Bangladesh education: Lack of a proper policy

THERE IS a famous saying in Bangladesh: “Lekha pora kore Je Gari Gora chore se” (Those who are educated will succeed). This traditional thinking of education as the ticket to the good life emerges in different ways and degrees in Bangladesh. Education is seen as something that is received rather than achieved and it has increasingly become dependent on certificates.

Bangladesh's three-tiered and highly subsidised educational system has failed in different ways, being dictated by different political regimes that have ruled Bangladesh over the last four decades. One of the biggest causes of this failure is the absence of an effective education policy and its implementation.

In the last four decades, Bangladesh, a nation full of possibilities, is suffering from various problems that need solving. Primarily, it has never seen the implementation of a progressive, scientific education policy. Dictators and democratic political regimes alike have denied the need for an effective educational policy, despite the country's constitutional commitment to it under Article 17, to provide all children between the age of six to ten with a basic and free education.

Bangladesh has succeeded in putting on a show for the international community, claiming that the country conforms fully to the Education For All (EFA) objectives attached to the Millennium Development Goals. In reality however, the country has one of the lowest literacy rates in South Asia, with a study showing that 15.5 per cent of primary schoolteachers remain absent from school.

This means that if the country is having troubles in ensuring simple, functional literacy, then one can hardly expect quality higher education. “Over 275,000 students passed the HSC exam, but less than 100,000 could be admitted to universities," wrote Fakhrul Islam, a journalist for the Financial Express. Where will the rest will go? This trend seems to be becoming the norm according to the results of the HSC exams in Bangladesh in 2008.