Lack of planning evident at every level of Bangladesh’s education system

Its name is Harvard International College. In reality, it has no functioning academic activities. Finding the college proved difficult. On 8 October, following the address on Shaheed Hariz Road in Jagannathpur, under Dhaka’s Bhatara police station, several local residents were asked about the institution, but none could initially point the way. Eventually, a shopkeeper gestured towards a building. The gate of the dilapidated building bore the name “Rainbow Model High School” on a wall beside it.

There was no one on the ground floor. On the second floor, a man introduced himself as Anwar Hossain, the college’s vice-principal. He said Harvard International College operated there. However, there were no signs of any college activities inside. The place looked more like an ordinary kindergarten or coaching centre.

Asked how many students had enrolled in Class XI this year, the vice-principal said he did not know and that the principal would have the information. The principal could not be found there either.

The education board later confirmed that not a single student had applied for admission to the college’s Class XI programme, even after students were given two rounds of applications this year.

Although students can apply to colleges through a centralised online admission system, not a single applicant included this college on their preference list. Yet, the college remains operational on paper, with 150 seats and teachers on its payroll.

Harvard International College is an example of the widespread mismanagement in the country’s education system. Such a lack of planning is not confined to the college level. From primary to higher education, institutions and seats are being expanded without properly aligning them with student demand, teacher availability, infrastructure and employment opportunities. This has been going on for years.

Some institutions have teachers but no students, while others have students but no teachers. Some universities operate without permanent campuses, while some technical institutions continue to exist despite having no students for years.

The lack of planning begins at the primary level. According to the 2024 Annual Primary School Census, Bangladesh has 118,607 primary schools, both public and private.

Primary education in the country covers pre-primary through Class V. A total of 20.183 million students receive education through 25 types of educational institutions and service providers. Of these, approximately 10.62 million students attend 65,567 government primary schools.

This means that around 45 per cent of all primary schools are privately operated, even though the state is constitutionally responsible for providing free and compulsory primary education.

The government does not have precise figures on the number of kindergartens among private primary schools either. In 2024, the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education estimated that there were around 44,000 nursery schools, kindergartens and privately operated schools. At the time, only about 20 per cent had received academic recognition or registration.

In other words, the government lacks a comprehensive picture of how many kindergartens are operating across the country, where they are located, how many students they teach, how many teachers they employ and which curricula they follow.

Kindergartens generally provide education from playgroup through Class V, although many institutions extend their programmes to Class VIII or even Class X.

Recently, however, State Minister for Primary and Mass Education Bobby Hajjaj said at an event that all private primary schools, kindergartens and English-medium primary institutions would be brought under government supervision alongside government schools. Similar plans had been announced under previous governments as well.

There are more than 65,000 headteacher posts in government primary schools, of which over 36,000 are vacant. Although 12,830 assistant teachers joined this month, around 3,000 posts in that category remain vacant.

Following a ruling by the country's highest court in July, the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has begun the process of promoting teachers to fill more than 36,000 vacant headteacher posts.

Data from several government and private studies and surveys indicate that students are failing to learn what they are expected to know at their respective ages and grade levels.

In June, the Compulsory Primary Education Implementation Unit inspected 341 schools in Dhaka city, nearly 600 in Dhaka district, 547 in Narayanganj and 611 in Munshiganj.

Its report found that many young students could not correctly pronounce several Bangla letters. They also struggled with conjunct consonants. Their weaknesses in English and mathematics were particularly noticeable.

The number of educational institutions offering secondary education has risen to 21,314 from 12,012 in 1995.

In addition, around 150 government secondary schools have been offering primary education for years. However, no separate teacher posts have been created for the primary sections. Secondary school teachers are teaching primary-level students despite having no separate training in primary education.

College sections are also operating at 10 government secondary schools, but no separate staffing structures have been established for these additional levels.

Meanwhile, 547 government primary schools offer education up to Class VIII. The teachers at these schools are also primary-level teachers. More than 70,000 students attend these institutions.

Altogether, secondary-level enrolment exceeded 8.638 million in 2025.

Under this poorly planned system, the same teachers are often required to teach students at different educational levels.

According to the recently published Bangladesh Education Statistics 2025 report by the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS), 9,982 teachers teaching English at secondary schools did not have English as a subject at the bachelor's degree level. Mathematics shows a similar pattern: 10,169 teachers teaching the subject did not study mathematics at the bachelor's level.

According to the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE), Bangladesh has 702 government secondary schools, with 15,293 approved assistant teacher posts. More than 3,000 of these posts are vacant. Nearly 375 headteacher posts are also vacant.

The situation at Zakiganj Government Girls' High School in Sylhet illustrates the severity of the teacher shortage. The school currently has 486 students but only two teachers. To cope with the situation, several part-time teachers have been hired temporarily.

Another major shortcoming concerns information and communication technology (ICT) education. Although ICT became compulsory at the secondary level in 2013, separate teacher posts for the subject have still not been created in government secondary schools, 13 years later.

As a result, teachers of mathematics, business studies and science are being trained to teach ICT, or are assigned ICT classes as needed.

One of the starkest examples of poor planning is this year's Class XI admission process.

Across 11 education boards, 1,829,485 candidates sat for the SSC and equivalent examinations this year. More than 1.144 million passed.

There are 8,180 colleges and madrasas eligible to enrol students in Class XI. Across the country, these institutions offered 2,601,779 seats at that level.

In contrast, only 1,003,288 students were finally selected for admission in the first two rounds, leaving around 1.6 million seats vacant. A total of 416 colleges and madrasas received no applications at all during the first two rounds. The third round of admissions is now under way.

The number of higher secondary colleges, degree-pass colleges, honours colleges and postgraduate colleges has also continued to grow. In 2009, there were 3,347 such institutions. By 2025, the number had risen to 4,936.

However, figures from the past three years show that student enrolment at these colleges has been declining steadily.

Increasing the proportion of students enrolled in technical education is a major government objective. The target is to raise the share of students in technical and vocational education to 30 per cent by 2030.

However, simply increasing the number of institutions and seats has not been enough to achieve this goal.

According to data from the Bangladesh Technical Education Board for the 2024–25 fiscal year, technical education was being offered at 12,932 institutions nationwide, with more than 1.974 million seats.

In contrast, approximately 975,000 students enrolled during that fiscal year, leaving a substantial number of seats vacant.

Some institutions are now being shut down because they have no students.

Recently, the education board suspended admissions at 246 technical institutions after they failed to enrol any students for three consecutive years. Of these, 137 offered diploma-level programmes and 109 offered HSC-BMT programmes in business management and technology.

The authorities have also initiated steps to suspend admissions at another 112 institutions and revoke their approval to conduct classes.

Earlier, 621 institutions offering vocational education were issued show-cause notices for failing to enrol students or conduct academic activities for extended periods.

Madrasa education is another major component of the country's education system. More than 4.25 million students study in madrasas, including those at the ebtedayee primary level.

The number of madrasas offering education beyond the primary level stood at 7,820 in 2002. By 2025, this had increased to 9,296.

According to BANBEIS data, more than 2.84 million students were enrolled last year in madrasas offering Dakhil, Alim, Fazil (pass), Fazil (honours) and Kamil programmes, up from more than 2.796 million the previous year.

In other words, the number of madrasas increased by 27 in a year, while student enrolment rose by more than 43,000.

These figures do not include Qawmi madrasas.

Bangladesh currently has 61 public universities and 117 approved private universities.

Despite the growing number of universities, the country continues to face problems with the quality of higher education and a shortage of employment opportunities.

A recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) highlighted the high rate of unemployment among educated young people. According to the report, 36 out of every 100 educated young people in Bangladesh are unemployed.

A substantial proportion of young people graduating from the National University also remain outside employment.

Research by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) found that approximately 28 per cent of graduates from colleges affiliated with the National University are unemployed.

One reason for the high unemployment rate is that employment opportunities have not expanded at the same pace as the number of universities and graduates. At the same time, links between university education and industry and the workplace remain weak.

Consequently, many students enter the job market without the skills required by employers, despite holding degrees.

Higher education also suffers from inadequate infrastructure planning. As many as 25 public universities still lack their own permanent campuses.

Furthermore, some universities originally established with a particular emphasis on science and technology have introduced subjects such as humanities, social sciences, business studies and even agriculture.

Yet plans to establish more universities continue. Applications have been submitted for approval to establish more than 10 private universities, and the University Grants Commission (UGC) is assessing their feasibility.

There are also plans to establish public universities in Cox's Bazar and several other districts.

Although the problems at different levels of education may appear distinct, they stem from a common underlying crisis: the expansion of institutions without aligning them with educational needs and practical realities. Political influence has also played a role in many cases.

Educationist Manzoor Ahmed, emeritus professor at BRAC University, told Prothom Alo that the current state of poorly planned education had not emerged overnight. Years of allowing this situation to continue have created disorder throughout the education system. Education has never received sufficient priority in political decision-making. Various government initiatives appear fragmented and disconnected.

He recommended setting medium-term goals and strategies for the major subsectors of education and implementing coordinated programmes to achieve them.

“Instead of addressing the problems at one level in isolation, we must take a comprehensive view of the entire system,” he said.