Monday | 7 October 2024 | Reg No- 06
বাংলা
   
Monday | 7 October 2024 | Epaper

The hurdles of our education system

Published : Thursday, 12 May, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 1056
Rajib Chakraborty
According to a World Bank report, despite the achievements of primary level schooling, the quality of education in Bangladesh remains a matter of concern. A world development report 2018, expressed those graduates having their degrees are getting difficulties managing jobs as they don't have the required skills. Among many other factors, low quality of teaching, poor monitoring and management system, and insufficient public education funding are the main problems identified in various discussions by the experts.

Despite the success story of achieving gender parity in school enrolment, which is absent in many neighbouring countries, in terms of providing quality education and producing quality graduates for the domestic and international job markets, we are lag behind them.

An earlier internal report by the Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) shows that 70 percent of the students have difficulties in performing basic mathematical calculations, and reading even after completion of primary schooling. The traditional style of taking classes by simply lecturing and reading textbooks without adopting innovative educational approaches and following teaching materials collected from unreliable sources has made the problems more acute. Also, experts and educationists highlight preparing a curriculum based on the need of the job market.

At the tertiary level, public and private higher educational institutions are producing graduates who are not capable of meeting the demand of the current job market. Recently, the education ministry is also considering adding more rigorous steps and conditions in the case of permitting colleges to offer honours and master's programs, and also confirms that the colleges should have sufficient infrastructure and resources including qualified teaching staff, laboratory, computer labs, enriched library facilities, etc before offering honours and masters programs. It also emphasizes on vocational and short courses to fulfil the demand of the current job market.

An earlier report by the World Bank, one of the key development partners of Bangladesh since independence, added that high school students of Vietnam, an Asian poor country, in a global test in math, science, and reading called Program for the International Student Association (PISA) marked same performance as the students in Germany.

As one of the best education hubs in the world, Finland's schools were not always a wonder even their teachers had little ideas about their success until their 15-year-old students got first, and second positions in math, science, and reading in PISA in 2000 onwards. The transformation of Finland's education system began some 40 years ago after implementing an amendment in the parliament in 1963 to make public education the best means of driving the economy. Through another amendment in 1979, the Finland government gave teachers equal status with doctors.

The various documents say that the public expenditure on education in Bangladesh is lower than the other south Asian countries even Bangladesh spends half of Malaysia's education expenses. Among the other South Asian countries that spend more government money on education, health, and social assistance in that case Bangladesh spends less than 3 percent of its GDP which is very low.

A research report titled 'Social spending in South Asia--an overview of government expenditure on health, education and social assistance (2020)' by Carolina Bloch based on World Health Organization (2019), UNESCO (2019), and World Bank (2019) revealed that among the eight countries, Bhutan and Maldives have the highest public social spending as a share of GDP and more specifically Bhutan (7.1) devotes comparatively more public funds to education than its neighbours. Bangladesh has the lowest share of spending on both health (0.4) and education (1.5), and Bhutan spends the least on social assistance.

As part of the initiatives to bring necessary changes though the financial and other benefits of teachers in government primary schools are revised, along with facilities of teachers of higher secondary schools and also colleges by proving the 90 percent of the salary of the registered colleges through monthly pay order (MPO), quality teaching and standard teaching materials are still concerned. More specifically, a significant portion of the education fund is spent on salary, other fringe benefits, and infrastructural development.

There is a common criticism that in the name of using the budget for improving the quality of higher education, the majority of the fund is used for infrastructural development which means constructing a new building, hostel, accommodation, dormitories, luxurious auditorium with modern equipment sometimes which are seen unnecessary and unused even can't match with the living standard of the general mass. But there is always a shortage of funds for teachers' training programs, seminars, conferences, scientific research work, and updated curriculum development.

The global impact of COVID-19 and countrywide lockdown had also created unprecedented damages in the education sector and businesses and thousands of students have been detached from the educational institutions and people lost their jobs, shelter, and even migrated from urban areas which have resulted in the rise in poverty and inequality. Though the government has announced a stimulus package for those distressed and affected segments of people, recovery and bringing back the students to mainstream education will need time and need more public finance.

Joint research titled 'Bangladesh Case Study: Situation Analysis on the Effects of and Responses to COVID-19 on the Education Sector in Asia' by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 2021 mentioned that Bangladesh has strong mechanisms in place to manage emergencies, vastly minimizing the effect of disasters which have impacted the country over the years. Though the pre-existing learning situation placed Bangladesh on the right track to meet SDG 4 challenges by 2030, the pandemic situation will force Bangladesh to the learning lost during the long shut down of the educational institutions.

Those documents also acknowledged that Bangladesh has good potential to create global employees as Bangladesh has already achieved and reached a different milestone with strong economic stability for many years. As Bangladesh also targets to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and has a dream to become a developed country by 2041, without making the citizens or working-class population capable of facing modern challenges and keep the upward growth intact by engaging young graduates in different sophisticated economic development activities, we can't reach to our destination.

There is a trend observed in our country's job market that the first choice of the candidates is to get a government job in administration, and their willingness to take teaching as a last resort. Due to fewer financial opportunities in the higher education institutions both in government and private sectors, the nation is deprived to get the best candidate in the education sector which makes a hindrance to preparing the future leaders of the nation.
Dr Rajib Chakraborty, Former Chairman, Dept of Business Administration, Additional
Director (IQAC) Port City International University








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