Poor standard of education

From the point of view of cost-effectiveness, the education sector has come under serious criticism from many quarters due to the colossal wastage and poor return from whatever investment has been made in this sector. Bangladesh gives very low priority to education in terms of investment in comparison to other sectors and per capita investment in education in Bangladesh is one of the lowest among the developing countries. However, the question remains that whatever little resources we have, it must be spent in a manner so that optimum benefits can be obtained. Unfortunately, in the case of education, the efficiency of performance of the sector has been at a very low level.

In education mainly two types of efficiency may be considered, namely, internal efficiency and external efficiency. Internal efficiency is concerned with the quality of teaching, physical facilities, curriculum, quality of teachers, etc, while external efficiency is concerned with the successful utilisation of the product that comes out from the education system.

By and large, the internal efficiency in our education at all levels, starting from the primary education upto the university has been extremely poor. In this respect, primary education which is considered to be the foundation of our education system has suffered from wastage and neglect that is simply colossal. Although the bulk of the allocation for the sector is being spent for primary education, the outcome has been most depressing. In a recent survey conducted by the IER in selected primary schools of the country, it has been found that there were less than 20 students in class V on the average. In some schools, there were only five or three students in class V. This proves beyond any doubt that the enrolment figures are highly misleading and do not provide a true picture of the situation. The staggering rate of dropout is also a reason for the wastage.

In spite of some attempts, it has not been possible to arrest the drop-out rate in the primary schools which is still as high as 70 per cent. Although widespread poverty of the parents has been identified as a major cause for dropout, there are other reasons which are equally important. The poor quality of teaching in these schools by inefficient and often uneducated teachers render education un-interesting to the youngsters who leave the schools in disgust. It has been a great mistake to employ huge members of primary school teachers after liberation due to political pressure and influence. These unqualified teachers are doing the greatest damage to the nation.

Due to lack of supervision of these schools, absenteeism among the teachers is rampant leading to a complete erasure of the sense of responsibility and dedication, the most desirable qualities expected of a teacher. The lack of minimum of facilities, such as, benches and non-involvement of the community in the affairs of the school add to the poor state of affairs going on in the primary schools.

Recently curriculum has been modernised and new textbooks have been introduced in the primary and secondary schools, but no refresher training has been provided to the teachers to teach these new subjects properly. The result is anybody's guess. Incapable teachers find it difficult to teach these subjects and therefore no learning is taking place in the primary schools. One source has mentioned that the wastage in primary education is about 80 per cent.

The case of secondary and higher education is no different. Huge failures in SSC, HSC and degree examinations speak clearly about the inefficiency of the system, mainly due to the poor quality of teaching and management. Nowhere in the world can one find such large percentage of failures in spite of the huge fund invested by the government as well as by the parents.

In the same way higher education is characterised by a mis-match of the objectives and the curriculum. The lack of a need-based curriculum renders higher education useless in most cases. It is high time that large-scale curricular reforms are undertaken to modernise university education in order to make it more efficient

The recent proliferation of private universities with meagre facilities have pulled down the quality of higher education. Proper monitoring and supervision should be geared up to ensure quality of teaching and learning in higher education. The private universities and also doing brisk business by charging very high fees from the students.

External efficiency is mainly related to the demand of the skills and knowledge attained by the students through the education system which has market value. In other words this refers to the employment opportunities available in the country for the graduates from various educational institutions. In this respect also the education system has proved highly inefficient in that it has failed to produce the right kind of skilled manpower for some sectors, while there is an over-supply of graduates in such fields as liberal arts and social sciences for which there is very little demand in the country. And this imbalance has been perpetuated at the heavy cost to the country and its people. Besides, due to an unprecedented slump in the economic activities in the country job opportunities are dwindling every year. It is estimated that educated unemployment in country stands at about 40 per cent which is alarming considering the wastage of the money and energy.

A general review of the existing scenario in the education sector speaks of an impending crisis. In order to develop our manpower, it is necessary to increase the rate of investment in education and at the same time efforts should be intensified in order to attain optimum benefit from the amount invested.

Greater accountability and closer supervision of the whole system should result in improving the quality of education at all levels. It is uttered often from high levels that education is the back-bone of the country. Looking the way education is being managed, this utterance appears more as a lip service than as a matter of conviction. Whatever the matter, the fact remains that we must accept that education is the only means of emancipation of our people from the present poor level of living.

Dr. Ashraf Ali is professor and Director, IER, Dhaka University.