REPORTS published by a national daily mentioned that family expenditure on primary and secondary education increased, according to studies conducted by the government and non-governmental agencies. Findings of three studies show that such expenditure for primary education doubled in seven years, from Tk 2,500 to Tk 4,800 on a student a year while the expenditure for secondary education increased in the same period from Tk 11,000 to Tk 15,000 on a student a year. The report mentioned that the education expenditure of families increased because of, among some other things, an increase in tuition, admission and other fees alongwith the cost of private tuition, books and stationery, according to the Education Watch Report of 2006, published in 2007, and of 2012, published in 2013, carried out by the Campaign for Popular Education.
Inflation can justly be argued as a major reason for the hike in educational costs. But it can also be justly argued that it is after all the government’s responsibility for bringing it down. Hiking prices of essential sectors like power and communications will inevitably increase the cost of living. Spending money on private tuition is also arguably due to the decrease in budgetary allocations for education which has gone down every year in terms of total budgetary expenditure.
Both of these two effects have the inevitable result of increasing the number of dropouts – students who mostly belong to marginalized families who cannot spend the amounts sufficient to enable their children to study upto the end of the secondary level – a fact which is borne out the data which suggests that the total number of children studying at the primary level is 1.48 crore but the total number of secondary students is only at 79.37 lakh – a deficit of over 63 lakh students at the secondary level.
This means that only 53 percent of students who study at the primary levels get to study at the secondary level. Exactly how many of them pass out by successfully giving their HSC exams are unknown but it cannot be a significant number as only 74 percent of students passed the 2013 exams – out of roughly 10 lakh students only 7.44 lakhs passed. The percentage going on to complete their tertiary stage of education – i.e. have managed to get a degree is concomitantly abysmal and merits close treatment.
All of these facts serves as a reminder that more incentives need to be to the parents of the students who are in secondary schools – if people can’t feed their children they are unlikely to send them to school. Hence budgetary allocations need to be increased rather than decreased – in terms of real GDP percentages, for this to happen. Quality teachers have to be trained and appointed – even at a higher cost, for private tuition to end. The quality of the syllabus which is heavily focused on rote memorization, has to be improved. All of this essential for turning around the fortunes of the educational sector. Otherwise we will be forever engaged in employing talented and qualified staff from outside Bangladesh and watching our foreign exchange reserves flowing out the country.
