As a continuation of the first Education Watch this Watch report looked at another important aspect of the Bangladesh primary education, the quality. The Education Watch 2000 had two foci:

Focus 1: Assessment of the achievement of students in terms of the terminal competencies at the end of primary cycle.
Focus 2: Assessment of the state of teacher education for primary level.

The following presents the summary of the first focus. The specific activities carried out for this are the following:

1. Evaluate the textbooks and teachers' guides of Classes I to V prepared by NCTB in terms of graded attainable terminal competencies;
2. Develop an assessment instrument for evaluating learning achievements in terms of terminal
   competencies;
3. Do a nationally representative sample survey to assess the learning achievements of the students at the end of Class V in different school systems;
4. Establish relationship between learning achieve ment and selected background characteristics of the students; and
5. Observe primary classes to get a picture of the way the teaching takes place vis-á-vis the stated
   competencies.

Reflection of Terminal Competencies in the Source Materials
Of the 53 terminal competencies, 19 were covered 'excellently', 21 'fairly well', eight 'well', and five 'satisfactorily' in the textbooks of Classes I to V. On the other hand, in the teachers' guides 36 were covered 'excellently', 10 'fairly well', four 'well', and three 'satisfactorily'. None of the competencies were found 'poorly' reflected in the source materials.

Learning Achievement in Bangla and English Languages
There were three competencies each under Bangla and English languages which are reading, writing, and listening. There were 10 question items in Bangla and 7 in English.

The students did better in Bangla than in English in all three areas of assessment. On average, 36.5% of the students achieved all the competencies in Bang!a and 9.4% in English. In both the subject areas, students did best in listening, medium in reading and least in writing. Urban students did significantly better than their rural counterparts in all the six competencies. The girls did significantly better in writing English and the boys did significantly better than girls in reading Bangla. No gender difference was observed in other four competencies. Statistically significant variation according to school type was found in four competencies. The students of non-formal schools did well in three competencies, viz., writing Bangla, and reading and writing English; the students of government schools did better in listening English and the students of private schools could not show such performance in any language competency. No school wise variation was found in reading and listening in Bangla. Nearly seven percent of the students achieved none of the Bangla and 15.5% achieved none of the English competencies. On average, nearly three percent achieved none of the language competencies.

Learning Achievement in Mathematics
Competencies in Mathematics included arithmetic skills of the students including geometry. The five competencies assessed under this area included basic numbers, four basic rules, problem solving in everyday life, measurement units, and identification of geometric figures. A total of 15 question items were included in the instrument.

Performance in Mathematics was much worse than that of Bangla, but slightly better than English language. Only 11.6% of the assessed students achieved all five maths competencies and 13.3% achieved none. Urban students did significantly better in four competencies than the students of rural areas. No area wise difference was noticed in 'measurement unit'. The girls did not do better than the boys in any of the math competencies. The performance of the students varied by school type in three competencies including 'basic arithmetic', 'problem solving', and 'measurement units'. The non-formal sub-system secured the top position with 18.9% of its students achieving all five Mathematics competencies; the government school students got the second position with 10.6%.
 

Learning Achievement in Environmental Studies
Environmental Studies include Social Studies and General Science. There were six competencies under Social Studies and nine under General Science. The General Science section includes health and hygiene, and science and technology. A total of 31 question items were put in the instrument under these areas.

Less than a fifth of the students achieved all competencies in Environmental Studies (Social Studies and General Science). The students of non-formal schools secured the top position in both the subjects. In Social Studies, boys outperformed the girls in all the six competencies. On the other hand, in Science, Boys did better in five competencies and no gender difference was noticed in other four competencies. The students of urban areas did significantly better than those of rural areas in all the competencies in Environmental Studies. The achievement level varied significantly by type of school for most of the competencies. In Social Studies, non-formal school students showed best performance in three competencies, the students of government schools did best in one and both of the sub-system tied in one competency. On the other hand, in Science, the students of non-formal schools secured top position in six competencies, and the students of government schools did so in one competency.
 

Learning Achievement in Religious Studies
Only one competency was considered under this area. This was 'Life history of prophet Mohammed (SM) or the preachers of own religion'. Only 26.7% of the students achieved this competency; 30.3% for boys and 23.3% for girls. On average, 42.5% of the students of urban areas and 22.7% of the students of rural areas achieved this competency. School type wise analysis showed that 28.3% of the government, 18.4% of the private and 29% of the nonformal school students achieved this competency. Gender difference favouring boys prevailed in all three types of schools. The students of urban areas did better than their rural counterparts in two sub-systems, viz., government and private.
 

Overall Performance in Cognitive Competencies
Students did better in those competencies which did not require much thinking process or mastering of skills. The following shows the overall subject-wise achievement of the terminal competencies (% of students achieving all competencies).

The above shows that only 1.6% of the students achieved all 27 competencies. This was 1% for government schools, 0.9% for private schools and 6% for non-formal schools. The analysis was also done in terms of the average number of competencies achieved. On average the students achieved 16.1 competencies (or 60%) which varied between school type, residence and gender of students. The students of non-formal schools, urban students, and boys achieved higher averages than their respective counterparts.

At the national level, students showed 'poor' performance in three competencies, 'mediocre' in nine, 'satisfactory' in 12 and 'excellent' in only three. The competencies which the students found to be very difficult are 'writing English', 'problem solving in Mathematics', and 'Life history of prophet Mohammed (SM) or the preachers of own religion'. On the other hand, the competencies that the students found very easy are 'listening Bangla', 'duties as member of society' and 'importance of good health'. The students of non-formal schools showed 'excellent' performance in six competencies, which was three for government and only one for private school students. The students did better in the items which are of knowledge level than those of understanding level. School level analysis showed a wide variation in performance among the schools. Highest intragroup variation was observed in rural non-formal schools and lowest in urban government schools.
 

Classroom Observations
The case studies reveal that poor physical facilities, inadequate teaching materials (including textbooks), memory-based teaching style and lack of remedial measures in the classroom are the reasons for poor performance in the primary schools. Such inadequacies are more prevalent in private primary schools and least in nonformal schools.
 

Performance in Non-cognitive Competencies
This was done only in government schools. Sixteen percent of the students satisfactorily achieved all the 40 non-cognitive competencies, which was 158% for girls and 16.1% for boys, and 16.3% for rural and 14.6% for urban students. On average, the students achieved 27.2 competencies (or 67%); 26.7 for rural and 29.4 for urban students. The average achievement was 26.7 for girls and 27.7 for boys.
 

Background Characteristics and Learning Achievement
How far the socio-economic and educational characteristics of the students affect their learning achievement was examined. A negative relationship between age and learning achievement was observed. On the other hand, the performance of the students increased with the increase in parental education, self-perceived economic status and access to mass media. Non-Muslim students did better than the Muslim students.

Use of private tutor contributed in learning achievement. Students whose guardians discussed academic matters with their teachers, whose parents provided tutoring at home and whose guardians participated in school meeting achieved more competencies compared to those who did not do such things. However, students' participation in co-curricular activities had negative relationship with their learning achievement.

Schools with 40 or lesser number of students per teacher showed better performance than those with higher student teacher ratio. The performance of the students increased with the increase in the educational qualification of the teachers, but decreased with the increase in the length of service of the teachers. Schools with more teachers having professional training did better than those with lesser proportion of the teachers having such training. Distance between school and the local education authority had negative relationship with the achievement of the students. Again, the performance of the students increased with the increase of visits made by such authority.

Multivariate regression analyses confirmed relationship of various socio-economic and educational variables with the competency based learning achievement of the students. Except for a few statistically significant correlation of these variables were noticed on the achievement of the students of all types of schools. This indicates that their learning achievement largely depends upon their family background, the support they receive from their families and the school environment. The adjusted R² of 0.31 indicated that the explanatory variables considered altogether could not explain all the variations, which means that there are other factors as well responsible for the differential performance of the students. Future research should explore these new factors for a sustainable improvement of the quality of primary education in Bangladesh

• Learning achievement of students in terms of the 27 cognitive competencies tested is poor at best for all three types of school sub-systems studied. The students on average achieved 60% of the competencies tested.
• Better performance is shown in Bangla, mediocre in Environmental Studies, and very poor in Mathematics and English.
• Boys do better in general, although girls do so in some others. Gender difference favouring boys appeared in 18 of the 27 cognitive competencies.
• Urban children are advantageous in 26 competencies.
• The non-formal students outperform the other two groups in most assessed areas. The students of this sub-system were ahead in 15 competencies.
• The students of government schools satisfactorily achieved two thirds of the competencies under non-cognitive domain.
• The competencies are, in general, reflected well in the textbooks and the teachers' guides. The students do not do well even in the competencies which are 'excellently' covered in the source materials.
• Achievement of the students varies among schools within a sub-system. Highest variation is seen in rural non-formal schools and lowest in urban government schools.
• Students do better in those competencies which do not require use of the thinking process ("Problem solving in Mathematics") or mastering of skills.
• Socio-economic background and educational facilities have significant relationship with learning achievement of the students.
• Classroom practices are not much fabourable to attain competencies. Even the existing evaluation systems do not cover the competencies specifically. Very poor classroom environment was found in rural private schools, which was better in nonformal schools.
• Although budgetary allocation for education is poor in GNP terms, but most of it is spent in others than quality improvement.