Pre-primary education for 2 years emphasised

Pre-primary education, an integral component of early childhood learning, should be extended to two yars from current practice of one year to ensure optimum impact, stakeholders suggest.

This learning should start with children of 4+ years of age rather than 5 years, they told a roundtable at Spectra Convention Centre in the city on Tuesday.

The roundtable, ‘Pre-Primary Education in Bangladesh: Implementation, Experience and Possibilities,’ was jointly organised the non-government development organisation BRAC and UNICEF, in association with Prothom Alo as the media partner.

Addressing the concerns and observations made there, the government’s primary and mass education secretary Md Akram-Al-Hossain said more than 100,000 teachers would be appointed over the next five years to ensure that the pre-primary education programme is a success.

He added that the government’ objective was to ensure quality education, as part of its commitment to fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030.

The secretary pointed out that while previously the ratio of teachers to students in pre-primary education had been 1:56, it was now 1:36. With the appointment of further teachers this would be brought down to 1:30, he hoped.

Moderating the session, director of BRAC’s education programme Safiqul Islam highlighted the importance of having a two-year pre-primary education programme.

Director general of the primary education directorate Sohel Ahmed pointed out that this was a vital at it was during the first five years that around 90 per cent of a child’s brain development took place.

Children who went through two years of pre-primary education were found to be higher achievers, said UNICEF’s early childhood development specialist Mohammad Mohsin and BRAC education programme head Prafulla Chandra Barman said referring to international studies in their presentation.

Expressing appreciation for the government’s initiatives in the field of early education, director of BRAC University-IED, Erum Mariam, went on to say that focus was to be placed on four factors.

These include curriculum development for learning through play, developing a quality workforce through training, creating proper space so every corner offered an opportunity for a child, and also ensuring community involvement.

UNICEF’s chief of education Pawan Kucita stressed the importance of investment in pre-primary education.

He cited China as an example where the government there was investing heavily in early childhood learning. He pointed out that in Bangladesh the private sector could be involved in such initiatives, such as in the readymade garment industry. He said that early childhood learning ensured reduced drop-out rates at later stages of education and improved quality of learning.

Murshid Akter, head of education, Plan International Bangladesh, said there was a huge difference between pre-primary education and Class 1 when a child was suddenly thrust into an academic environment. So there needed to be a smooth transition to ensure that the child was not scared and robbed of the joy of pre-primary school.

Jena Hamadani, head of ICDDRB’s child development unit, felt the media had an important role to play in disseminating facts about early childhood learning to the public so as to motivate the people in this regard.