Bangladesh News

Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed yesterday called for removing disparity in the education system, especially between urban and rural educational institutions.

“We have to overcome segmentations and divisions in the education system at primary and secondary levels that create a divided society,” he said at a conference on education in the city.

“The emergence of a widening difference in the quality of education between urban and rural schools is a serious problem. Over the last several decades the problem has become worst. We have to find out the solution to the problem as soon as possible,” the chief adviser observed.

Inaugurating the three-day conference on ‘Governance in Education: Transparency, Accountability and Effectiveness’ at the International Conference Centre at the Chief Adviser’s Office, he emphasised increasing public sector allocation for education to achieve educational and development goals.

The conference was organised by Unesco and Bangladesh National Commission for Unesco in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education.

“Bangladesh devotes a little over two-percent of GDP as public sector allocation for education, which is quite low. The ratio needs to double within the next decade and the share of government budget for education needs to increase proportionately from the present level of under 15 percent,” the chief adviser told the conference.

He said the country’s educational goals and development aspirations cannot be realised without increasing investment, especially allocation of budget.

“But increased spending is not enough; good governance in education must ensure that the resources are used efficiently and effectively,” he mentioned.

Stressing the importance of the use of electronic media for educational purpose, the chief adviser said although computer and internet proliferation is still not widespread in the country, the nation must make good use of the electronic media for educational purpose, adding that state-run Bangladesh Television (BTV) has the necessary infrastructure for setting up a 24-hour educational channel.

“An independent authority can ensure that the channel is used optimally and effectively for high priority purposes, such as teachers’ training and support, literacy and continuing education, supplementing formal primary and secondary classroom instruction, Open University courses, English language instruction, and technical and vocational education,” Fakhruddin said.

He asked the information and education ministries to move expeditiously to set up such a facility.

Fakhruddin said children, who are disadvantaged by extreme poverty or special needs, often do not get education they deserve for which unacceptable inequities persist alongside widening of quality gaps.

He mentioned that national commitment to offering free and compulsory education to all boys and girls as stated in Article 17 of the constitution as well as the goals set by Millennium Development Goals and Education for All programme would remain unrealised at the present rate of progress.

Primary and Mass Education Adviser Rasheda K Chowdhury and Unesco Country Representative Malama Meleisea also spoke at the inaugural session, chaired by Education Secretary M Momtajul Islam, also secretary general of Bangladesh National Commission for Unesco.

Dr Manzoor Ahmed, director of Institute of Educational Development at Brac University and Anir Chowdhury, policy adviser of Access to Information Programme at the Chief Adviser’s Office, presented two keynote papers on the theme of the conference.

Dr Manzoor Ahmed said education system in the country consists of 150,000 institutions, 34 million students and over 900,000 teachers.

“Primary and secondary level institutions naturally form the bulk of the system, with about 20 million students in primary education including madrasas and non-formal programmes and about 11 million students at the secondary level including madrasas,” he pointed out.

Anir Chowdhury said enrolment figures and gender parity are admirable. “Girls’ enrolment is 10 percent higher that that of boys in secondary education,” he said.