Chapter 3

Overview of Educational System

3. A     Educational Context

3.1.      The education structure consists of a formal sub-system and a non-formal sub-system. Both the sub-systems also have parallel religious streams. The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education (MOPME) is responsible for basic education, comprising formal free and compulsory primary and literacy and non-formal education. The Ministry of Education (MOE) is responsible for secondary and higher education; it also looks after the Madrasah (Islamic) and other formal religious streams of education. More than 700 NGOs are active in non-formal education, with some of them organizing and managing formal primary schools as well. The private sector manages the English medium schools.

3. B     Formal Education Sub-system

3.2       Formal education is defined as “the institutionalized, hierarchically structured, chronologically graded education system starting from primary to post-primary levels of education” (BANBEIS, 1999). UNESCO defines it as “education provided in the system of schools, colleges, universities and other formal educational institutions that normally constitutes a continuous 'ladder' of full-time education for children and young people, generally beginning at age six and continuing up to 20 or 25 years of age”. Formal basic education usually comprises the primary school grades, but may extend to grade 8 level, as many countries, including India,  have extended ‘basic education’ to grades VIII, IX and even X (as in the Philippines). Thus, formal education comprises ‘an institution, hierarchically structured, and sequentially graded continuous 'ladder' of full-time education, and beginning at age 6 and continuing through 20/25 years of age’.

3.3       Bangladesh offers formal education at four levels: an informal early childhood education[1] in formal schools, primary education, secondary education (comprising junior secondary, secondary and higher secondary) and tertiary education from bachelor’s onward. Madrasah or Islamic religious education follows the same structure. Primary education covers a cycle of five years (grades I-V), secondary education covers seven years (grades VI-XII, 3+2+2 years). Bachelor’s degree takes two years (pass course) and Honors’ degree (3/4 years). Some of the universities have recently introduced a 4-year bachelor’s honors course. It takes two years to get a Master’s degree (MSS, M. Sc, M. Com, and MBA.) with a bachelor’s (pass) and one year with a bachelor’s (honors) degree. Post-Master’s education takes 2-5 years, depending on the discipline pursued.  The levels of education and average age ranges of students are shown in Table 3.1 below though it should be pointed out that in reality actual time taken to complete these various stages may be quite longer due to various system deficiencies:

Table 3.1: Stages of formal education and relevant average age range of students

3.4       A parallel system of formal religious education (Islamic) is offered through madrasahs. Starting with Ebtedayee (equivalent to primary), it advances through Dakhil (SSC), Alim (HSC), Fazil (Bachelor’s) and Kamil (Masters) level. These courses are of the same length as in the primary schools to universities and follow parallel curriculum. Privately managed Nizamia/ Khariji/Qaomi madrasahs also offer primary level (Ebtedayee) education. There are also mosque-based and residential Maktabs/Hafezia/Forkania and Qiratia madrasahs, which offer childhood and religious teachings. Bangladesh Madrasah Education Board, under the MOE, conducts public examinations from Dakhil to Kamil level courses and awards certificates to successful candidates. Recently, a private Qaomi Madrasah Board has been set up, which prepares curricula and syllabi of qaomi madrasahs, conducts examination and awards certificates and degrees.

3.5       Religious education streams also exist for the Buddhists, Christians, and Hindus. Sanskrit and Pali Board, with the Director General of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, overseeing the tols (schools for teaching Sanskrit), choupathies and colleges, which admit students with SSC to a three year course. Buddhist religious education is offered in Buddhists’ religious language Pali. It follows a similar three-year course as in Sanskrit. The Sanskrit tols graduates get the title “Teertha” while the Buddhist Tol graduates get the title “Bisharad”. The Christian religious education is offered in bible schools and Intermediate seminaries to SSC pass students while HSC pass students are admitted in major seminaries and theological colleges. Managed by Church bodies of different denominations, the theological colleges offer Bachelor and Master’s degrees to successful candidates. The subject of Islamic studies is compulsory for Muslim students up to secondary level (BANBEIS, 1999).

3. C     Non-Formal Education (NFE) Sub-System

3.6       Non-formal education is defined as “any organized educational activity outside the established formal system that is intended for specific objectives and to serve an identifiable clientele” (BANBEIS, 1999). NPA I defined NFE as "That form of education which consists of mostly assortment of organized and semi-organized educational activities operating outside the regular structure and routines of formal system, aimed at serving a great variety of learning needs[2] of different sub-groups of population, both young and old". UNESCO states, “Non-formal education may take place both within and outside educational institutions, and may cater to persons of all ages. Depending on country contexts, it may cover educational programmes to impart adult literacy, basic education for out-of-school children, life-skills, work-skills, and general culture. Non-formal education programmes do not necessarily follow the 'ladder' system, may have varying duration, and may or may not confer certification of the learning achieved”.

3.7       The NFE Policy Framework approved and instituted by the Government in 2006 defines NFE, as “Non-formal education is a purposeful and systematically organized form of learning that generally occurs outside the formal educational institutions. It is designed to meet the learning needs of educationally disadvantaged persons of different ages and backgrounds, flexible in terms of organization, time and place and may cover basic and continuing educational programs to impart basic literacy, including life skills, work skills, general culture, and facilitates lifelong learning and enhancement of earning capabilities for poverty reduction. It ensures equity in access and human resource development; it may or may not follow a "ladder" system, and may be of varying duration”.

3.8       NFE sub-system in Bangladesh, as elsewhere, cover four types of non-formal learning by age ranges as shown in tabular form below:

Table 3.2: The areas covered by Non-Formal Education in Bangladesh

Source: UNESCO PROAP, 1992; ^*Only PL and Skills Training under CE programs are available now in Bangladesh

3.9              NFE provides an alternative channel, a second chance to dropout and un-enrolled primary school-age children, adolescents to go to mainstream; and adults who missed formal education, to acquire basic literacy and life and employable skills to improve their social and economic conditions. Both the government and NGOs organize and manage NFE programs for different age groups as indicated above and discussed in details in Chapter XI.  The Government (MOPME) has developed through wide consultations an NFE Policy Framework to guide and help coordination of NFE programs in the country; and has published it in the official gazette in February 2006.

3. D     Educational Planning and Finance

3.10     The sub-sectoral plans for Primary and basic education, Secondary and Tertiary (First Degree and above) are drawn up by the specific line divisions with the help of the related directorates of the MOE and the MOPME. The Departments (Executing Agencies) prepare and submit the Development Project Proposal (DPP) to the Ministries. Ministries, after necessary scrutiny, send it to the Planning Commission analysis the project from the sectoral point of view and place it before the Planning Evaluation Committee (PEC) of the relevant Division of the Planning Commission, which through a meeting recommends the project for approval. The Executive Committee for National Economic Council (ECNEC) approves the project if its cost exceeds Tk. 250 million, while the minister for Finance and Planning gives approval if the cost is up to that amount. After the approval, the concerned Department under the Ministry goes for implementation of the project.  

3.11          Financing of education is mainly a government responsibility in Bangladesh. However, private sector bears a considerable share of the total cost for education, particularly at the secondary and tertiary levels, covering part of the salary support, the whole of allowances of teachers and other employees, land for school/institution premises and materials for the non-government schools and colleges.

3.12          Government funds both the recurrent and development expenditures on education through revenue and development allocations in the national budget. The sources of recurrent allocations are the revenue earnings of the government, drawn from internal revenue sources. Considerable amount of development allocations come from external aid, loans and grants, which account for less than 30% of the government development expenditure on basic education. Table 3.3 below shows the trends in allocation of funds for education under both the revenue and development budgets for selected years from 1990-1991 to 2001-2002:

Table 3.3: Percent Share of Education in Budget allocations 1990-1991 to 2002-2003

(Taka in millions)

Sources: BANBEIS, 2002; * = Revised Budget

3.13          The primary and mass education sub-sector has received highest share of revenue budget (ranging between 45.46%- 40.29% during the period 1990-91 to 1999-2000) allocation closely followed by secondary (ranging between 36.8%- 47.6% during the same period). Allocation of funds for development followed the similar trends. Primary sub-sectors' share accounted for 63.59% in 1990-91, which gradually came down to 56.68% in 1999-2000. The secondary and tertiary sub-sectors accounted for 36.41% in 1990-91, which gradually rose to a high of 43.32% in 1999-2000 (BANBEIS, 2002).

3. D     Overview of the Present Status of Primary Education

3.14          There were 78,363 Primary level institutions of 11 categories in the country in 2002. The enrolment was 17,561,827 pupils with 315,055 teachers. Amongst the students 49.7% are girls and 50.3% are boys signifying gender parity. The nationwide breakup of institutions, students and teachers may be seen in the Table 3.4 below:

Table 3.4: Teachers and Students in Different Types of Primary level Institutions (2002)

Source; DPE, 2002

3.15          Ministry of Primary and Mass Education (MOPME) had conducted the fourth round of Child Education and Literacy Survey (CELS) in 2002 to assess the progress of Compulsory Primary Education (CPE) in the country and used 18 core indicators as provided in the UNESCO Technical Guidelines for EFA Assessment for the purpose[3] (see Annex 3). The findings serve to assess the progress of implementation of Compulsory Primary Education since 1992 and provide useful data for future planning. The tables prepared from the gathered data show vital information and analytical picture of primary education, including specially the cohort analysis. As the CELS 2000 provides the latest published official data collected through survey, mainly these have been consulted as reference for relevant analysis for NPA II.

3.16          The survey result shows that only 10.32% of the children of age group 3-5 had participated in any kind of Early Childhood Development Programme and only 22.7% of the children enrolled in Grade 1 had received pre-primary education. Depressing as these pictures are the survey reflects the desire of people to obtain primary education for their children is manifest in high apparent intake rate of 149.6% in Grade 1; the Net Intake rate in Grade 1, however, 63.6% is disappointing. Similarly, Gross Enrolment ratio is quite satisfactory 106.3%; it was 104.7% in 2003 (BANBEIS, based on DPE data, 2004) while it recorded the Net Enrolment at 85.7%. The indicator of only 58.9% of the teachers having the necessary competence to teach according to national standards is very poor, yet considered not to be adequately expressive of the distressingly poor quality of teaching imparted by most of them. A common experience is that even for teachers having higher educational qualifications like Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from universities, the quality of teaching is not satisfactory. (The prescribed qualifications for Assistant Teachers is HSC for male candidates having C-in-Ed or otherwise Bachelors degree and SSC for female candidates.) Quality of teaching in rural schools, especially in non-government schools, is even poorer compared to that of Government primary schools.

3.17     The information that is of much concern is the wastage. Children take an average of 8 years to complete primary education (it is nine years in RNGPS). CELS 2002 findings show that the overall efficiency index is a depressing 1.6. PEDP II went into operation in 2003 with its focus on improving the quality of primary education in all its spheres. It should ensure that its implementation is efficient and effective so that findings of CELS in 2007 would really be encouraging. The Efficiency Index of 2002 has to improve substantially in the shortest possible time, keeping the cost reasonable while improving management, which is also a major objective of NPA II and one of the components of PEDP II.

3.18     Improving and strengthening the conceptual and empirical basis for such key measures such as literacy rates is a long-term challenge for developing countries such as Bangladesh.  While the general objective is to bring the statistical system in alignment with universal standards, an equally important concern is the substantive achievements which underlie literacy statistics.  Alongside improvements in literacy, government is also concerned that such improvements translate into better life-skills, positive behavioural changes and greater productivity.

3.18          Table 3.5 and Figure 1 describe the trend in budgetary allocations on primary education since 1990-91. Figures show an upward trend in public sector expenditures on primary expenditures. Per pupil budgetary allocation has increased from Taka 583 in 1990-91 to Taka 759 in 2003-04 at 1990-91 constant prices.

Table 3.5: Teachers and Students in Different Types of Primary level Institutions (2002)