Private tuition or coaching has been an essential part of the country's mainstream primary and secondary education for a long time. A large section of guardians has developed the notion that only coaching centres can help their children/wards to do better results in examinations. The shadow or parallel education industry has grown over the decades and has now become a source of earnings for thousands of teachers and businesspeople who operate the coaching centres.
The Private Education Institution Survey 2024, released by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) in July this year, showed that there are approximately 99,000 private educational institutions in the country. Of these, around seven per cent, or 6,500, are coaching centres where some 60,000 teachers provide education to students. Around one-fifth of the teachers in these coaching centres are female. Again, the number of full-time employees in the coaching centres stood at around 36,000 at the end of December 2023, while the number of part-time employees was 24,000.
The BBS survey also showed that the growth of average salaries and wages is higher in the coaching centres than in schools and colleges. It showed that the rate of increase in average salaries and wages was 4.16 per cent in 2023 over 2022, whereas the rate was 3.61 per cent in regular educational institutions during the period under review. The higher growth in salaries and wages indicates a booming business of coaching centres.
A newspaper report, published two months back, estimated the coaching industry is worth around Tk 14 billion in Bangladesh. In India, the industry is valued at around Rs 544 billion (or Tk 745 billion) and is expected to almost triple by 2033, according to a report published in India Today. In other words, the rise in the number of coaching centres is nothing unique for Bangladesh; rather, it is a global phenomenon now. What is troublesome in the country is the unregulated proliferation of the shadow education industry and unhealthy competition to attract students, primarily driven by business interests. A lack of adequate infrastructure, false claims of successful students or candidates, and intense pressure on students to achieve better results have already brought coaching centres under sharp criticism. Nevertheless, several factors contribute to the increase in coaching centres across the country, and without addressing these, it would not be possible to regulate the centres effectively.
It is well known that over the years, coaching centres have leveraged the deficiencies in the school education system. The flawed system of entrance tests for higher education and competitive examinations for employment also provides space for the growth of the coaching centres. The BBS survey showed that there were 275 coaching centres for university and medical admission and job preparation at the end of 2023. The actual number is more now.
A large number of school teachers are engaged in the coaching business, and many schools promote the coaching so that the teachers can earn some extra money. In some cases, teachers are allowed to conduct coaching classes at the school premises in exchange for sharing a portion of their fees received from students. School authorities also force students to join coaching classes. In this process, guardians have been exploited heavily. Without attending coaching classes, a student may face various consequences, such as negative marking in periodical tests, bullying by teachers and peers, and even restrictions on appearing in public examinations.
Many teachers also operate private coaching centres at their residences. Although termed as private tuition, the number of students in coaching classes sometimes exceeds that in regular schools. The BBS survey probably did not capture this type of home or private coaching adequately.
Many students studying at universities and medical colleges serve as part-time teachers in various coaching centres, also for earnings to meet their education and local expenses. These students, however, mostly work at coaching centres dedicated to admission tests for higher educational institutions.
Over the decades, various experiments on the education system and inconsistent changes in curricula have weakened the country's primary and secondary educational institutions at large. Teachers' training is also ignored, and salaries are not adequate in most cases. Society's perception of teachers has also changed as the spread of corruption and the proliferation of black money drive many to purchase education for their children, rather than investing in their children. The distorted attitude also encourages coaching.
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