percent) rate of students who complete Class 5 transitioning to Class 6. Dropout data may be unreliable due to poor practices of data collection, including the inability to accurately capture children of migrant laborers who frequently leave one school but subsequently enroll in another.

Socioeconomic Factors
Socioeconomic disparities between the rich and the poor in Bangladesh are vast; the top 5 percent of the population controls more than 25 percent of the countrys wealth, while the lowest 20 percent of the population controls only about 9 percent of the countrys wealth.vi Children from ultra-poor and marginalized communities are particularly vulnerable to education disparity. Poverty is one of the reasons most commonly cited by families for dropout or nonenrollment of their children.vii This generally manifests itself in one or both of two ways: the family is unable to bear the actual costs of education such as school and tuition fees, or the family finds the opportunity cost of children attending school to be too high. Many children in poor families have responsibilities outside of school ranging from cooking and childcare to earning wages to support their families. Time spent towards school cannot be spent on these other responsibilities. In this context, formal education is sometimes viewed as a lower priority that can be sacrificed for the sake of the others.

School-Level Factors
The number and quality of schools and teachers are impacted by a general lack of resources and infrastructure in the country as well as the particularly low allocation of government funds towards education and how they are spent. The government of Bangladesh spends less than 1 percent of GDP on primary school education, and only 2.2 percent of GDP on education in total.viii ix This is one of the lowest expenditures on education in the world. There is a severe shortage in the supply of schools and teachers compared to the number of low-income school-aged children, particularly in rural and remote areas. Even in the capital city of Dhaka, however, around 300 government primary schools serve around 800,000 primaryaged children.x In order to accommodate large numbers of students with limited resources, UNICEF reports that 90 percent of schools run double shift, meaning that student in Grade 1 & 2 attend in the morning (2 hours) and Grade 3 to 5 in the afternoon (3.5 hours). xi As a result, primary students in Bangladesh spend an average of 500 hours in the classroom a year meeting about half the international standard of 900 to 1000 hours a year. Taken in consideration with high student absenteeism rates of 19 percent, UNICEF estimates actual average contact hours could be even lower.xii During the limited number of hours they are able to spend in class with students, teachers are often overwhelmed by large class sizes. The average student to teacher ratio in Bangladeshi classrooms is over 50 to 1. In many poor classrooms this ratio is higher. Teachers are poorly trained, inadequately supported and irregularly evaluated in the monumental task before them. In order to meet the size of the demand, the government allows high school graduates to apply for primary school teaching positions.xiii Less than a third of teachers in government primary schools hold a university degree. Teacher professionalism and motivation runs low, while, correspondingly, absenteeism runs high. A BEPS study reported: Teachers [in Bangladesh] rarely have a lesson plan. The percentage of teachers using a lesson plan in poor schools is as low as 20 percent... Such unprofessional practices have become the culture of the teacher community in the formal primary schools in general. The only exceptions to this are in the urban private schools.xiv A study conducted at Dhaka University found that teacher training in Bangladesh is not adequately linked to what teachers need to survive the difficult and challenges conditions of teaching and learning in the typical primary school. In-service training is sporadic and teacher support at school level is weak. There is no systematic and concerted plan to upgrade the teaching skills of all primary school teachers.xv Although highly respected culturally within the community, teaching is not professionalized as a middle-class occupation, as it is in much of the developed world. One indication is that senior teachers in government primary schools typically earn TK 4000 (70 USD) a month, which, according to Al Jazeera, is less than a government factory worker.xvi xvii

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (N.d.). Education for All. UNESCO: Education. Retrieved from: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-internationalagenda/education-for-all/
ii

United Nations Development Program (UNDP). (N.d.). MDGs and Bangladesh. UNDP: Bangladesh. Retrieved from: http://www.undp.org.bd/mdgs.php
iii

United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) Bangladesh. (2009, September). Quality Primary Education in Bangladesh. Retrieved from: http://www.unicef.org/bangladesh/Quality_Primary_Education(1).pdf
iv

Ahmed, Manzoor. Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE). (2007, June). Access to Education in Bangladesh: Country Analytic Review of Primary and Secondary Education. (Joint publication of BRAC University Institute of Educational Development (BU-IED)).
v

Nath, Samir R. & Chowdhury, A. M. Education Watch. (2009, November). State of Primary Education in Bangladesh: Progress Made, Challenges Remained. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE) Bangladesh. Retrieved from: http://www.campebd.org/download/EW2008FullReportEnglish.pdf
vi

The World Bank. http://data.worldbank.org/ Ahmed, (CREATE). (2007). Access to Education in Bangladesh

vii

viii

Al-Samarrai, Samer. Consortium for Research on Education Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE). (2007, June). Financing Basic Education in Bangladesh (Research Monograph No. 12). (Joint Publication of Centre for International Education, University of Sussex, UK). Retrieved from: http://www.create-rpc.org/pdf_documents/PTA12.pdf
ix

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statstics. (n.d). UIS Statisticss in Brief: Education (all levels) profile Bangladesh. Retrieved from: http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=e ng&BR_Country=500&BR_Region=40535
x

CREATE. (2010, October). Education for the Urban Poor in Bangladesh

xi

United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) Bangladesh. (2009, September). Quality Primary Education in Bangladesh. Retrieved from: http://www.unicef.org/bangladesh/Quality_Primary_Education(1).pdf

xii

UNICEF. (2009). Quality Primary Education in Bangladesh. UNICEF. (n.d.). Bangladesh: Quality Education.

xiii

xiv

Ahmad, Ali, & Haque, I. (2011, July). Economic and Social Analysis of Primary Education in Bangladesh: A Study of BRAC Interventions and Mainstream Schools. (Research Monograph Series No. 48). Dhaka, Bangladesh: BRAC.
xv

Haq, M Nazmul, & Islam, M. S. (2005, December). Teacher Motivations and Incentives in Bangladesh: A situation analysis. Dhaka, Bangladeh: University of Dhaka.
xvi

Haq, M. Nazmul. (2005, December).

xvii

Haque, Nicolas. (2012, March 6). Teaching troubles in Bangladesh. Al-Jazeera. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/03/20123610259989341.html?utm_content=auto mateplus&utm_campaign=Trial6&utm_source=SocialFlow&utm_term=tweets&utm_medium= MasterAccount