In search of universal, inclusive education

Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed :
The education system in Bangladesh consists of 40 million students, 200,000 institutions and over a million teachers-one of the largest in the world. There are also non-formal primary education centres and quomi (indigenous) faith-based madrasas enrolling large numbers of adolescents and youth not included in the official education statistics. Primary and secondary level institutions naturally form the bulk of the system with approximately 20 million students in primary education (including Ibtedayee madrasas recognized by government and private institutions); 15 million students at the secondary level (including technical and vocational institutions and government recognised madrasas); and roughly five million in general tertiary education and professional higher education (estimate based on Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics 2019 data).
It is important to mention here that Bangladesh’s education sector is sufferring from huge disparities. The disparities are observed between regions and between rich and poor. There is a high degree of inequality with respect to access to quality education as poorer people and people in rural areas have limited access to higher education and quality educational institutions. The existing education system is also not very conducive to developing a strong base in the education sector, as quality, access and opportunities vary considerably across the English medium, Bangla medium, and Madrasa systems, as well as between public and private educational institutions.
There are three main weaknesses that are common to many of our educational institutions. First is the quality of teachers. Thousands of teachers are recruited every year and sent straight to classrooms without any training. This doesn’t happen in most other countries. Some government school teachers teach just to get a posting in Dhaka. Although private schools may not always be good, they are usually better in countries that have excellent government schools. That is not at all unexpected as high-quality education in government schools generates healthy competition and automatically ensures the same in other institutions and vice versa. Second is governance in institutions. Not so much at the primary level, but definitely at the secondary and higher levels. School Managing Committees are increasingly being taken over by the business class and by political interests. This is actually one of the reasons why many teachers are recruited to serve vested interest groups. Even after becoming a decision-maker of educational institutions, very few among the political class are ever interested in improving the quality of education. Except for some, most of them are often there for selfish motives and material benefits. Third is infrastructure. Every year there are thousands of requests for schools to get repaired. Many of these are often ignored. Ministers and politicians come out from time to time and blame it on corruption, which is true to a large extent. Huge chunks of allocated funds are continually wasted because of lack of transparency. Children are even compelled to learn under trees and still nothing is done! Yes, local-level officers do complain. But who will fix it? This too is tied to the previous problem; as you can see everything is connected and their combined impact on the quality of education has ultimately been negative.
21st century kills and the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR): Life and the livelihoods of the majority of people in Bangladesh are still characterized by the use of the second or even the first industrial revolution technologies. These comprise respectively of augmenting mechanically animal and human muscle power (such as pulling rickshaws) and the use of electric energy in the industrial assembly line. Simultaneously, today most people are into the third industrial revolution through the penetration of mobile phone technology. However, 4IR-a combination of automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, radical change in the nature of work, and innovation in economic production and services-has arrived. It has major implications for education, skill development, employment and entrepreneurship, which must figure in education content and methods, planning and strategies.
On the 50th year of independence, the nation needs to recommit itself to the founding principles to uphold the aim of a just and progressive society, promoting human dignity and rights for all in unity, while celebrating diversity and multiple identities of people. The imperative now is for the education endeavors to be dedicated to the four fundamental principles of the constitution-the “high ideals of nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism” and to fulfilling the “fundamental aim of the State to realize through the democratic process a socialist society, free from exploitation, a society in which the rule of law, fundamental human rights and freedom, equality and justice, political, economic and social, will be secured for all citizens” (Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Preamble, 1972). Abiding by these principles and fulfilling the fundamental aim are noble challenges for the education system and for all concerned with education.
We must be willing to invest more in education as currently, ours is the lowest in South Asia-30 to 35 percent of all students in our primary schools are first-generation learners, who receive very little support from their families and have to depend wholly on their schools. All our achievements like universal access to primary education, gender parity at the primary and secondary levels, ICT-based classroom practices, recognition and practice of teaching-learning in five ethnic languages, introduction of Braille system, etc., may get jeopardised. If we truly want to ensure “quality education for all,” then we need to have stronger political commitment, appropriate strategies to implement the NEP 2010, combined with adequate resource allocation and its judicious, transparent utilization.

(The writer is former Deputy Director General, Bangladesh
Ansar & VDP).