Education and only education is the key to economic emancipation of a nation. Education has direct relation to the economy of a country. Moreover, economic, social, cultural and political development of a country mostly escalate on education. But poverty is the crucial impediment to achieving desired success in the realm of education. Poverty and education can't run simultaneously. Education and poverty lies in the position of dilemma. A country can never be ensured of education for all of its children if poverty stricken families exist. Ensuring education of children in a family definitely requires a significant amount of money to be invested. Therefore poverty is one of the premier hindrances towards educating all of the children of a country.
Without alleviating poverty the country can never ensure educated future generation who can contribute to the economic emancipation of the country. About 25% poverty-stricken people still live in Bangladesh and the percentage of ultra poverty-stricken people in the country is 12.4%. Obviously both the numbers are alarming for educating children of poverty-stricken families. Prioritising the issue to be addressed steadily and firmly, the government has taken stunning initiatives in primary education sector. The government nationalised primary education immediately after her independence and made primary education free and compulsory. The government is supplying free books to all categories of primary school students and providing monthly stipends to poor students. The government introduced special schools for children of poverty-stricken families (rural) and families of working classes (urban). As a result of taking the initiatives the government has been able to bring all the school-going children to primary schools. Therefore net enrolment rate in primary schools has increased from 90.8% in 2009 to 99.7% in 2013. So, a significant number of never enrolled children still exist in the country and they are mostly from desolated and marginalised i.e. poverty-stricken families. Despite bringing almost all the school-going children into primary schools, concerns still remain for the children of poverty-stricken families. To address family crises caused by poverty, children of these families are contributing to income generating activities or household activities. Poverty-stricken families inevitably compel their children to play truant from school activities for taking part in income generating or household activities. The consequences of poverty cost a great extent to education in view of attending teaching-learning process regularly and completing primary education cycle. It is really regrettable that as a result of this, the statistical picture looks disheartening. The rate of children completing a five-year primary education cycle increased from 52.1 per cent in 2005 to 70.30 per cent in 2011. The drop-out rate decreased from 47.2 per cent to 29.7 per cent over the same period. The drop-out rate now is below 25 per cent and is obviously alarming too. Daily attendance rate is also not satisfactory.
It is really difficult to reduce poverty when unemployment is high and labour markets demand more skilled and educated workforce than ever before in Bangladesh. Here theory of 'Vicious Cycle of Poverty' is working as the drop-out rate is increasing due to poverty and on the other hand poverty remains because of alarming rate of dropped out children. Since education is a powerful driver of development and one of the strongest instruments of reducing poverty, the government of Bangladesh badly needs to take new initiatives to bring all the dropped out and never enrolled children to schools through creating relaxed and congenial learning environment suitable for them. So, the burning question is - how should the government ensure regular attendance of dropped out children as well as bring never enrolled children into education? Moreover, this is also a massive concern for the government to ensure completion of their five- year primary education cycle as well as ensure equal learning like other students in the classrooms. Since existence of poverty-stricken families is found in the slums, tea gardens, low lying areas, natural disaster like cyclone, flood and drought affected areas and areas where ethnic minority and vulnerable people live, therefore the government needs to stress more creating income generating sources in these areas as the ways of alleviating poverty. It can never be comfortable to the poverty-stricken families to persuade them for sending their children to schools without managing livelihood programmes. In addition, these families need to be brought under government's social security network for economic emancipation. As an alternative arrangement the families might be provided with allowances considering children's economic contribution to the families. Besides this, initiatives might be taken such as starting of night shift teaching-learning activities in the government-run primary schools in the slum & labour intensive areas and the aforesaid areas of the country where poverty-stricken families live in large numbers. These special arrangements of education could be identified as Second Chance Learning Centres (SCLCs) aiming to create opportunities for school leavers to return to education as well as ensuring education for never enrolled children. Besides the general curriculum, SCLCs should have the opportunities of receiving vocational or technical training or education suitable and relevant to livelihood. Centres should promote education with scholarships, grants and providing meals or foods during teaching-learning time. The children of these centres might be provided with school dress and other learning materials except books.
The government may ask national and international NGOs to participate in noble initiatives of ensuring qualitative primary education for the children of poverty-stricken families of the country along with extending support in the process of alleviating their poverty. This could be a collaborative effort of GO-NGOs for making the country free from poverty as well as educating a significant number of underprivileged children of poverty-stricken families. Without bringing these dropped out school leavers and never enrolled children into education due to the curse of families' poverty, the government can never ensure social peace and overall development of the country. These children badly need equitable support for strengthening their foothold in building the country as future assets by attaining qualitative basic education. Considering it as the first and foremost responsibility, NGOs should response positively to the most challenging issue of the country to be addressed simultaneously with the government.
The writer is working for primary education in Bangladesh. auparbayazidkhan@gmail.com
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