Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE), Bangladesh

Introduction and Objectives

As a result of domestic and international demand and increased financial commitments, primary education has become universal or near universal in many developing countries. Expansion of primary education has created pressure on the national governments to extend the length of basic compulsory education. The growing aspiration of families’ and the national governments’ emphasis on preparing the adolescents and youths for tertiary education and competitive market economy as well have put a premium on high quality secondary education. The demand for and expansion of secondary education that we are witnessing today are the result of namely two things, democratization of education and globalization. Three challenges facing secondary education are those of increasing access; improving quality of education and enhancing relevance of curriculum. The Education Watch chose to explore selected aspects of secondary education for its eighth annual state of education report.

In Bangladesh, seven years of schooling bridges primary with tertiary education. Secondary education is divided into three stages: junior secondary (grades VI-VIII), secondary (grades IX-X) and higher secondary (grades XI-XII). At junior secondary level, there are two streams, viz., general education and madrasa education. Vocational education is the third stream at the secondary level. In 2005, there were 19,148 general schools, 9,215 madrasas and 1,265 vocational schools in the country. Of the total students enrolled at secondary level, 79.4% are in general stream, 17.9% in the madrasas and 2.7% in vocational schools. The first public examination is held at the end of grade X, which is called Secondary School Certificate (SSC) for general and vocational streams and Dakhil for madrasa stream.

In recent times there have been a few studies on the situation of secondary education. The ones by Education Watch have covered both junior secondary and secondary levels and addressed a number of issues such as access, efficiency, equity and financing which included institutions under both general and madrasa streams. However, there has been a dearth of some vital information necessary for policy making, especially from a comparative perspective. Questions often asked about the two major streams are related to equivalence in curriculum and the quality of graduates produced. Continuation of educational pursuits beyond secondary and opportunities awaiting graduates in the employment market are two other issues that needed further investigation. Lack of information on such vital areas result in poor and/or inadequate planning for future human resource development. The Education Watch 2007 thus addressed the following issues.

Comparative analysis of the origin, development and curriculum of general and madrasa streams.
Testing the extent of attainment of the learning objectives by the students of the two streams and identifying factors affecting their attainment.
Exploring the upward movement of students to post-secondary and availability of employment opportunities for secondary graduates and its relationship.

Methods

Review of curriculum, textbooks and related secondary documents, workshop with teachers of the two streams and consultation with the experts in the field generated the necessary data to meet the first objective of the study. Development of a uniform test on four subject areas, viz., Bangla, English, Mathematics and Everyday Science through a rigorous process and its administration on the students of grade X in 2007 created the necessary data for the second objective. This test instrument was based on the learning objectives for secondary education set by the National Curriculum Coordination Committee (NCCC) in 1995. The instrument has 80 items equally distributed among the four subjects. In order to achieve the third objective, students who graduated from both the streams in 1997 were traced after 10 years of graduation and a questionnaire was administered to acquire information relating to their background profile and current occupation.

Five strata were considered for the study, which included government schools, urban private schools, rural private schools, urban madrasas and rural madrasas. The Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS) database of 2005 was used for the sampling of schools and madrasas. Over three thousand students of grade X from 192 schools and madrasas were randomly selected for administering the test. For the tracer study 2,887 graduates from 246 schools and madrasas were selected randomly. In addition, 148 heads of the institutions and 1,478 teachers were interviewed to supplement the findings from curriculum review and test of the students. Fifty-three field investigators collected the field data during April-May 2007. Of the three stages of secondary education, this Education Watch concentrated only on the middle one, i.e., grades IX and X.

Findings

Curriculum of Secondary Education

Review of goals and objectives, curriculum, textbooks, and examination systems of two broad streams under secondary education, viz., general and madrasa generated the following findings.

The madrasa stream of secondary education is less organized in terms of curriculum, textbook preparation and their implementation when compared to the general stream. There is a general tendency among some stakeholders of madrasa stream to keep a distance from the general stream or vice versa.
Although the National Curriculum Coordination Committee (NCCC) adopted a common set of learning objectives for secondary education, these are mostly followed only in the general stream. The Madrasa Education Board needs further capacity and intention to prepare curriculum and textbooks in line with the learning objectives set by NCCC.
Close examination of textbooks used clearly shows a difference between the two streams. It is the opinion of the researchers that the content is not adequate for the madrasa students to acquire required skills and competencies in basic subjects like Language, Mathematics and General Science.
Sharp distinctions exist between the streams in relation to the examination system, mark distribution among core and elective subjects, question paper preparation and assessment procedures, which is a serious obstacle to establishing equivalency among the streams.

Learning Achievement of Grade X Students

Learning achievement of the students of grade X in 2007 was assessed with an instrument based on learning objectives set by NCCC, which are common to both general and madrasa streams. Bangla, English, Mathematics and Everyday Science were covered in the test. Each subject contained 20 items totalling 80 in the whole test. The students were not previously alerted about the test. The following were the salient findings.

Of all the students tested, 7.5% correctly answered 50% of the items in each subject, 17.9% correctly answered 40% of items in each subject and 27.1% correctly answered 33% of the items. According to the ‘pass’ criteria used in SSC/Dakhil examinations, 27.1% of the students passed our test.
Of the four subject areas, the students showed best performance in Everyday Science followed respectively by Bangla, English, and Mathematics. The boys demonstrated significantly better performance than the girls. The gender gap narrowed as the ‘pass’ criteria became more stringent. In general, the gap was less in Bangla than in other subjects.
The students of the government schools representing the general stream were far ahead of all other types in performance. They were followed by urban and rural private schools. The madrasa students lagged behind. The ‘pass’ rate was 68% for government, 50% for urban private, 24.5% for rural private, 18.8% for urban madrasa, and 7.8% for rural madrasa students.
Gender difference with a bias against girls persisted in all types of schools. However, it was lesser in government schools than others. The worst gap was observed in rural madrasas.
Out of a total of 80 items, the students correctly answered, on average, 31.4 items in the test; 30.1 for girls and 33.1 for boys. Highest variation among the students in terms of number of correct items (measured through Pearson’s coefficient of variation) was found in Mathematics (44.8%) and lowest in Everyday Science (36.7%). The boys were found to be more homogeneous than the girls.

Correlates of Learning Achievement

Students’ background characteristics and its relationship with their learning achievement were explored. Instead of various performance indicators presented above, only the ‘pass’ rate was used in exploring the relationships. Salient findings are presented below.

Age of the students enrolled in grade X ranged from 13 to 26 years with a mean of 15.2 years. Twenty-three percent of the students were under-aged, a third over aged and rest were of the appropriate age (15 years) for grade X. On average, the madrasa students were older than their counterparts in general stream, and rural students were older than those of urban areas. The ‘pass’ rate significantly declined with the increase in age - 34% for 13-14 years old, 29% for 15 years old and 19.7% for 16 years and above.
A significant positive correlation existed between years of schooling completed by their parents, with the fathers often more educated than mothers. The parents of the students of government and urban private schools were more educated than others. The madrasa students were the most disadvantaged in this respect. A significantly positive relationship was found between parental education and students’ learning achievement. However, the relationship was much stronger with mothers’ education than that of fathers. Only about a fifth of the students passed if their parents did not attend any school or had an incomplete primary education. However, the pass rate went up to 52% if the father had a bachelor’s/masters degree and to 72.4% if the mother had a bachelor’s/masters degree.
In terms of food deficit status, a fifth of the students came from ‘deficit’ households (poor), 26.4% from ‘breakeven’ households and 56% from ‘surplus’ households (well-to-do). It seemed that the government schools attracted students of better-off families more. The proportion of ‘surplus’ households was 68% in government, 58% in urban private, 56% in rural private, 46% in urban madrasas, and 53% in rural madrasas. The ‘pass’ rate significantly increased with the improvement in household food security status- 21% in ‘deficit’, 27.3% in ‘breakeven’, and 29% in ‘surplus’ households. Gender gap in ‘pass’ rate narrowed with improvement in food security status.
Of the sampled students, 86% were Muslims and about 2% were from ethnic minorities. Seventy percent had electricity available at home. Non-Muslim students did better than the Muslims in the test (31.3% vs. 26.5%; p<0.05), ethnic minorities than the Bangalis (50% vs. 26.7%; p<0.001), and those having electricity at home than those who didn’t (32% vs. 15.3%; p<0.001).
Over 86% of the students had private tutors in the previous grade (i.e., IX). It was almost universal among the students of government schools (96%). More of the urban students (both private schools and madrasas) had private tutors than their rural counterparts. The students, on average, received 5.7 months of support from private tutors and spent Tk. 2,775 for this. The average length of using a private tutor and average cost for the same varied according to school type. Use of tutors impacted on the ‘pass’ rate, it was 29% amongst those who had it and 15.6% amongst those had not (p<0.001). As expected, the duration of private tutoring was positively correlated with the amount of expenditure for it (p<0.001).
Nearly two-thirds of the students read some non-academic books, indicating access to this, during the month prior to interview. Majority of them read literary books (48.3%) followed by religious books (16%). In terms of access to media, a third of the students listened to radio programmes, 80% watched TV and 52% read newspapers. Students’ access to non-academic books and media had a positive effect on their learning achievements. Learning achievement was significantly effected by student’s access to non-academic books, newspapers and television but not radio.

Curriculum Implementation at Institution Level

Interviewing the heads of educational institutions, the teachers and the students an attempt was made to understand various aspects related to curriculum implementation at institution level. The following provides a summary of findings.

Two thirds of the government and urban private schools, half of the urban madrasas, 43.3% of rural private and 38% of rural madrasas had annual academic plans.
About 60% of the heads of the institutions had a copy of the curriculum and 43% of them received training on curriculum. Three-quarters of the heads of the institutions claimed to have discussed curriculum-related issues with their colleagues. A larger proportion of madrasa superintendents than school heads claimed to have read the curriculum.
Seventy-eight percent of the heads of the institutions reported that they were aware of neither the strengths nor the weaknesses of the curriculum, although they were leading its implementation.
The head teachers/superintendents rated half of their teachers (who teaches Bangla, English or Mathematics) as ‘strong’ and 32-38% as ‘very strong’ in terms of ability to teach. Proportionately more Mathematics teachers were rated in these categories than those of other two subjects. Students of the government and urban private schools recognized that two-thirds of their teachers were knowledgeable in their subjects; this figure was higher (75%) in case of other educational institutions.
The students reported that majority of their teachers attended their classes regularly and taught appropriately. However, only 16% of the teachers arranged group work in the classrooms and 42.6% encouraged the students to read books other than textbooks. As the students reported, both verbal and physical punishments were applied on them. A third of the teachers verbally abused the students and 22.7% punished them physically.
Thirty-five percent of the teachers reported that they had no training for improving the quality of teaching; over 50% in the madrasas and about 30% in schools. Over 40% of the teachers were involved in private tutoring with urban teachers being ahead their rural counterparts. A fifth of the teachers had no interaction with the students outside classroom.
About 10% of the teachers confessed to have no ‘study habit’. The school teachers were more likely to read literary books and the madrasa teachers religious books.
The students find Mathematics most difficult subject followed by English. Science students in the government schools were more likely to have practical classes followed respectively by those in urban private schools, rural private schools, urban madrasas and rural madrasas. In majority of the madrasas and rural schools, only the teachers demonstrated scientific experiments without the students having any opportunity to do those themselves.
Majority of the schools assessed student performance through three formal examinations, viz., first term, second term and annual examinations. Test examination to select candidates for SSC or Dakhil examinations was also common. However, some schools and madrasas also introduced monthly, fortnightly or weekly examinations.
In co-curricular activities such as annual sports and games schools gave more emphasis. There were, however, very limited provisions for cultural activities like singing, dancing, drama, recitation, etc. or physical exercises.

Further Education and Employment Opportunities

This section presents information on further education and employment opportunities of secondary graduates. It may be recalled that graduates of 1997, 10 years after their graduation, were interviewed to know their current status. Salient findings are presented below.

Of the secondary graduates, 7.3% did not enrol in any educational institution for further study and 18.4% did enrol but could not complete higher secondary education. This means that over a quarter of the graduates did not go beyond the secondary level. Nearly a third (31.5%) completed higher secondary, 31.3% bachelors and 11.4% completed masters level education. The females were ahead of the males in attaining further education. Proportion of graduates entering into further education was 90% among government school graduates, 87% among urban private, 71.5% among rural private, 80.8% among urban madrasa, and 62.5% among rural madrasa.
Participation in further education of the graduates was found to be positively associated with performance in SSC or Dakhil examination. Ten percent of the graduates received first division in SSC/Dakhil, 43.3% received second division and 57% of those with third division did not enrol in further education. On the other hand, the proportion of graduates joining postgraduate education was respectively 21.8%, 5.6% and 1.9% of these three groups of graduates.
Graduates who studied Science at secondary level were more likely to go for further education compared to those who studied Humanities. About a third of the Humanities graduates and 16.4% of the Science graduates did not go for further education. Over 35% of the Humanities graduates and 52.5% of the Science graduates obtained a bachelor’s/masters degree.
A statistically significant positive correlation was found between parental education and further education of the secondary graduates. However, the effect was less prominent for female graduates except at a high level of parental education- fathers with tertiary education and mothers with secondary level and above.
How much have we progressed over a generation? All our sampled graduates had at least 10 years of education by definition; such level of education was attained by 45% of their fathers and only 13% of their mothers. The sampled graduates, on average, had 12.7 years of schooling compared to 5.3 years among their mothers and 8.3 years among their fathers. Years of education received by the female graduates were twice of the years of their mothers’ education and about one-and-a-half time of their fathers’ education.
Regarding inter-stream movement, none from general stream went to the madrasas for further education. On the contrary, over a quarter of the madrasa graduates enrolled in educational institutions under general stream for higher secondary education. Of the madrasa graduates who enrolled in higher secondary education, 17% from rural and 29.3% from urban went to the next level of higher education but a small proportion (2%) shifted back to the madrasa stream.
Marriage (22%), lack of money to continue education (14.6%), failure in examination (14.2%), engagement in income earning (29.6%), and lack of interest to study (12.7%) were the major reasons behind secondary graduates’ not continuing up to masters level education. Over half of the females reported that they had to stop their study due to marriage in comparison to only 2% of the males. On the other hand, 44% of the males and only 8% of the females reported ‘income earning’ as the reason for dropout. Marriage was the top reason for dropout among the graduates of government and urban private schools and ‘income earning’ for those in the other three types of schools. At the time of survey, 48.2% of the graduates were found married; 76.6% females and 31.4% males.
In tracing the students of secondary education ten years after they graduated, it was found that over a third of the secondary graduates were in paid jobs in the country, a quarter in housekeeping, 15.6% students, 9.1% running own business, 6.7% in paid jobs abroad, 2% in agricultural activities, 1.9% in private tutoring and 8% were unemployed. Over 57% of the females were in housekeeping and 23.3% in paid job in country. On the other hand, 40.4% of the males were in paid jobs in country, 14.4% ran own businesses, 10.4% in paid jobs abroad and so on. Over a quarter of the graduates of the government and urban private schools, 37% of those of rural schools and madrasas and 45.4% of those of urban madrasas were involved in paid jobs in country. The madrasa graduates were the least likely to be involved in housekeeping or study. Engagement in paid jobs abroad was more likely among the madrasa graduates. Urban graduates were involved more in running their own businesses. Two-thirds of the in country jobholders got jobs in private sector, 19% in public sector and 15% in NGO sector.
The paid jobholders earned, on average, Tk. 6,756 per month, males Tk. 7,490 and females Tk. 3,760. The average income was about equal for the graduates of the government and the urban private schools (Tk. 8,764 and Tk. 8,742 respectively). They were at the top of the ranking, followed respectively by the graduates of urban madrasas (Tk. 7,760), rural private schools (Tk. 6,227), and finally the rural madrasas (Tk. 5,853). Statistically significant gender variation with a bias against the females in earnings was observed for all types of educational institutions. Needless to mention, graduates who went abroad for jobs earned more than those who stayed back.

Conclusions and Recommendations

A high degree of inequity exists in the secondary education sub-sector in Bangladesh. Inequity starts with unequal distribution of basic school facilities. All types of secondary educational institutions lack basic minimum requirements for quality education. The government and the urban private schools have better facilities (both infrastructure and educational) than the rural private schools and the madrasas in general. Facilities in the urban madrasas are better than their rural counterparts. Inequity in secondary provisions is reinforced by students’ socioeconomic background, since students from poorer families attend schools with poor facilities. The other area of inequity is the curriculum. Students attending madrasas get lesser basic language and Mathematics skills than those under general stream. The above inequalities are clearly reflected in the learning achievements of students of various types of schools. The other dimensions of inequality are the urban-rural gap and the gender gap. As learning performance in secondary education has direct implications for future life, the above inequities persist throughout the life of the secondary graduates, affecting adversely their further education and employment opportunities.

Major messages from the study

There are a few major messages which emanate from the findings of the present study.

The first message is that there is inequality between the educational institutions depending on their management responsibility and location. Schools run by government are mostly in urban areas and are better endowed in respect of facilities, personnel and learning provisions. They are followed by urban private schools. The urban madrasas stand in the third position followed by rural private schools and rural madrasas. The hierarchy of quality among different types of institutions indicate that a small proportion of mostly urban institutions meet acceptable standards for educational provisions and facilities.

The second message is that a poorly implemented curriculum and other factors such as poor facilities and inadequate teacher training has led to poor learning outcomes as evidenced from the test conducted by Education Watch. Owing to the competition for entry into secondary education, the children of better-off families choose and manage to enter better schools, which lead to widening social inequity.

The third message is that there is a huge difference between general and madrasa streams in terms of what is taught. There is ample evidence to suggest that secondary level madrasa education is conducted on the basis of a poorly-constructed curriculum in the context of the current competency needs for the young generation. This has a legacy dating back to the days of British occupation but has never been seriously addressed. Faith based educational institutions are present in many countries but it is the responsibility of the state to ensure uniform curricula and their implementation for all educational institutions. Lack of flow of information and expertise between BMEB and NCTB exacerbate the gap between the two streams.

The fourth message is that the girls who enrol in secondary education equally with the boys, quickly find it un-enabling to move with similar enthusiasm after grade VII. Although there is a special stipend programme to encourage girls, this might not be enough to learn equally well as the boys. Socioeconomic barriers like marriage and poverty pull them away from further education and job market.

The fifth message is that due to the prevailing hierarchy of quality among institutions, a very small portion of the secondary graduates receives the education that prepares them for the workplace or further education. The failure to equip the large majority of secondary students with basic knowledge and competencies for the world of work and further education, damage a better future to our younger generation.

The sixth message is that education in Bangladesh has expanded greatly during the life of two subsequent generations- the present generation and their parents. Significantly positive correlation between the levels of education attained by the two generations indicates influence of the advantages enjoyed by parents carried over to their children.

Policy recommendations

The findings and conclusion of the Education Watch 2007 study on the state of secondary education raise the following policy issues:

Evidence in this study has demonstrated major differences between different streams of secondary education, such as between rural and urban provision. This difference is also evident in the standards of educational provision, facilities and staffing amongst the different streams of secondary education. The resulting inequality of opportunities and its causes and consequences should, therefore, be recognized as a central policy concern. Educational inequity at the secondary level should become the focus of educational development strategies, plans and
investments at the secondary level.
The development of a unified and common set of standards for learning provisions, teaching personnel and core curriculum content and objectives is a pressing issue for secondary education development. Concomitantly, enforcement mechanisms and a time-bound plan for facilities and provisions need to be set for all types of secondary institutions including government and private schools and madrasas from grades six to ten. This is an essential condition for, and the educationally and ethically defensible approach to, fulfilling the stated national goal of a unified curriculum for secondary education.
An appropriate common system of assessment, especially public examination at the end of the secondary stage, should be designed for all institutions. The design and planning should also include plans and investments for technical capacity building, standardization of tests, development of expected grade-wise competency levels for key subjects, and research and trial in learning assessment. This is a necessary condition for establishing meaningful equivalency among different streams and types of institutions.
Various studies have highlighted inequality and low level of access to secondary education in the appropriate age group, high drop-out and high levels of ‘virtual exclusion’ from learning of those nominally enrolled as key areas of concern in secondary educational development. Hence, these should be key considerations when designing and applying common standards, a unified curriculum and the assessment system.
The historical development of the parallel streams of madrasas and the general institutions need not be undone; however, policy questions critical to the rational development of secondary education remain. These questions particularly concern public funding of the different streams of education. No institution whatsoever should receive public funding if it does not conform to nationally decided curriculum and learning objectives.
A unified system would require equal investment for building curriculum experts in both NCTB and BMEB. It is costly, time consuming and may be undoable as well. BMEB could not build any curriculum expertise during last 30 years since its autonomous entity. A plausible solution is to develop expert in religious curriculum in NCTB. This will primarily be helpful in reducing gap between the streams and as well a meaningful arrangement for unification. A solution on a medium term could be a four groups approach, Under this, Humanities, Science, Business Studies, and Religious Studies would be taught in all educational institutions, whether it is school or madrasa.
Address gender related issues in teacher training and school management as well including conceptual clarity about gender and development, e.g., considering it as an issue related to both male and female students and teachers. Specific issues related to the adolescents and youths also need to be addressed with much emphasis.
A large proportion of the secondary graduates do go on to further education. Consequently secondary education is seen to be assuming the role of preparing students for higher education. However, what should be the strategy for the majority of students who do not graduate? In order to serve this group effectively, secondary education should change by placing more emphasis on preparation for the employment market. The issue of ‘vocational education’ is particularly relevant as we find that interest in and opportunities for overseas employment of secondary graduates is growing.