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Enrollment: Weighted national
gross enrollment ratio at the primary level was found to be 107; the
ratio for girls was higher at 109 compared to boys' 104. Strata-wise,
rural Khulna had the highest with 117 and the Metropolitan Cities the
lowest with 101. Girls were consistently ahead of boys in all strata.
Further analysis of the gross enrollment information showed that a
third of all students enrolled in primary classes came from outside
the primary age group (6-10 years). Primary schools run by the
government were found to be dominant in terms of number of students
enrolled; 67.7% of all students belonged to such schools. The
registered non-government schools came a distant second with 12.1%
students and the NGO schools third, with 8.5% students.
The weighted national net enrollment rate was found
to be 77%. This means that 23% children 6-10 years of age were not
enrolled at all. Girls' enrollment was more (78.6%) than boys'
(75.5%). While in gross enrollment ratio the rural areas did better
than urban areas, it was reverse in case of net rates; this implies
that the school authorities in urban areas are probably more stringent
in terms of age criterion or the urban parents are more conscious of
the importance of sending their children to school at the right age or
both. In net rates, Khulna continued with its lead with 82.6% and
Chittagong bringing up the near with 74%. Major reasons mentioned for
not sending children to school were: "too young to go to school"
(36.9%) and "scarcity of money" (31.6%).
This study also confirmed the importance of
parents' socia-economic status in enrollment. The children of parents
belonging to better socio-economic status were enrolled than of those
who were worse off. Religion-wise, Muslims had significantly higher
rates of enrollment. Mothers' involvement with NGO activities seemed
to positively affect enrollment.
The above data suggest improvement in our
performance in attracting more children to schools. This is also borne
out by comparing the figures between 1993 and 1998; interestingly, the
improvement was restricted to girls alone, and the rate of improvement
was rather slow - less than one percentage point per year.
Dropout: Information
collected from schools has been used to calculate dropout and repeater
rates in the primary school classes. On average, for various classes,
the dropout rates varied from four to seven percents and repeater rate
from four to eleven percents. Considering the students enrolled in the
school at the beginning of 1997 as a 'synthetic' cohort and following
them to the time of the present survey (end 1998), the total primary
school dropout rate was estimated to be 26.6% for girls and 28.0% for
boys. For formal primary schools (government and registered
non-government) only, the dropout rates were 26.2% for girls and 28.4%
for boys, which means that the dropout has indeed decreased over the
past few years.
Attendance: Sixty two
percent students were in school on the day of visit by the survey team
(girls 64%; boys 61%). When the number of students in the school
register was compared with the actual seating capacity in the
respective school, the schools had capacities to accommodate up to 66%
of the enrolled students. This did not pose any problem, however,
because of absenteeism. There was also wide variations among different
types of school in attendance rates. However, there was no such
difference found between the schools served by the food-for education
(FFE) programme and non-FFE schools.
Achievement: Of the
children aged 11-12 years who were tested on the 'Assessment of Basic
Competency' (ABC), 29.6% satisfied the minimum levels in all four
competency areas, viz., reading, writing, numeracy and life skills.
The ABC result shows significant improvements since the last time the
ABC was conducted on a national scale in 1993. Following the same
trend as 1993, boys did better than girls. Urban children (48.4%) did
significantly better than rural children (26.5%). Strata-wise, the
children of Khulna division did the best (38.1%) and Chittagong the
worst (17.3%).
Achievement in terms of 'literacy' (ABC minus the
life skills part) was also computed. A higher proportion (42.5%)
passed the 'literacy' test. Gender and strata-wise differences as
observed in the case of ABC also persisted here. A statistically
significant positive relationship existed between schooling and basic
educational achievement of children, with currently enrolled children
achieving better than the dropped out or never-enrolled children.
Among the currently enrolled children the level of basic education was
34.2%, and 16.5% in case of dropped out children. The level of basic
educational achievement increased progressively with years of
schooling. The level was 7.5% for children completing one year, 20.8%
completing three years and 56.9% for those completing five years. It
was also observed that the rural children lagged behind their urban
counterparts by one academic year.
The level of basic education varied according to
school type; the students from NGO schools performed moderately and
the government and registered (or unregistered) non-government
students' performance was unsatisfactory Students from Ebtedayee
madrassas performed very poorly but the performance of children
attending secondary-attached schools and kindergartens was quite good.
Distribution of textbooks:
A third of the students received the textbooks by the first month of
the school year, and over 75% received it by February. Less than four
percent never received the textbooks. When asked whether they needed
to pay any money to receive the books, nearly half reported in the
affirmative. Over 80% paid some fees to schools for events such as
examination, games, and milad (Government Primary 15.7%, NGO 59%, and
Ebtedayee madrassa 17.6%)
Private tutors: Students
receiving help from private tutors varied widely between urban and
rural areas. In urban Bangladesh, nearly 45% received such help
compared to 18% in rural areas. More boys (22.8%) than girls (19.8%)
received this.
Teachers: Average number
of teachers in different types of schools was 4.4 for government
schools, 3.9 for registered non-government, and 1.1 for NGO-run
schools. Nearly 40% of government schools had 3 or fewer number of
teachers. The teachers in government and other formal schools had 12
years of schooling but for NGO-run schools the average was 10 years.
Information on training of teachers revealed that
an overwhelming majority of government and NGO-run school teachers had
basic training; in contrast, only 32.5% of registered and
un-registered non-government schools, 17.5% of madrassas and 15.8% of
English medium Kindergarten teachers had their basic training.
Absenteeism of teachers was less a problem than
previously thought. The highest absenteeism of over 20% happened in
registered and un-registered non-government schools; the absenteeism
of teachers was less in government (12.7%) and the least in NGO-run
schools (5.3%).
Teacher-student ratio: In
government schools, which is the most dominant type, there were 73
students per teacher. Percent of schools where there were 40 or less
students per teacher was only 12.9%. The non-formal and kindergarten
schools had the most satisfactory teacher-student ratio.
Physical facilities: The
government-run primary schools had 3.8 rooms per school, 3.4 for rural
and 5.3 for urban areas. Number of rooms for registered and
un-registered non-governmental school was three and the same for
NGO-run schools was one. Over a third of the school buildings were
made of bricks (52.6% in urban vs 27.3% in rural areas; 46.6% in
Chittagong division vs. 17% in Dhaka and Syllhet divisions; 64% in
English medium schools vs 5.7% in NGO schools).
Over 90% schools had their safe drinking water
facilities within their premises or in nearby accessible places; half
of the schools had those in their own premises. Half of the schools
also had their own playgrounds; very few NGO-run and English medium
schools had playgrounds.
Approximately 60% or over of the schools hoisted
the national flag and also sang the national anthem. More than 90%
government primary schools hoisted the national flag compared to only
15% in NGO schools. While over 75% of the NGO schools sang the
national anthem, less than a quarter of the Madrassas did so.
Community participation:
Community participation was assessed by evaluating the activities of
the School Management Committee (SMC) and Parent-Teacher Association
(PTA). Almost all government and non-government (registered) primary
schools and madrassas had SMc. Also, 78.5% of the NGO schools had SMC.
The average size of SMC was 10 and only two of them were women;
women's representation was highest in NGO schools (56.7%) and lowest
in madrassas (0.2%). On average, 8 meetings of SMCs were held in 1998
and three quarters of the members were reportedly present in such
meetings. Further probe on these information suggested that the
information on SMCs as supplied by schools should be taken with a
grain of salt.
Supervision: The Thana
Education Officers (TEOs) visited 47% of the government and 30.8% of
the registered non-government schools during 1998; the ATEOs visited
94% and 78.7% schools respectively. On the other hand, the NGO
supervisors visited 79.6% of their schools. It was observed that the
mean number of visit by the respective educational authority was much
higher in NGO schools than the formal schools. In this case what is
more important is the quality of the supervision or what is being done
at the time of supervision. Watch Report in future should explore such
qualitative aspects of primary education.
Investment in education:
The country spends 2.3% of its GNP on education which is far too short
of what other countries in the region spend (compared to India's 3.8%)
(1994 estimates). The allocation in primary education is also very
little, and 90% of the allocations are spent in meeting salaries and
allowances leaving only a negligible amount for supervision, training
and curriculum development.
Major conclusion: The
country has set an ambitious goal to impart basic education to 80% of
its children by the year 2000. With lower than 30% children receiving
a minimum level of basic education and the rate of increase in this
being less than one percent per year, we have a long way to traverse.
Good progress has been made particularly in the areas of enrollment in
general and eradication of gender disparity in the same in particular.
Yet, there remains a long distance to traverse, quality of performance
being the major issue being still to be effectively addressed. A
momentum needs to be created with increased and judicious use of
resources. There is no room for complacency.
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Management
