It is heartening to note that in line with its commitment to ensure education for all, the government is implementing several projects to bring the underprivileged section of people especially from the Char, Haor, and remote and hilly areas into the mainstream of education.
Earlier, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina promised to set up new residential schools and construct residential buildings for the existing schools in remote, hilly and coastal areas. Following the prime minister’s announcement, authorities concerned have already started implementing several projects to impart quality education to the children living in remote areas. We hope, when implemented, these projects will bring about a remarkable change in the remote areas of the country.
Despite Bangladesh’s notable success in bringing nearly all
children across the country to primary school,
the quality of education remains a concern
There is no denying that Bangladesh has achieved remarkable success in gender parity in school enrolment with more girls in school than boys. The current enrolment rate of students in primary education has increased to 97.74 percent while the dropout rate reduced to 17.90 percent, thanks to the ceaseless efforts of the government to ensure access to education for all.
Bangladesh now has one of the robust primary education systems in the world with an estimated 17 million primary school aged children (6 to 10 years). There is no denying the fact that such statistics bears the testimony of the country’s enviable success in the field of primary education. However, at the same time it is also true that we still lag far behind other developed countries in terms of ensuring quality education. Despite Bangladesh’s notable success in bringing nearly all children across the country to primary school, the quality of education remains a concern.
Quality education requires relevant, strategic and well-researched curricula and materials for the acquisition of basic skills. There must be a procedure through which trained teachers can incorporate child-centred teaching approaches. Taking all these into consideration, authorities concerned should work to address the barriers towards maintaining integrity and ensuring quality in primary education and devise required actions to fix them.