'28 pc children miss non-formal schooling due to job for family'

Twenty eight percent of the students attending non-formal schools missed schooling as they had to work for maintenance of their families whereas 20 percent children attending government primary schools missed schools for the same reason.

These were revealed at the launching of a study titled 'What Parents Think of Their Children's Schools' by Centre for Policy Research (CPR) of International University of Business Agriculture and Technology (IUBAT) at Dhaka Reporters' Unity auditorium in the city yesterday.

The CPR research group conducted the study on 349 parents at Uttara in the city during the summer of 2005.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr John Richards, a visiting professor of IUBAT, said Bangladeshi people realised the importance of women education as according to the study 90 percent of the respondents thought educating girls was as important as educating boys.

He also said poor parents do not bother about the quality of education that had been imparted in the non-formal schools and the government primary schools. Only the parents sending their children to the private schools are concerned about the quality of education, he added.

Vice Chancellor of IUBAT Prof M Alimullah Miyan said Bangladesh made advancement in imparting primary education to a large number of students, but the quality of education should also be ensured.

He also said management and administration deficiencies in privately-run primary and secondary schools and inadequately trained teachers hampered the quality of primary and secondary education in the country.