Reforming Primary Education in Bangladesh

Reform and development are often welcome news. Our education system is in severe need of an upgrade, and primary education (PE) cannot be an exception to this. Upgrading PE requires attention to be given to many categories including grades (classes), curriculum, number of schools and their infrastructure, number of teachers and their expertise (and salary!), the teaching-learning process, supervision, assessment methods and so on.
Primary grades
Till the 1950s, primary education was up to grade-4 in the present Bangladesh (till 1971- East Pakistan) as in entire the Pakistan. It was then that it was elevated to grade-5. This continued for the rest of our East Pakistan days, and is still the case today. However our first, and most resourceful Education Commission (of 1972) in independent Bangladesh, headed by the reputed scientist Dr. Qudrat-i-Khuda, proposed the elevation of the PE level to grade-8 in its report published in 1974. The question arises: why did Bangladesh Education Commission propose such a large jump, three grades, in a single go? So far as one can understand, it was to achieve parity with the UNESCO principle of compulsory schooling up to age 14.
Now let us ask ourselves: Why, in spite of the report being submitted in 1974, has this recommendation not been implemented for 35 years? Is it because governments in succession were disregarding the policies and plans of the previous ones and formulating almost everything anew? This might be one of the reasons, but it cannot be the only reason. The Ministry of Education (MOE) under the newly elected government is said to have plans to implement this once the newly appointed 16-member committee gives the go-ahead.
However, one must have serious doubts about the feasibility of this recommendation. An assessment of the education systems of 182 nations reveals that the highest number (87) of countries have PE up to grade-6, while only 28 (mostly cold European) countries have PE up to grade-8, followed by grade-5 in 19 countries, grade-9 years in 16 countries, and others. All the known developed countries of Asia, including Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea. Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand have PE up to grade-6. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Iran are still content with grade-5. In the world at large, The USA, the UK, Australia and Germany (Japan was mentioned before) have very developed education systems where many of our students long to pursue higher studies. In all these countries, PE up to grade-6 is the norm; though primary grades in the USA range from 4 to 7 in different states, grade-6 dominates. The question arises, why have these developed countries not elevated PE beyond grade-6? The answer would be many years of education in a single system could create monotony in students' minds, and the desire to study in a different school, especially the feeling of studying in a higher seat of learning, alongside elevation of grade level would be defeated. How have these countries followed the UNESCO principles? The answer is, they developed another level for elevating the level of compulsory education, terming it "BASIC" (not primary), and this level in most countries is grade-9, rarely 8 or 10.
In Bangladesh, we have some added problems in elevating PE up to grade-8. To try that, we would need to develop infrastructure massively in primary schools and also appoint many new teachers; existing high school teachers would fear redundancy in such a situation.
Against this backdrop, Prof. Siddiqur Rahman (a member of the aforementioned 16-member committee) of Dhaka University, proposed in a recent article published in a vernacular daily that grades 1-5 be kept as primary schools as is now, and to rename lower secondary grades 6-8 as "Upper Primary". Such mere renaming signifies 'obedience' to the government's desires, but fails to solve our actual systemic problems.
A better way would be elevating PE up to grade-6 and to declare education up to grade-9 (keeping grades 7-9 in high schools) "basic", and compulsory as in the model followed above. Accordingly, there would be the need for restructuring at the secondary level too, which is beyond the scope of this article. Anyway, for this proposed one-grade elevation, existing infrastructure in most schools should prove adequate (with some improvement) and we could arrange a Primary School Leaving Certificate (PSLC, as in Singapore) examination to make primary teachers more accountable. Two more benefits of a grade-6 primary system can be: 1) to-be dropouts at grade-6 would continue for another year; 2) PSLC holders can study in vocational/technical schools (some mono-techniques would need to be established at union level) as in China.
Curriculum: Fully unified versus "unity in diversity"
Our Constitution provides for equal opportunity of learning for all. In principle, there is nothing wrong in unifying three main streams of primary education based on that constitutional provision. But that might not be wise or feasible. We can't stop English medium schools or Madrassahs; and fully merging them will amount to killing off both of these streams. As a result, the beneficiaries of these streams will refute any such attempt. Therefore, we need to develop a "core curriculum" consisting of some essential subjects including national language Bangla, second language English, mathematics, social studies (which should include our true history) and science. The main point to make here is that all streams follow these core subjects; Qawami Madrassas should be taken under the government's wing. Thus we can establish a unity in diversity that is socially acceptable to all.
Some final points
Alongside upgrading PE by one grade, the number of primary schools and teachers needs to be increased substantially. We have nearly 85,000 villages but only 58,000 primary schools; adding other primary level institutions numbering around 22,000, we get about 80,000 institutions providing primary level education. That is still far too little, less than one school per village. To ensure that at-least every school has a village, the community primary schools can be upgraded to full-fledged schools and be nationalized as early as possible, alongside new projects aimed at establishing schools in every village. The number of teachers in each upgraded primary school should not be fewer than five and the discriminatory admission policy for male and female teachers should be done away with.
A word for the teachers, who deserve to be better rewarded if we are to expect a better job from them. Currently, primary teachers' salaries are at the 16th and 17th national grades, very close to fourth class employees. Before considering any separate scales for all teachers and elevating the status of high school teachers, primary teachers' salaries should be upgraded to the 11th or at least the 12th national grade. Once the nation pays primary teachers a reasonable salary, we could expect 4-6 hours of quality schooling for the children instead of the below-par 2-4 hours that is the norm now.

Working Children of Hard-to-Reach Schools in Dhaka

Out of our population of around 15 crore, nearly 4 crore 24 lakh are children aged 5-17 years. 74 lakh of these children are engaged in earning their own living, out of which 15 lakh are working in urban areas. Of the types of work they are engaged in, many are hazardous, though Bangladesh has ratified both the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 and the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour in 2001. A large number of the working children are engaged as domestic help, of whom three-fourths are girls. They work long hours for 7 days a week. Most of these working children have never attended school.
The government has vowed to take all children to school by 2011, which is unlikely to happen considering the lack of initiatives that ay have been taken thus far. However, it is a tradition in our politics to make a promise in order to break it. The two initiatives that the government has taken in order to bring all children to school are the ROSC (Reaching Out Of School Children) Project and the BEHTRUWC (Basic Education for Hard to Reach Urban Working Children) Project. The latter has been launched by the Bureau of Non Formal Education (NFE) for 2006- 2011 with support from UNICEF, Canadian CIDA and Swedish SIDA. The objective is to provide 120,000 urban working girls and 80,000 urban working boys aged 10-14 years with 40 months long basic education course. This project is now in 6 City Corporations run by 20 national NGOs with 6,664 teachers through 6,646 learning centers.
Whether the future of this project is rosy or grey should be found out through a journalistic investigation that probes both its top and ground levels. Here we can get glimpses of it from the words of some learners from the learning centers in Dhaka. They were gathered at the Bureau of Non Formal Education on 11 June in order to observe the World Day Against Child Labour 2009, which is observed every year on June 12. About 40 children who were selected on the criteria of being more advanced in terms of their maturiy and vocal than others took part in a sharing session with officials from Hard-to-Reach, NFE (Bureau of Non Formal Education) and UNICEF.
Most were happy to see a glimpse of hope in their lives through this project. At the same time many voiced their disappointment and demanded something more and better. Shahnaz Akter (13) said, 'We come to a learning centre from a long distance. Now, it will be helpful if each of us is given a school bag. Again, it takes a major share of our study time to sharpen the pencils that are given to us. We thought that our teachers did not want to give us the quality things. Now I see it is you who are at fault for not providing us with quality education materials. So please give us school bags and quality pencils, which will help us to attain good education.'
Another boy said they did not want airplanes, but would like to have at-least some food at school. Hard-to-Reach provides education up to Class V. But these children want to study more. There are problems that the mainstream schools do not want to accept them when they complete their cycles at Hard-to-Reach schools. Najma Akter (13) said that students of other schools consider them inferior and do not treat them well. Selina (14) said, 'You have made schools only for primary education for us, why not schools for higher grades and colleges too? Quality of these schools should be improved so that children become interested in coming here.'
Some children said that birth registration is a right of every child which many are deprived of; many voiced their concern about child marriage that brings hope for education to an abrupt end. One girl said that education is a right of every child in the country and voiced her concern, 'Are other working children of the country getting a chance to go to school?' All know that the answer is outright negative and may remain so for many years to come. There might be some light glittering, however faintly, at the end of the tunnel in the words of such a child, 'Those of us who are good at reading and writing can teach other working children and thus help spread education across the country.'
It would have been better if elders also had learnt from them. The coming education policy will do enormous good by taking into account the concerns of the working children all over the country.

Draft Policy Suggests 8 Years Primary Schooling

The committee for formulation of a national education policy, in a draft report, has recommended raising the nation's mandatory primary education period to eight years from five.
Co-chairman of the committee Khaliquzzaman Ahmad told on Sunday, "The members [of the 18-member committee] have been asked for their opinions on the draft by July 15 and then it will be opened for different professionals to view it before preparing a final report." If the draft is approved, students will attend school up to class eight, instead of the current requirement up to class five, as their primary education. The draft says the primary education duration will be extended up to class six by 2012, to class seven by 2015 and to class eight by 2018. To successfully implement the primary education changes in all existing disciplines, including government, non-government, kindergarten and religious schools, the draft recommends boosting the existing primary school infrastructure across the country, increasing the number of teachers and providing essential funding. It also recommends changes in the primary education curriculum, with compulsory study in Bangla, moral education, Bangladesh studies, mathematics, climate change, science and IT, among other subjects. Different disciplines will also be able to include their own study programme with the accompanying compulsory studies. Further, English medium schools will be able to operate, but they will require government approval, the draft says. English language will be taught in class one and two as extra courses and become compulsory in class three and onward. There will also be compulsory religion and moral studies offered to students from class three. The last three classes of primary education, six, seven and eight, will teach vocational and IT studies so those students who will not further pursue education will learn job skills. The draft also calls for public examinations on completion of class eight studies, prior to acceptance into secondary education. Education minister Nurul Islam Nahid, announcing the committee headed by national professor Kabir Chowdhury on April 8, tasked with forming 'National Education Policy 2009', said the government was seeking to introduce a unified and modern education system in the country. Initially the committee had 16 members, including eminent writer and science teacher Muhammad Zafar Iqbal and economist Kazi Kholiquzzaman. Later, two other members were added to the committee.