CPD-UNFPA
Programme on Population and Sustainable
Development
Paper 8 (Summary)
Projection
of Population, Environment and Costs
to the State of Primary, Secondary
and Higher Secondary Education in
Bangladesh for the Period 2000-2020
Kazi Saleh Ahmed
INTRODUCTION
Bangladesh
has had remarkable success in
the education sector in the past
two decades. Between 1980 and
1998, enrolment in primary education
doubled from 8 million to 18 million,
revealing the pressure for expansion
of facilities. On the other hand,
Bangladesh is expected to achieve
replacement level fertility by
the year 2015. The trend in school
age population in near future
will change its direction and
is expected to drop significantly
by 2020. This indicates that the
investment should be redirected
towards improving the quality
of primary education first and
then of secondary and higher secondary
education. The education system
should be planned to serve the
major economic and social objectives
of society and to tackle the
multifarious problems with limited
resources. Planning needs the
examination of available data
on school age population, enrolment,
dropout, repetition, continuation,
resources available and a projection
of needs and associated costs for
primary, secondary and higher
secondary levels in Bangladesh.
In this backdrop, CPD has undertaken
a study titled Projection of Population,
Enrolment and Costs to the State
of Primary, Secondary and Higher
Secondary Education in Bangladesh
for the Period 2000-2020, to examine
the linkage between future size
of the number of school children
and enrolment, and based on the
relationship, to assess the basic
needs of primary, secondary and
higher secondary education.
OBJECTIVES
The
objectives of the study are to:
·
provide population size estimates
for the period 2000-2020
· make a projection of
the number of school age children
6 to 17 years for the period 2000-2020
· make a projection of
enrolment at primary, secondary
and higher secondary education
levels
· make an analysis of future
trends of dropout and retention;
and highlight the consequences
of dropouts on the enrolment projection
· assess the basic needs
· project the basic costs
to the Government of Bangladesh
· provide policy implications
related to future planning
METHODOLOGY
The required data is collected from
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics,
Planning Commission, Primary and
Mass Education Division, Directorate
of Primary Education, World Bank
Reports, and Bangladesh Bureau of
Education Information Statistics
(BANBEIS). Information was also
collected form various research
studies undertaken by different
other organisations.
MAJOR FINDINGS OF THE STUDY
-
Bangladesh
has a high proportion of
female population in the
reproductive ages (51.8%) and
38.3% of them are children.
Because of the large size of
the women of reproductive age
group and the consequent
population momentum, the size
and structure of the school
age children group will
continue to change. The
structural change will have
direct bearings on the
educational planning in
Bangladesh.
- Population projections of Bangladesh
indicate that the school age population
for primary, Secondary and Higher
Secondary education will be around
1.5 crore, 1.5 crore and 0.62
crore respectively in the year
2020.
-
The study indicates that the
net enrolment ratio at primary
level would be 100 for girls
in 2010 and for boys in 2017.
Thus enrolment at primary
level is likely to cover all
school age children by 2017.
Enrolment at secondary level,
is likely to cover 96 per cent
of all eligible children of
age 11-15 years, while
enrolment at higher secondary
level is likely to remain low
at about 40% of all eligible
children of age 16-17 years.
It is thus clear that
Bangladesh will achieve
education for all primary
school age children before
2017, and also that the number
of school age children would
remain static from 2020. The
static situation of the number
of school age children for
secondary education will be
delayed by some years,
sometime after 2020 and that
for higher secondary education
till 2-3 years later.
-
As the study indicates, a massive
improvement has taken place both
in qualitative and quantitative
terms in primary education. The
cause of improvements can be attributed
to the introduction of compulsory
primary education, supply of textbooks
free of cost, introduction of FFE program, development of facilities
and the increase in demand for
education. The study found that
the growth of primary school enrolment
(6-10 years) was much faster then
the growth of schools. The growth
rate of enrolment was 5.2% during
1991-98. The annual growth rates
of boys and girls enrolment were
4.4% and 6.1% respectively during
1991-98. During 1991-98, the growth
rate of teachers was 5.9% while
it was only 1.5% during 1981-91.
In 1998, the gross enrolment ratio
was around 107 while net enrolment
ratio was nearly 80 percent. The
difference is expected to be narrowed
in future. Besides, commendable
success has been observed in case
of dropouts. The dropout rate
decreased from 59% in 1991 to
27% in 1998. If the process continues
it is expected that dropout rate
will come down to the minimum
level.
- For secondary education (grades
6-10), as the study indicates,
the number of institutions, students'
enrolment, and the number of teachers
have been experiencing a steady
growth during the last decade.
The annual growth rate for institutions,
enrolment and teachers was 2.5%
(13.6% for girls), 9.1% and 3.5%
respectively with a gross enrolment
ratio of 10.6%. The secondary
school institutions would be able
to cover all children of age 11-15
in 2007 if the present trend continues.
Compared to the growth in enrolment,
the growth of facilities, teachers
and institutions was negligible.
This disproportionate growth might
have an adverse impact on the quality
of education. Promotion rates
by grades, as important parameters
to measure efficiency, have been
improving over time. The average
promotion rate was 75% in 1990,
increased to 81% in 1993 and further
to 86% in 1996. If more efforts
were provided it would be possible
to achieve 100% promotion rates
by 2005.
- A major source of wastage in secondary
education sector is the large-scale
failure in the SSC examination.
The study revealed that the wastage
is more than 50% every year. However,
the study showed that, there has
been a gradual improvement during
1990-96. Dropout rates - mainly
the cohort dropout rate - are very
high. This calls for an extra effort.
- Boys and girls in the 17-18 age-group
constitute the students of grade
XI and XII of higher secondary institutions-
intermediate colleges and degree
colleges. The performance of this
sub sector has been quite poor with
successful completion of HSC examination
rate at about 40%. The annual growth
rates were 14% for intermediate
colleges and 5% for degree colleges,
which is significantly higher than enrolment
growth. Irregular growth of enrolment
has also been found, which is due
to large-scale variations in the SSC pass rate. Growth of girls'
enrolment was faster (9.4%) than
the growth of boys' enrolment (4.9%).
The promotion rate experienced a
slight improvement in 1994 compared
to 1993. The variation of promotion
rates between classes was quite
significant. Class wise promotion
and HSC performances are the two
major areas of intervention for
improving the efficiency of this
sub sector. Repetition in both 11
and 12 classes, particularly in
grade 12, is quite high, and is
higher for girls of grade 12. Dropout
rates are highest in HSE institutions,
nearly 38 per cent in a span of only
2 years. The rate is alarming. Remedial
interventions are urgently required.
- Projections of future requirement
of teachers, classrooms and the
total cost to the government carried
out on the basis of projected enrolment
and other related parameters indicate
that resource allocation should
be substantially increased for an
improved quality education, with
the view of increasing the internal
efficiency and facility of the education
sector in the near future. The projections
showed that the requirement for
additional teachers (estimated at
a lower teacher-student ratio than
observed) over the actual of 1997
would be 1.2 lakhs, 3.26 lakhs and
0.8 lakhs for primary, secondary
and higher secondary respectively
during 2000-2020.
- The projections of classroom
requirements indicated that in
primary education sub sector a
total of 342000 classrooms would
be required. The total number
of classrooms observed in 2000
is 184722. So an additional 157278
classrooms would be required in
2020. It appears that a total
of 60000 primary schools, each
with 6 classrooms, would be enough
to meet the future requirement
of primary education. In case
of secondary education the total
additional classrooms requirement
in 2020 would be 179600.The recommendation
was to construct 2 additional
classrooms in all existing schools
and the remaining classrooms would
be available by establishing 15200
new schools each with 10 classrooms.
- Based on the annual growth rate
of 5% and the cost per student of Taka
1204 in 1997, the total government
expenditure in primary education
as estimated could be 21.05 billion
in 2000 and Taka 62.5 billion in
2020. The estimated total cost for
secondary and higher secondary education
sectors is Taka 22.72 billion for
2000 and is Taka 168.41 billion
for 2020.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
·
The BBS, BANBEIS, Planning Commission
and other organisations should
provide special efforts to make
their data more reliable; should
enhance cooperation to ensure the consistency of data;
should work together to create
a common database.
·
Relevant authorities should give
immediate attention to develop
systems to collect primary data
systematically which can be used
for projections and establishing
relationships between indicators.
·
A national data bank should be
developed. This data bank can
be developed by collecting comprehensive
data through a well-designed sample
survey on a national scale, separately
for each level of education.
·
In order to monitor the changes
over time, to update the data
bank and to establish linkage
between the sub-sectors, there
should be well-designed longitudinal
surveys to be conducted at some
regular interval (preferably at
a 2-3 year interval).
·
The impact of interventions for
reducing fertility is evident.
It is recommended that the present
programmatic interventions should
continue and for further success
new interventions should be found
out through operation research.
·
Analysis of past data reveals
that the availability of basic
facilities compared to enrolment
was lacking not only at the institutional
level but also at the national
level. Government should develop
a mechanism to ensure that each institution has the minimum facilities
for the stipulated number of students.
·
Promotion, dropout rates and repetition
rates of primary education show
that the efficiency of primary
education has been increasing
over time. In order to improve
further it is recommended that
the causes should be investigated
and measures to minimise them
be worked out.
·
In secondary and higher secondary
education, the growth of girls
enrolment surpassed that of boys
enrolment. But the slow growth
rate of boys should not be overlooked.
·
The internal efficiency parameters
show that wastage due to high
dropout, repetition, SSC and HSC
results in secondary and higher
secondary, have been reducing
but still very high, particularly
due to low pass percentage in
SSC and HSC. Some measures, particularly
reforms of teaching and evaluation
methods should be worked out and
implemented without further delay.
·
Promoting female education beyond
primary level should be given
top priority since investment
in female education can generate
a higher rate of return.
To
obtain the full text of this report
please contact:
Centre for Policy Dialogue
Dialogue
and Communication Division
House No 40/C, Road No 11, Dhanmondi
R/A, Dhaka-1209
GPO Box 2129, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh
Tel: (+880 2) 8124770,9141734,9141703;
Fax: (+880 2) 8130951
E-mail: cpd@bdonline.com
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does not include postal charges)
Pages: 46
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