Girls’ higher education needs to be encouraged

There is no doubt that Bangladesh has made tremendous success as far as female enrolment in schools in the last few decades is concerned.

In fact, compared to earlier times, girls have outnumbered the boys in primary and secondary schools.

But the picture is different in colleges and universities.

The number of boy students is more than the girl students in the higher secondary and tertiary level of education.

The data at the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (Banbeis) says that 55.41 per cent of girls were studying at the junior school level, from sixth to eighth grade, in 2020, but the figure is reduced to 40.78 per cent at the master’s level.

Girls accounted for 53.57 per cent of total enrolment at the secondary level, ninth and 10th grade, while the share was 43.80 percent at the graduation level.

The scenario was almost the same in 2018 and 2019.

There are reasons for this of course.

The first among these must be the overall attitude of people of Bangladesh towards the life of women.

There is a predominant perception that females should be married earlier in age than the males.

This is as much due to women’s biological needs as it is about the people’s attitude as a whole.

It is worth remembering that Bangladesh is among the top ten countries of the world where underage marriage is more prevalent.

The fall of girls’ enrolment at the college level and even further drop in the higher education is also due to other factors. Sexual harassment on the way to college and university, absence of adequate girls’ hostels as well as the lack of safe transportation for girls to colleges and universities also account for reduced number of girls in these institutions.

Since primary schools are located near students’ homes, guardians find it safe, but as distance between home and educational institutes keeps increasing with higher levels of education, they do not feel that interest to the same degree.

To encourage more participation of female students in colleges and higher education, Bangladesh still needs to create facilities as well as a healthy social and educational environment.

If that can be done it can be hoped that guardians will be more encouraged.

Ideally, ensuring equal participation of girls and boys at the tertiary level of education should be the goal.

One thing must be stated here: educated mothers are far better than the uneducated or less educated mothers.