The proposed national budget for the financial year 2020-21 has earmarked highest ever allocation of Tk 66,401 crore for the country’s education sector.
The government “has declared holidays to all academic institutions of the country since mid-March as part of our efforts to enforce social distancing to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. This has essentially caused a discontinuation of the regular academic curriculum of around 4 crore students across the country,” Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said in his budget speech in Parliament on Thursday.
As the allocation for primary and mass education and secondary and higher education has increased, so has the allocation for technical and vocational education and madrasa education.
However, there is no good news for the new MPO registration of private educational institutions in the new budget.
On primary education, Kamal said, “Primary education is the stepping stone for creation of skilled human resource, which in turn is the prerequisite for economic development.
For primary education, a total of Tk. 24,940 crore was proposed to allocate for the next 2020-21 fiscal year for the primary education sector, which was Tk. 24,040 crore in the budget for current FY 2019-20.
“Television and online distance learning activities were launched on the instructions of the Hon'ble Prime Minister during this time. In the education sector, our most important task for the next financial year will be to make up for the loss of this long vacation and to maintain the continuity of the curriculum. I am keeping necessary provision in the budget for the next financial year for this work,” the minister explained.
For the secondary and higher education sector, a total of Tk. 33,117 crore allocation was proposed in the 2020-21 fiscal year, which was Tk. 29,624 crore in the current fiscal year.
Speaking on the initiative to implement quality technical education in the country, Kamal noted, “We are continuing our activities to identify the appropriate technologies and appropriate skills keeping in view the Fourth Industrial Revolution and to train the students accordingly.”
He said regular curricula as well as short training courses are being implemented in public and private technical education institutions. As a result, with the increase in the capacity of the institutions, there is a growing interest of the general public in technical and vocational education through teacher training and scholarships for students.
On madrasas, the minister said, “A large of the madrasas in Bangladesh are lagging behind than regular schools and colleges in terms of physical infrastructure. To address this issue, we have constructed new buildings in 1 thousand 8 hundred madrasas nationwide, and set up modern multimedia classrooms in 653 madrasas,.
A total of Tk. 8,344 crore was proposed for the next 2020-21 fiscal year for technical and madrasa education, which was Tk. 7,450 crore in current FY 2019-20,” he added.
