As education has been earmarked as a priority sector, Bangladesh has done well in different key indicators of education, which were attributed to implementation of massive initiatives taken by the present government, education campaigners told BSS.
Bangladesh has a good track record in enhancing access and equity in education, with remarkable achievements in widening access to primary education, attaining gender equity at the primary and secondary education levels, they added.
They said, gender equity in primary and secondary education has been achieved well ahead of the Millennium Development Goal target set for 2015. Executive Director of Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE) Rasheda K. Choudhury said Bangladesh has become model in expansion and equity in education as significant number of students have been enrolled in primary education and gender parity has been ensured in both primary and secondary education.
As various effective initiatives including free textbooks distribution and providing scholarships and stipends among meritorious and poor students have been taken, drop-out rate has reduced significantly in primary education, she added.
“To achieve universal primary education in the country, budgetary allocation should be increased,” she said adding increased budgetary allocation also will help improve quality of education.
The Centre for Research and Information (CRI) sources said Bangladesh has ensured almost 100 percent enrollment at the primary level with drop-out rate coming down to 19.4 percent.
The present government has been distributing free textbooks to all students from class one to class nine from 2009-10 session in order to create opportunity of education for all notwithstanding their economic conditions and prevent the number of drop-outs, they added.
A book titled “Bangladesh Education for all” published by Centre for Research and Information said a total of 1.6 billion free textbooks so far have been distributed and for the first time ever, since 2015 all visually impaired children are getting Braille based textbooks free.
Due to the government’s vision to ensure education for all, in 2009, it added, a number of special programmes were adopted for ensuring access of underprivileged children to basic education so that they too can participate in the national development. Far reaching out of school children, 3,261 education centers were set up to provide around 10 million children with primary education.
Under another joint initiative of the government and UNICEF, titled “Basic Education for Urban Children”, around 2,00,000 dropped out children were given education, while another 20,000 children were trained vocationally.
