The primary education in Bangladesh is riddled with a lot of problems.It is mostly centralized, quality of teaching is very low, numerous gaps like rural urban, boys-girls, formal non-formals etc. are aggravating the problems may be cited as under:
1.Government: Bangladesh has one of the largest centralized systems of primary education in the world.Close to half of the primary schools in Bangladesh are financed and run by the government.ANother quarter is registered as non government Organizations (NGOs) also provide primary schooling to about 3million children.
Besides, primary education expenditure of $ 23 per student in Bangladesh is considerably lower than that in Pakistan ($ 48), India ($ 42), Sri-Lanka ($ 43) and China ( $ 42).However, the share of primary education in the total educational budget in Bangladesh is quite high, as 40 percent of revenue and 50 percent of development expenditure for education are allocated to primary education.THe structure of government expenditure is, however, unbalanced.
2.Quantitative Expansion without qualitative improvement:Although Bnagladesh has made impressve progress in quantitative expansion in primary education with its high rate of enrollment, available evidence suggests that the education, particularly provided through government schools, is quite ineffective in terms of quality.The rural urban discrimination in quality has also risen over the years.According to a survey conducted by Asian Development Bank (ADB), one third of the students surveyed had basic competency in life kills, numeracy and reading and writing while two-thirds had competency in life skills, numeracy and reading and writing skills.In case of basic competency, the urban schools were found to be better than rural schools while girls did better than boys.The rate of attendance was found to be 70 percent on average both for the boys and the girls.SO, the findings of the study indicate that apart from increasing enrollment and enhancing gender equality, achievement in other spheres e.g. teacher student ratio, completion rate, learning achievement, management and supervision cost effectiveness and institutional capabilities have remained less that satisfactory.
3.Logistical and systematic weakness : Teacher student ratio in Bangladesh is lower than that of other low income sountries.Majority of the teacher lack proper training and skill as well as motivation for the delivery of quality education.Teacher are burdened with many non teaching activities.Low attendance rate, lack of education materials and tools contribute to the persistent low quality of primary education in Bangladesh.Absence of academic supervisions and mechanism to monitor clas room performance is also responsible for poor quality.
On the demand side, poverty and illiteracy of parents create obstacle to enrolling and to ensuring completion of the five year primary school cycle.Prevalence of child labor is another impediment to enrollment and continuing education.
4. Weak local involvement : Community participation in the school affairs is minimal at present.The school management committees (SMCS) and parent teacher associations are not effective in discharging their funtions.Lack of cooperation from the committee members and lack of coordination among committee, teachers and administrator hamper the smooth management of schools.
5. The formal and non formal education's divide : There is a wide gap regarding quality and management of primary education between the formal and non formal educational institutions. IN non formal school, students are more competent in all the areas compared to their counterparts in formal schools.However, schools being ran by NGO's are also not accountable for the deficiencies.
6. Resource Constraints : Shortage of fund and improper use of available resources are also among the crucial constraints of quality improvement of our primary education.Even the resources available are being ill used due to rampant corruption in the education sector.
