It is an encouraging piece pf news that the current enrolment rate of students in primary education has increased to 97.74 percent while the dropout rate reduced to 17.90 percent, thanks to the ceaseless efforts of the government to ensure access to education for all. Educationists attributed the tremendous success to introduction of stipends, midday meal and other facilities about students. Also an array of the countrywide campaign to raise awareness among parents for sending their children to schools have played a crucial role in boosting the number of enrolment in primary schools.
Bangladesh now has one of the robust primary education systems in the world with an estimated 17 million primary school aged children (6 to 10 years). There is no denying the fact that such statistic bears the testimony of the country’s enviable success in the field of primary education. However, at the same time it is also true that we still lag far behind other developed countries in terms of ensuring quality education.
Authorities concerned should work to
address the hurdles towards
maintaining integrity and ensuring
quality inprimary
education and devise required actions tofix them
Despite Bangladesh’s notable success in bringing nearly all children across the country to primary school, the quality education remains a big concern. Many young students in Bangladesh find it hard to land good jobs because of the sheer mismatch between the education system and job market. The country should address this crisis by investing more in education and ensuring effective utilization of the amount of investment.
We have long been longing for revamp and rectification of our almost horse and buggy education sector. We hope, the government will give its best to ensure quality primary education and uphold its integrity. We envisage that the government will address the need for allocating more budget in the country’s education sector to make it highly efficient one. The right to education is not only the right to access to education but also the right to receive quality education. For ensuring quality education there is no alternative to enabling a healthy and gender-inclusive environment in the education sector. Quality education requires relevant, strategic and well-researched curricula and materials for the acquisition of basic skills. There must be a procedure through which trained teachers can incorporate child-centred teaching approaches. Taking all these sinto consideration, authorities concerned should work to address the barriers towards maintaining integrity and ensuring quality in primary education and devise required actions to fix them.