Education dropped from priority list

Education seems to have dropped from the priority list as this has been noticed more recently.

There have been commissions for various reforms, but there has been no commission for reforms in education.

The way various works in the education sector used to be done in a fragmented and isolated manner before, that same trend is being followed even now.

Educationists, researchers and people working on education said this at a pre-budget press conference titled ‘Education budget in the hope of a Bangladesh free of discrimination: Our Proposal’ organised by Campaign for Popular Education, a non-government development organisations working on education.

During the press conference held at the CIRDAP auditorium in the capital on Monday, the Campaign for Popular Education put forward several demands, including allocating at least 15 per cent of the upcoming total budget to the education sector.

In her opening speech at the press conference, Rasheda K Chowdhury, former caretaker government adviser and executive director of the Campaign for Popular Education, said, “Education has somehow been removed from everyone’s mind and from the priority list. This is being noticed at various levels, starting from the policymaking level.”

However, the biggest tool for human resource development is indeed education.

Rasheda K Chowdhury added that newer dreams are being woven in a new Bangladesh through a mass uprising. In this context, the first demand will be that education cannot be dropped from the priority list.

Professor Emeritus of BRAC University, Manzoor Ahmed was the distinguished speaker at the press conference.

He said that there persists extreme discrimination or inequality in the main character or characteristic of the country’s education.

There is a kind of discrimination in the three streams of education. Then there is another sort of discrimination in each of these streams. For example, there are some elite schools in the mainstream Bengali medium that are a little better. The wealthy or those who have the opportunity go there.

The rest of the general public schools or government-aided schools do not have that much of a standard. Also, there are different types of English medium schools. There are various streams, good ones and bad ones in madrasa education also. That means, only the privileged take advantage of the better quality institutions in education. Most of the rest are deprived of quality education of that standard, he added.

Manzoor Ahmed further said, “Yet, there has been a massive movement and a change of setting with the slogan ‘we want a society free of discrimination, we want to eliminate discrimination’. However, following the change of political setting, we did not notice any such discussions about the fact that education is a breeder of discrimination and it is running as a system to persevere discrimination rather than a way to overcome discrimination.”

“There is talk of various reforms, but not even a commission has been formed for reform in education. The way various work in the education sector used to be done in a fragmented and isolated manner before, that same trend is following even now.”

Professor Manzoor Ahmed also talked about the formation of a committee led by himself to improve the quality of primary education and expressed some disappointment over implementation of the recommendations made by that committee.

He said that they made some realistic recommendations after much consideration. Some actions are being noticed, but they also seem to be fragmented.

Research director at the Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Khondaker Golam Moazzem, also spoke as a distinguished speaker at the press conference. He questioned the government as not all the students of the primary and secondary levels received all their textbooks even after a long time after the academic calendar started. Apart from this, he also raised questions about the fact that there are so many commissions, yet no commission for education.

While speaking about the education budget Khondaker Golam Moazzem said, there is talk of increasing the budget allocation for education; but the Ministry of Education cannot even spend the allocated money. This is another problem. On one hand the allocation needs to be increased, while on the other hand the ministry fails to spend the allocation. Then again, the amount they do spend is not spent in a qualitative way.

CPD study shows that only 78 per cent of what was announced in the budget of 2022 has been implemented. That means, 22 per cent of the plans remained unimplemented. We have to get out of this loophole that this is a ministry with a low implementation rate.

During the press conference, focal point of Education Watch and deputy director of Campaign for Popular Education, Mustafizur Rahman presented various demands and recommendations regarding allocation for the education sector in the upcoming budget. It shows that the education sector budget has been stuck at 11 per cent of the total budget for several years. Bangladesh among all SAARC countries has the lowest allocation to the education sector.

Mustafizur Rahman demanded a roadmap on how to increase it to 20 per cent within 2030 by keeping at least 15 per cent allocation to the education sector in the upcoming budget.

Apart from that, several other demands including raising the bar of primary education till class eight and making it free up to that level, increasing the monthly stipend per student to Tk 500 in primary education, Tk 700 up to class eight in secondary education and Tk 1,000 for the classes above, along with mid-day meals for all were also forwarded from the press conference.