Primary education: Are we on track?

The EFA Monitoring Group at UNESCO attempted to assess the situation globally and rate countries according to their status and trend in EFA components of primary education, literacy and gender equality in education. Applying an education development index based on indicators in these areas, a global league table was prepared by the monitoring body. Bangladesh ranked 107th in a list of 127 countries, just behind India (106th) and ahead of Nepal (110th) and Pakistan (123rd).

In the annual Education Week ( 24-29 November) events, the authorities highlighted progress made and plans for the future in primary education. Indeed progress has been made in the last decade in increasing enrollment, reducing drop-out, and improving completion of primary schooling by children. A major achievement has been attaining gender equality in enrollment; in this respect we have done significantly better than our neighbours in South Asia (other than Sri Lanka and Maldives, which had been ahead in basic education for a long time). Successful non-formal primary education programmes of NGOs in Bangladesh, implemented on a substantial scale, also have been internationally acclaimed and are cited as models of how the children left out or dropped out from the formal system can be reached.

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The large picture in primary education is still of serious deprivation in access, on top of extremely low learning outcomes for children. A closer look even at the official statistics of net enrollment, dropout and completion will show that over forty percent of children are not participating in a full cycle of primary education. The authorities have no reliable system of assessing what children learn, but independent researchers ( such as Education Watch) have shown that one third of children after five years of attending primary school remain without basic literacy and numeracy skills.

The Second Primary Education Development Programme ( PEDP II) for the years 2003/4 to 2008/9, the umbrella programme with ambitious goals for access and quality, has been planned as the main national development effort in primary education. Although labelled as a sectorwide programme and supported by a pooling of assistance by major international and bilateral donors (with the Asian Development Bank as the lead agency), it does not cover or take into account the madrassas, non- formal primary education and institutions other than government and government-assisted primary schools. The two categories of schools, government-run and government-supported primary schools, included in PEDP II do serve over 80 percent of the children. The rub is that the other 20 percent are the especially disadvantaged and hard to reach children and programmes aimed at addressing equity and access cannot ignore these. Nor is it realistic to assume that the problem would be solved just by extending the reach of the existing types of formal schools. Nonetheless, it is vitally important that PEDP II succeeds.

With almost a quarter of the time already gone of the six-year time-table of PEDP II, the programme is yet to take off the ground. It appears to be caught in a web of national and international bureaucracy, the ponderous way decision-making moves on both sides; and delays on the government's part in making key personnel choices and setting up a management structure. Some key actions that are conditions for activating donor funds release, such as an institutional analysis for initiating management reform and baseline studies of situation in schools, are still to be undertaken.

There are other concerns about how effective the implementation of the programme will be. The principal mechanism of professional and technical guidance and support of the programme is a large team of international consultants assisted by a larger number of national consultants. There is no room for involving and drawing on national institutions (other than government agencies) and organisations which can and have made a contribution to primary education development in the country. Only individuals can be involved as assistants to international consultants -- not institutions such as Institute of Education and Research (IER) of Dhaka University, Institute of Education and Development (IED) of BRAC University, BRAC Education Programme, CAMPE and others who could help energise the implementation effort, contribute to capacity building and provide continuity in professional capacity development even after donor assistance ends and the external consultants are gone.

The results of an implementation mechanism strictly confined to national bureaucracy and the external consultancy teams are evident from the critical delay and the lost time in the take-off of the programme. There are also concerns about the quality and effectiveness of what is going to be implemented. There are many questions about what kind of in-service teacher training will work, how schools and upazila level supervisors can take more responsibility and be accountable for performance, how the school managing committees can be more effective, what changes are needed in learning materials and so on. It is not just a matter of rolling out known and well-tested solutions -- the solutions have to be developed, tried out, modified further and applied with necessary technical support and monitoring. There has to be a continuing research, development and trial process, in which all national institutions and organisations who can contribute must be involved.

How to make up for the already lost time, move away from the "business as usual," and inject a sense of urgency in the national primary education effort? The authorities concerned first need to recognise that there is a problem in this respect. One way of ''jump-starting'' the process is to cut through the bureaucratic maze and begin fast-track implementation of critical field level actions anticipated in the PEDP II programme, at least in a few upazilas in different parts of the country, while the overall implementation planning is elaborated. The fast-track activities can focus on producing identifiable outcomes in schools' and children's performance within a short time. These activities can be regarded as try-out and demonstration of what works and what can be done in the national programme. Institutions such as IER of Dhaka University and IED of BRAC University, working with government institutions such as National Academy for Primary Education (NAPE) and National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB), will be more than willing to take up the challenge to help plan and implement the fast-track activities, if they are asked. This kind of thinking "out of the box" can happen only if the decision-makers at the top, especially the Minister-in-charge of Primary and Mass Education, see the need for it. Will they?

Dr. Manzoor Ahmed is Director, Institute of Education and Development (IED), BRAC University.