EDUCATION IN BANGLADESH
Education is provided by the government and semi-government, private and religious schools. Traditionally, for many families, children have been necessary to work the fields and help with chores and duties and this things had priority over schooling
According to the CIA World Factbook, only 2 percent of Bangladesh’s GDP is spent on education (2018). Compared with other countries in the world Bangladesh ranks 169th. The U.S. spends 6.2 percent of GDP on education; Japan, 3.5 percent; and Pakistan, 2.2 percent. [Source: CIA World Factbook, 2020 =]
Literacy (age 15 and over can read and write):
total population: 73.9 percent, compared to 62.7 percent in 2007.
male: 76.7 percent
female: 71.2 percent (2018) =
Bangladesh face many challenges in the area of education because of its large population and high poverty rate. Even so the country has made great strides in improving literacy, especially for females, and there have been many success stories guided by the government, non-governmental organizations and the Bangladesh people themselves. Particularly noteworthy has been the provision of information technology in remote rural areas and the cooperation between between government agencies, non-governmental organizations and rural cooperatives. [Source: Ashakant Nimbark, “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
The government invests a lot of money in higher education, and the quality of teaching in some areas, especially technical fields, is relatively good. However, the overall quality of university graduates in Bangladesh is lacking in the face of demands from the modern world, especially in fields such as information technology and engineering. Many well-educated Bangladeshis have been educated overseas, and many of them have been supported by the state or international organizations. There is a brain drain situation as many such students chose not to return home after graduating from overseas universities. This has contributed to a shortage of doctors, information technology experts, qualified teachers and professionals in various fields in Bangladesh. <<<
Education Reforms in Bangladesh
To improve education, the Bangladeshi government adopted an ambitious new national education policy in 2010 that introduced one year of compulsory preschool education, extended the length of compulsory education from grade five to grade eight, and launched a common elementary core curriculum and national examinations at the end of grades five and eight. [Source: Stefan Trines, World Education News and Review, August 1, 2019 ]
The government of Bangladesh has reformed education at all levels to improve the lives of its people and attract labor-intensive manufacturing and service industries to the country. Various programs have been launched, including direct special allowances, aimed at increasing the proportion of female students in school. However, many problems remain, including the generally low quality of education, a chronic lack of well-trained teachers and a shortage of books. Children from many poor families do not receive secondary education. [Source: “Worldmark Encyclopedia of National Economies”, The Gale Group Inc., 2002 <<<]
The government established thousands of new schools, especially in remote rural areas, and has invested a lot of energy and resources in improving education. But due to funding problems and insufficient school infrastructure, the implementation of many reforms has not taken place as quickly as many would like. Classrooms are still overcrowded, and teachers are often poorly trained. The dropout rate is high. Nearly 20 percent of students in 2016 did not complete primary school. At the junior high school level, the dropout rate in 2017 was 38 percent. Forty-two percent of girls dropped out before completing the 10th grade. Poverty and child marriage are at least partly to blame for this. The teacher-student ratio still much higher than the official target ratio of 30:1 (42:1 in middle schools in 2016).
Bengalis and Education
Bengalis are proud of their achievements in the arts and science. West Bengal produced the Nobel laureates Rabibdranth Tagore (literature) and Amartya Sen (economics). There are many Bengali professionals and bureaucrats. "The Bengali," one man told Smithsonian magazine, "has always set himself up to think that God put him on earth to be a poet or a writer, and other races to do the dirty work."
Describing a Bengali intellectual, Barry Bearak wrote in the New York Times, he is "by culture and self-assertion of superior brainpower and spirit, adept at debating all isms and wasms of political thought. He is the Indian who effortlessly quotes Marx and Marshall McLuhan, all the while sipping coffee and scribbling poems on a paper napkin."
The Bengali playwright and government official Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told the New York Times, "Intellectually, I humbly proclaim we are more advanced than anyone else. We discussed the great questions: What is postmodernism? What does Noam Chomsky have to say about this or that?" Some Bengali intellectuals claim they know more about the United States than most Americans.
West Bengal once lead India in education, but now lags behind the rest of the country. There are lots of schools. How long children stay in school is often determined by their sex and the caste or status of their families. Religious schools — pathsalas for Hindus and madrasahs for Muslims — are open to both sexes.
Education Statistics
School life expectancy (SLE) is the total number of years of schooling (primary to tertiary) that a child can expect to receive.
total: 11 years
male: 11 years
female: 12 years (2017)
[Source: CIA World Factbook, 2020]
Education
Adjusted net attendance rate, one year before official primary entry age; 77 percent
Adjusted net attendance rate, primary education: 86 percent
Adjusted net attendance rate, lower secondary education: 56 percent
Adjusted net attendance rate, upper secondary education: 48 percent
Completion rate, primary education: 83 percent
Youth literacy rate (15 — 24 years): 95 percent
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Early Childhood
Attendance in early childhood education: 19 percent
Early stimulation and responsive care (any adult household member); 63 percent
Early stimulation and responsive care (father): 11 percent
Learning materials at home — children's books: 6 percent
Learning materials at home — playthings: 67 percent
Children left in inadequate supervision: 11 percent.
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Net enrollment: pre-primary: 41 percent.
Net enrollment primary: male: 92 percent; female: 91 percent; total: 91 percent.
Primary completion rate: male: 64 percent; female: 72 percent; total: 68 percent.
Out of school children, primary age: male: 239,896; female: 447,457; total: 803,733 (2008).
Children out of school: primary school age: 5 percent (2010]
Children out of school, female primary school age: 3 percent.
Trained teachers in primary education: 50 percent of total teachers.
Persistence to last grade of primary, total: 66 percent of those who started (2009).
Net intake rate in grade 1, female: 93 percent of official school-age population (2010)
Gender parity index from gross enrollment ratio, primary: 1.07
Net enrollment secondary: male: 61 percent; female: 72 percent; total: 67 percent.
Gross enrollment tertiary: male: 28 percent; female: 20 percent; total: 24 percent.
World Bank datatopics.worldbank.org, 2018 and 2019]
Number of pupils per teacher (primary school): 54 in Bangladesh compared to 43 in low-income countries; 16 high-income countries; 15 in the U.S.; [Source: World Bank, CIA. World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C., 2006]
The national school attendance rate in 1982 was 58.9 percent for ages 5 to 9; 20.9 percent for ages 10 to 14; and 1.9 percent for ages 15 to 24. The estimated 1988 student-teacher ratio was fifty-four to one in primary schools, twenty-seven to one in secondary schools, and thirteen to one in universities. Approximately 10 million students of all ages attended school in 1981. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]
Literacy in Bangladesh
Literacy (age 15 and over can read and write):
total population: 73.9 percent
male: 76.7 percent
female: 71.2 percent (2018)
The adult literacy rate: is 99 percent for male and females in Russia, the United States, Japan and much of Europe.
[Source: CIA World Factbook, 2020]
In the 1981 census only 19.7 percent of the total population was counted as literate. The literacy rate was 17 percent in rural areas and 35 percent in urban areas. The urban-rural gap shrank slightly between 1961 and 1981, primarily because of the influx of rural Bangladeshis to urban areas. The adult literacy rate in 1988 remained about equal to the 1981 level, officially given as 29 percent but possibly lower. The education system also had had a discriminatory effect on the education of women in a basically patriarchal society. The female literacy rate in 1981 (13.2 percent) was about half the literacy rate among men (26 percent) nationally. The gap was even greater in rural areas, where 11.2 percent women and 23 percent of men were literate. (In 1988 the literacy rate was 18 percent for women and 39 percent for men.) [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]
In the 1990s it was estimated the the adult literacy rate was 43 percent (50.3 percent for males, and 31.4 percent for females). At this time literacy rates (15 years and older) were 65 percent in low-income countries; above 95 percent in high-income countries; and 99 percent in the U.S. The overall literacy went from 47 percent to 56 percent from 1997 to 2001. In 2001, the literacy rate was around 63 percent for males and 49 percent for females. About 46 percent of the world's illiterate people in the mid 2000s were found in South Asia, up from 22 percent in 1960. The adult literacy rate (48 percent) at that time was less than that of Sub-Sahara Africa (55 percent). [Source: World Bank, CIA, World Resources Institute, 2006; Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, Thomson Gale, 2007]
Bangladesh has worked with various international organizations such as UNESCO to reduce illiteracy and declared a target of "Education for All" and pledged to end illiteracy by 2005, which it obviously didn’t do but it made great strides anyway. In order to reduce illiteracy, Bangladesh implemented many nonformal educational programs. Under the auspices of the Bangladesh Rural Development Council (BRAC), thousands of informal schools were opened and literacy centers that use open spaces courtyards, and school buildings at night were established. These programs specifically targeted out-of-school children (especially rural girls) and illiterate adults. [Source: Ashakant Nimbark, “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
History of Bangladesh Education
At the beginning of the nineteenth century a system of liberal English-language schools based on the British model was instituted in the region that now constitutes Bangladesh. The emphasis on British education led to the growth of an elite class that provided clerical and administrative support to the colonial administration but did not develop practical skills or technical knowledge. The new elite became alienated from the masses of the people, who had no access to the new education system. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]
During the Pakistan period, there was a general awareness of the need to restructure the education system to meet the needs of the new nation. A 1959 report by Pakistan's National Commission on Education recommended a series of reforms that would reorganize the structure of education. These reforms included emphasis on broadbased and technical education. In the successive five-year plans and other national economic policy documents developed during the Pakistan period, a need was articulated to shift the focus of education away from rote memorization and to expand facilities for scientific and technological education. But the impact of such policies was not felt in East Pakistan, and, with only a few exceptions, a liberal elite-based education system with very little awareness of life in the countryside was in place when Bangladesh became independent.*
In first years of Pakistan statehood, English-centric public education did not benefit Bangladesh as much as it did in neighboring India. Debates about official languages and the language of instruction in schools was divisive issue that played a big part in generating tensions that resulted in the Bangladesh 1971 war for independence. In the former East Pakistan (Bangladesh), the official language was Urdu, not Bengali. Today, despite the British influence and the fact that many people speak English, Bengali is the language of instruction is more than three quarters of education institutions.
Despite periods of military rules, unstable governments, and other national crises, and widespread poverty and relatively the educational system seems has gradually improved since Bangladesh became independent in 1971. The Grameen Bank — which had great success bringing effort of granting micro credit to the rural poor in Bangladesh and won Muhammad Yunus the Nobel Peace Prize — launched a Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) to help needy and talented college students pay for their education with annual loans.
Education Spending, Planning and Policy in Bangladesh
. According to the World Bank expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP is 1.2 percent and expenditure on education as a percentage of total government spending: 9.3 percent Various governmental and nongovernmental plans have been developed to spread formal, nonformal, general, and specialized education. These plans have been given help of international agencies and some government budget increases. The main administrative bodies for education are the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Association of Universities of Bangladesh. [Source: World Bank, “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Nations”, Thomson Gale, 2007]
Public expenditures for education have been very low in Bangladesh for a long time. As a percentage of the gross domestic product, the level of expenditure for education in 1983 was approximately 1.3 percent, a figure that did not rise substantially through 1988. On the average, the sectoral share of education in the total development expenditure of the government between 1973 and 1983 was only 4.1 percent; in 1985 it was only 3.1 percent. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]
The Third Five-Year Plan included efforts to improve quality by restructuring higher secondary and college education, making it more cost effective, and introducing management controls and performance evaluations. Community-based nonformal education approaches seemed to hold promise as an alternative means of providing basic arithmetic and reading skills. For instance, the Bangladesh Rural Development Board has been able to achieve low dropout rates, especially for females, in nonformal primary schooling, keeping operating costs fairly low and capital expenditures at a minimum.*
The Ministry of Education and Culture was responsible for planning, financing, and managing education at all levels. The ad hoc Bangladesh Education Commission was appointed in 1972 to investigate and report on all major aspects of education. In 1987 another high-level body — the National Education Commission — was instituted. Its August 1988 recommendations were for compulsory free education; reforms in madrasa, medical, and law education; and removal of student politics from the campus. It was expected that the commission's recommendations would be addressed in the fourth and fifth five-year plans covering the period up to the year 2000.*
Ashakant Nimbark, wrote in the “World Education Encyclopedia”: During the last 20 years, education in Bangladesh has been gradually changing from its previous class-based system to the current mass-based system. Since 1971, the Ministry of Education and Culture has been responsible for planning, financing, and managing education at all levels. In 1972 a special Education Commission was appointed to investigate and report on all major aspects of education in Bangladesh. In 1987, another high-level Education Commission was instituted; it recommended a national policy for compulsory free education for all children, reforms in Madrashas, and the growth of scientific, medical, and technical education. The Commission's recommendations were incorporated in the fourth and fifth five-year plans covering the period up to the year 2002. [Source: Ashakant Nimbark, “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
Pressures by Islamists on Education in Bangladesh
Islamic organizations in Bangladesh are trying to exert more influence in the country’s education system. They made changes in school textbooks and have shown a strong interest in shaping curriculum. Their power and influence has grown in the ruling is growing, even within the Awami League, the avowedly secular party that has led Bangladesh for more than a decade.
Ellen Barry and Julfikar Ali Manik wrote in the New York Times: “It is a shift that is increasingly worrisome in a country that has “defined itself as adamantly secular and democratic. For years, this ideology seemed to serve as an insulating force. Transnational jihadist networks that flourished in Afghanistan and Pakistan found little purchase in Bangladesh, despite its dense, poor Muslim population and porous borders. But over the last several years, as extremist attacks on atheist bloggers and intellectuals became commonplace, secular thought was also fast receding from Bangladesh’s public spaces. Islamist organizations, analysts say, are so skilled at mobilizing that it has become harder for the government to ignore their demands. “Hefazat-e-Islam, a vast Islamic organization based in Dhaka, first called for changes to the textbooks during huge rallies in 2013. “We went to the higher-ups in the government,” Mufti Fayez Ullah, the group’s joint secretary general, said. “The government realized, ‘Yes, the Muslims should not learn this.’ So they amended it. I want to add that all the political parties, they consider their popularity among the people.” [Source: Ellen Barry and Julfikar Ali Manik, New York Times, January 22, 2017]
“Bangladesh has struggled to contain extremist violence in recent years, as Islamist militants have targeted secular writers and intellectuals. But equally significant, over the long term, are changes taking place in the general population: The number of women wearing the hijab has gradually risen, as has the number of students enrolled in madrasas, or Islamic schools. The divide between Islamist and secular Bangladeshis came into sharp, sudden focus in 2013, when tens of thousands of activists — mostly students at provincial madrasahs — flooded into the center of Dhaka with a list of demands: punishment for “atheist bloggers,” the destruction of sculptures and mandatory Islamic education, including changes to textbooks. The government, alarmed, put forward its own education overhaul. Beginning in 2014, education officials required the country’s 10,000 government-registered madrasahs to use standardized government textbooks through eighth grade, in the hope of better integrating young people from conservative backgrounds.
“Siddiqur Rahman, a retired educator leading the effort to revise government textbooks for use by madrasas, said the goal was “pushing them into general education.” “There was a wide gap in beliefs and thinking and attitude,” he said. “We are trying to change the attitudes of people on the street. It is difficult, but not impossible.” It has required many compromises with religious leaders.
Textbook Changes Brought On by Islamists in Bangladesh
Reporting from Dhaka, Ellen Barry and Julfikar Ali Manik wrote in the New York Times: “Bangladesh’s Education Ministry was preparing to print the 2017 editions of its standard Bengali textbooks when a group of conservative Islamic religious scholars demanded the removal of 17 poems and stories they deemed “atheistic.” By the time the books were distributed to schools on January 1, the 17 poems and stories were gone, with no explanation from the government. Other changes had crept in, too: First graders studying the alphabet were taught that “o” stands for “orna,” a scarf worn by devout Muslim girls starting at puberty, not for “ol,” a type of yam; and a sixth-grade travelogue describing a visit to the Hindu-dominated north of India was replaced by one about the Nile in Egypt. [Source: Ellen Barry and Julfikar Ali Manik, New York Times, January 22, 2017]
“The changes were barely noticeable to the general public, but they alarmed some Bangladesh intellectuals, who saw them as the government’s accommodating a larger shift toward radical Islam. That religious organizations now have a hand in editing textbooks, a prerogative they sought for years, suggests that their influence is growing, even with the Awami League party, which is avowedly secular, in power. A spokesman for the Education Ministry would not comment on the changes. Narayan Chandra Saha, chairman of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, said the revisions were routine and not made at anyone’s request. “If Hefazat claims the changes were made per their demand, I have nothing to say in this regard,” he said.
“A protest against the changes, held outside the textbook board’s offices on Sunday, drew a few hundred students and political activists. But there has been no criticism from the country’s main opposition party, the Bangladesh National Party, which typically pounces on any controversial move by the Awami League. “It’s like there is perfect consensus between the ruling party and the opposition on these issues,” said Amena Mohsin, a professor of international relations at the University of Dhaka. “In a majoritarian democracy, you give in to populism.”
“Madrasah leaders, in written recommendations to education officials, requested that “beautiful Islamic names” replace Hindu, Christian or foreign-sounding names in textbooks used in madrasas, saying this was “the concrete right of the people of Islamic monotheism.” They also requested the omission of any conversation between boys and girls, saying, “It’s a great sin in Islam to talk to a young girl for nothing.”
“The authorities, apparently, were quite receptive. In English textbooks for use in madrasas, all Hindu, Christian or foreign-sounding names have been replaced by Muslim names. Conversations between boys and girls have been omitted. Illustrations of girls with bare heads have been edited out. The word “period” was removed from a section on girls’ physical development. The name of the chairman of the textbook board, a Hindu professor, does not appear. “The government was a little flexible in that regard,” Mr. Rahman said. “I think that for achieving the greater good, some sacrifice should be made.”
“But the officials who oversaw the editing initially refused Hefazat’s demand to omit the 17 poems and stories from the general textbook, used in 20,000 secondary schools as well as madrasas, according to two officials on the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. Mufti Fayez Ullah, of Hefazat-e-Islam, said he had been compelled to go over those people’s heads to high-ranking officials. “If the government is willing to address this demand, bureaucracy cannot be that much of a hurdle,” he said. “We went to the Education Ministry. We went to the higher-ups in the government.” Rasheda K. Choudhury, an activist who served as a government adviser to the Education Ministry under the previous administration, said it was unclear who made the decision to accept the Islamists’ changes. “Nobody knew about it. Nobody is taking responsibility,” she said. “Parents are asking me, ‘Should we start teaching our children at home?’”
Curriculum and Education System Changes Sought by Islamists in Bangladesh
Ellen Barry and Julfikar Ali Manik wrote in the New York Times: “The leaders of Hefazat-e-Islam, meanwhile, are eager to suggest the next round of changes. Arts and crafts courses should not instruct children to depict anything living, which is proscribed by Islam, and should instead offer instruction only in calligraphy, said Abdullah Wasel, a member of Hefazat’s central committee. The group also wants to eliminate physical education textbooks that depict exercise by girls or young women, Mr. Fayez Ullah said. “What boys do, girls cannot do,” he said. “I can climb a tree, but my wife and sister, they cannot. It is not necessary to have pictures of girls doing exercise.” [Source: Ellen Barry and Julfikar Ali Manik, New York Times, January 22, 2017]
“But the larger goal, he said, goes far beyond textbooks. He hopes to push through a full separation of boys and girls beginning in the fifth grade. Mixing of sexes in the classroom, he said, results in young men and women who “prefer to live together, prefer to have physical relations before marriage.”
“As for the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, Hefazat has petitioned the government to remove every current member, starting with the board’s chairman, Mr. Saha, who is Hindu, Mr. Fayez Ullah said. “I would like to raise the question — and I am not saying I am against him — but is there not any Muslim that can be a chairman of the textbook board in this country?” he said. The group, he said, has requested that Mr. Saha be replaced with “a patriot who understands the sentiment and spirit of the population of Bangladesh.” “He added, “You cannot expect to grow jackfruit from a mango tree.”
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Bangladesh Tourism Board, Bangladesh National Portal (www.bangladesh.gov.bd), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.
Last updated February 2022