Background
The fact that poverty is widespread in Bangladesh should not
be news to anyone. However, awareness of the situation seems
to have faded since mass attention was drawn to the country
in 1971 by George Harrison's concert for Bangladesh. The current
lack of attention does not reflect an improved situation in
Bangladesh. In fact, Bangladesh's public spending on education
still ranks among the lowest in the world. The country's secondary
school enrollment rate is just 17% and the drop out rate of
secondary students exceeds 50%. Unlike in the United States,
secondary education in Bangladesh requires tuition payment.
Since many families struggle to subsist, paying for tuition
and educational materials is not possible. VAB seeks to address
these problems by providing scholarship for poor students
so that they can continue their education, and by providing
vocational training to dropout youth so that they may gain
employment. VAB started operation in early 1999 and its ultimate
aim is to improve the quality of life in rural Bangladesh
through the promotion of education and vocational training.
Status
of Education in Bangladesh
Primary education is free and about 85% if school age students
are covered (Govt. schools cover 61% and private school 24%)
Main issues are low attendance (70%), low completion (2/3)
caused by poverty, child labor, and low quality of education.
Lower access and participation for the disabled and
minorities. Half the children failed to achieve 60% or more of
basic competencies. Low instructional time due to
low/irregular attendance of students and teachers. Main
instructional problems in formal schools are: no lesson plan,
teacher-centered instruction, memorizing and rote learning,
weak continuous assessment, rare remedial measures and use of
teaching aid, late arrival of textbook. There are many over
crowded schools with sanitation and security problems.
Centrally managed system, run by the national government,
weakens community involvement and ownership. In 2000, there
were 56, 960 primary schools having 14.8 million students
enrolled with 234,000 teachers.
Secondary Education
Most of the problems mentioned for the primary schools persist
for the secondary schools. The total secondary schools (junior
secondary-2846 - VI-VII; and Secondary VI-X) are 15,460 with
7,236,939 students. Girl students comprise about 52%
(3,758,823) mostly due to scholarships by government only for
girl students up to grade X. Of these schools 97% are private
with government support for teachers salaries and managed by
school secondary schools. But there are very high drop out
rater - about 21% in lower secondary (VI-VIII) and about 52%
in higher secondary (IX-X). As a result, out of 100 students
starting at grade VI, 60% complete grade X and take the
national exam in which about 52% passes, resulting in only 31%
survival rate at the end of national exam. Thus 7 out of 10
students cannot complete grade ten, becomes useless for any
vocational training or further education, and becomes a burden
to the family and the society. Other problems include: lack of
access for the rural poor and urban slum residents; curriculum
oriented to higher education and not practical skills; limited
physical capacity, very limited laboratories and computers,
large class size and high student teacher ratio (60:1); No
incentive system to attract good your teachers. A very small
share of teachers received professional training and academic
supervision is inadequate; and very limited facilities for
vocational/technical streams and even their benefits are
questionable. Add to this problem is local managing committees
do not work to enforce accountability or raise additional
resources.
