We are undoubtedly making great strides in the social, financial and educational fields. In achieving the MDGs (millennium development goals) including education Bangladesh has drawn the attention of others in bringing children to school and ensuring girls' education. In order to bring about fundamental changes in the social, economic and cultural fields education plays a significant role. Hence, the education sector must have a sound budget with real reflection and implementation. According to government estimation the overall education rate has increased 16.8 per cent in forty-five years. It stood at 63 per cent in 2014. Still, 37 per cent people are out of education. In 2013 the rate was 76.86 per cent in girls' education, better than boys' education (78.67 per cent). These are surely encouraging pictures. Still we need to give some more attention to the fields we have ignored.
When we look at the education budget, it gives a shocking picture that no right step has been taken to develop the quality of education. For the last seven years, the average budget for education was 13.7 per cent of the total budget and it was the highest in 2010. On the other hand, 2.0 per cent of GDP was spent for education in two decades. In this area we are lagging behind even Nepal and Pakistan. But according to UNESCO's advice it is better to spend 20 per cent of the national budget for education and at least 6.0 per cent of total GDP. Where do we stand actually today in this regard?
It is another practice in our country that technology, games and sports, health, religion are part of the education budget. Even, the educational institutions run by military are also included in the budget of education. It means the allotted money is distributed and shared with other fields showing education enjoys a fabulous sum of money. This is just for showing a big figure, not for real operation. It calls for our serious attention. Education budget must not be shared with others to show that a fat amount is allocated for education.
In the fiscal year 2014-15 this allocation stood at Tk 118.93 billion (11,893 crore) in non-development sector. On the other hand, in the development sector this allocation was Tk 36.47 billion. Because of this, the student cost per head became less than Tk 1,200 in 2012. In 2011 the student cost was Tk 1000 per head. The non-development sector includes textbooks for students, education materials, salary of the teachers and staff. Most of our education budget money goes to the non-development sector and the 330 million textbooks were given to the students last year which claimed not only a huge sum of education sector money but also the maximum utilisation of the manpower in this sector who could not make time to ensure quality of the books. What we are achieving through this free book distribution is not clear to us. There are many professionals in the society whose daily income is more than Tk 10,000, but their children get textbooks free of cost. And the children who come to school without eating any food or half-fed also get the government textbooks free of cost. This is a very contrasting picture and waste of money which can be spent for the development purpose of education. The children of well-to-do families should not be given textbooks free of cost. Are we giving quality education to our children? If not, what should we do this year to ensure it? We are really lagging far behind quality which must be a prime concern for our new budget.
A particular amount of money must be allocated for teacher development where teacher training, workshop, exchange programme of teachers from rural school to urban and urban to rural schools can be included. A lot of allegations are there about teacher training. It takes place just in the name. Songs, gossiping, expressing personal experiences take place in most of the training rooms. This is because we don't produce real trainers who can share the latest development of education happening in our country and other parts of the world with the trainee teachers. Trainers are selected on the basis of the length of service and position. Some educational institution heads expressed these facts in a meeting. They sent their teachers to receive training and wanted them to share the experience with other teachers but the trained teachers could not. This is very unfortunate. We must not continue teacher training only in the name of training. It must be conducted by the real trainers and worthy people, otherwise it will be another sector of wasting money.
Finance in higher educational institutions is depressing. According to the UGC (University Grants Commission) only 11 per cent of the money is spent in this field out of the total education budget every year which is only 0.12 per cent of GDP. Another thing in higher education is very negligible and it is 'research'. In Dhaka University, for fifteen research activities in a fiscal year only Tk 2.40 million was allocated to our utter surprise toward research which is the heart of higher education. When teachers in higher educational institutions don't find any scope to conduct research, they get themselves engaged in other activities which are not congenial to nurturing quality and moral education.
In the fiscal year 2012-13 only 5,662 people's resources were shown to be more than Tk 20 million which is not believable. The rich people try to evade tax in different ways. On the other hand, VAT which is an indirect tax is being collected from the common people. Some 70 per cent of the total tax the government gets from the people is through VAT (Value Added Tax) and only 30 per cent comes from direct tax. This is not a sound picture. It is seen that through VAT the poor and ordinary people are to pay taxes. They are to pay tax even for buying a bottle of water. This is an extra burden for them. On the contrary, many rich and dishonest people evade tax through different loopholes. If they can be brought under the tax net, the nation will get a fabulous sum of money which can be spent for the purpose of education. We are not ready to accept a thin amount for education on the pretext that we cannot afford to allocate a big amount for education.
The writer works for BRAC Education Program as a specialist and writes regularly on various national and international issues. Email: [email protected]
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