Getting value out of education spending
Sunday, 18 May 2008
Enamul Haque
Education is no more looked at, in isolation from a country's economic or developmental goals nowadays. Rather, it is recognised as the single most important factor in promoting economic growth and development through the creation of human resources. Countries like Japan and South Korea could achieve remarkable economic prosperity for their people in a relatively short period of time in the last century due to development of their human resources, by adopting appropriate educational policies.
Successive governments in Bangladesh claimed that they followed a similar path of using education as the means to attaining economic progress. But the claims have proved to be hollow as the prevailing education systems in the country are far from making the best use of resources being poured into the education sector.
Some quarters frequently suggest that the present education budget should be increased to realise different objectives of the education sector. But this suggestion draws scepticism as there is a consensus expert opinion that it would be useless to pump in more and more resources into the education sector until it can prove that the money will be well spent.
But there is no doubt about the need for a complete overhaul of the education system. The existing system produces mainly generalists. They are of no use for the country's developmental or economic needs. The thrust right from the primary to secondary and higher secondary stages should be on need-based education. Agricultural, vocational, scientific, technical and managerial education should form important components of syllabuses progressively throughout these stages. Drastic changes will have to be brought to these ends in the areas of teachers' training, recasting of syllabuses and the like.
The government needs to invest in a big way to build specialised educational or training institutions to create human resources in diverse fields like leather technology, fashion designing, marine technology, agro-product processing, information technology, seafood processing and modern farming. Investment in these specialised and sector-based educational institutions would facilitate taking care of the supply-side requirements to help expedite economic growth.
Primary education is now taking a lion's share of the education budget. While this emphasis could continue, investment of much greater resources is needed in technical education. The number of engineering universities, colleges, technical institutes, polytechnics, etc., must be rapidly increased without wasting time to make education life-oriented and to create human resources needed for economic growth.
Greater public sector investment in technical and higher education is also necessary because a majority of the pupils cannot afford education provided by the private sector at home or abroad. Only greater public sector allocation for education would provide long-term benefits for the country and the economy.
Education is no more looked at, in isolation from a country's economic or developmental goals nowadays. Rather, it is recognised as the single most important factor in promoting economic growth and development through the creation of human resources. Countries like Japan and South Korea could achieve remarkable economic prosperity for their people in a relatively short period of time in the last century due to development of their human resources, by adopting appropriate educational policies.
Successive governments in Bangladesh claimed that they followed a similar path of using education as the means to attaining economic progress. But the claims have proved to be hollow as the prevailing education systems in the country are far from making the best use of resources being poured into the education sector.
Some quarters frequently suggest that the present education budget should be increased to realise different objectives of the education sector. But this suggestion draws scepticism as there is a consensus expert opinion that it would be useless to pump in more and more resources into the education sector until it can prove that the money will be well spent.
But there is no doubt about the need for a complete overhaul of the education system. The existing system produces mainly generalists. They are of no use for the country's developmental or economic needs. The thrust right from the primary to secondary and higher secondary stages should be on need-based education. Agricultural, vocational, scientific, technical and managerial education should form important components of syllabuses progressively throughout these stages. Drastic changes will have to be brought to these ends in the areas of teachers' training, recasting of syllabuses and the like.
The government needs to invest in a big way to build specialised educational or training institutions to create human resources in diverse fields like leather technology, fashion designing, marine technology, agro-product processing, information technology, seafood processing and modern farming. Investment in these specialised and sector-based educational institutions would facilitate taking care of the supply-side requirements to help expedite economic growth.
Primary education is now taking a lion's share of the education budget. While this emphasis could continue, investment of much greater resources is needed in technical education. The number of engineering universities, colleges, technical institutes, polytechnics, etc., must be rapidly increased without wasting time to make education life-oriented and to create human resources needed for economic growth.
Greater public sector investment in technical and higher education is also necessary because a majority of the pupils cannot afford education provided by the private sector at home or abroad. Only greater public sector allocation for education would provide long-term benefits for the country and the economy.