Cut to global funding in education

Md Bayazid Khan :

A significant number of underprivileged children in Bangladesh suffer from learning poverty, particularly in developing skills in foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN), despite the government investing a huge amount of money every year in primary education through the mega programme PEDP-4 alongside other discrete initiatives of INGOs & NGOs.

Development partners have also made substantial contributions alongside the government in the PEDP-4 bringing inclusive qualitative changes in children’s learning at primary level of education.

However, the desired outcomes in improving the quality of inclusive learning have not been achieved, and the country continues to grapple with the burden of debt as lion parts of the huge investment in the primary education sector comes from loans from the World Bank and ADB.

Bangladesh is going to face a challenge regarding suffering from learning poverty in the form of attaining foundational learning skills in literacy and numeracy by a significant number of children due to cut to global funding in education.

As international communities reduce education aid, it becomes crucial to ensure the high-fidelity implementation of low-cost, high-impact initiatives aimed at improving students’ FLN skills.

So, considering the hard reality the primary education management needs to emphasize on utilizing local resources to remove learning poverty. Following issues may be considered in this regard:
Engagement of corporate companies and interested NGOs may be effective in running community-based catch-up programmes to improve the FLN skills of underprivileged, dropout, and disabled children, as well as those requiring additional learning support.

These programmes could be conducted at primary schools, religious centers, or other no-cost venues convenient for regular attendance. Facilitation may be carried out by former teachers, high school, or college students, who would receive a modest honorarium funded by corporate companies or concerned organisations.

Teachers from the adjacent schools or local education authorities can provide necessary support to ensure inclusive improvement in FLN skills.

Corporate companies or industries could be involved in running learning centers at asylums or locations with high concentrations of street children.

These Learning Centers (LCs) would be funded entirely by the companies or industries with the conditions of providing not only foundational education in literacy and numeracy but also need-based technical education desired by the companies or industries.

A condition may be imposed requiring learners to work for the sponsoring company or industry for a fixed period after completing their learning at LCs. It is important to note that both of the above initiatives fall under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) scope of the companies or industries involved.

Committed teachers should be appointed to primary schools so that they take the profession to heart and willingly choose it as a lifelong career. To ensure this, the existing recruitment rules and policies must be revised, allowing only graduates with pre-service training in primary education to apply.

This will require a major overhaul of the training procedures and curricula at the 67 Primary Teachers’ Training Institutes (PTIs) across the country. Moreover, all teacher training colleges, as well as public and private universities and colleges offering bachelors or diploma degrees in education, must introduce courses in primary education under a uniform curriculum and syllabus.

Yearly baseline and end line assessment of students’ FLN proficiency at every primary school must be arranged. Simultaneously, teachers should receive skill development training focused on developing assessment and monitoring tools related to FLN.

Teachers must also be held accountable for taking remedial actions or offering additional support to students, whether within classroom hours, or before, after, or during school activities reviewing children’s proficiency in baseline assessment of FLN.

To support this, the government should ensure equity-based teacher deployment in every school.
Considering students’ proficiency in the baseline and end line assessment of FLN, primary schools might be brought under grading.

Head teachers and cluster, upazila and district level concerned monitoring officers should be brought under accountability by setting the target of uplifting a certain number of lower graded schools to the next stage of better graded. But before imposing targets and ensuring accountability, every school should ensure equity based teachers’ deployment and logistic support.

Committed teachers should be appointed to primary schools so that they take the profession to heart and willingly choose it as a lifelong career. To ensure this, the existing recruitment rules and policies must be revised, allowing only graduates with pre-service training in primary education to apply.

This will require a major overhaul of the training procedures and curricula at the 67 Primary Teachers’ Training Institutes (PTIs) across the country.

Moreover, all teacher training colleges, as well as public and private universities and colleges offering bachelors or diploma degrees in education, must introduce courses in primary education under a uniform curriculum and syllabus.

In the name of providing training, conducting research, and procuring materials, corruption, wastage of money, and unethical practices of using government money by any means should be stopped and must be brought under proper monitoring.

Vacant posts of teachers and field level supervisory officers must be filled as early as possible. A special teacher recruitment initiative may help to fill all the vacant posts of teachers in remote or hard to reach areas schools.

In addition, adjustments of teachers’ posts or transfer systems should become online and must be free from biasness and all sorts of pressure.

(The writer works for the primary education sector).