Classroom teaching in schools is not conducted properly. This is not a new problem—it has persisted for a long time. It is a structural issue. Addressing it in a piecemeal manner, through fragmented initiatives, will not solve it.
We need to improve the quality of education. We must also reduce inequality. It cannot be that children from affluent families receive quality education while those from poorer backgrounds do not.
We must explore how to mobilise resources for education. Overall, there needs to be a comprehensive review of the sector, one that is both in-depth and wide-ranging, not something that can be done in a few days or months.
The incumbent government has formed reform commissions on 11 different sectors. Education, however, is not among them. The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education did form a committee to improve the quality of primary and non-formal education. I chaired that committee.
We submitted our report to the government, containing several recommendations. Yet little has been done about it. Perhaps one or two recommendations have been implemented in a limited way.
A national education policy was formulated in 2010. But much of it has not been implemented, because successive governments have been more interested in consolidating control than in reform.
No government in the past 54 years has done much for education. The incumbent government could at least have initiated a beginning, but it did not.
Our education sector is a stark example of political failure. It is in dire need of comprehensive reform. Just as past governments did not act, I fear future ones may not either. Yet we must continue to hope.
* Manzoor Ahmed is an educationist and Emeritus Professor at BRAC University.
* The views expressed are the author’s own.