Research on formal and non-formal schools

I have gone through the book titled 'Qualitative Methods in Educational Research Studies from BRAC' edited by Samir Ranjan Nath and A Mustaque R Chowdhury with much interest. Actually it's a compilation of a series of five collections. There is no denying the fact that the scope and presence of educational research prove to be relatively scant and low in Bangladesh. To face the upcoming challenges of the 21st century evidence- based policies need to be implemented. In BRAC's research history, 150 researches have been conducted mostly on quantitative, qualitative research occupied significant scope. This book offers five collective studies on primary education using the latter methodologies. Sixteen government primary schools and three registered non-government, four non-formal and madrashas have been brought under this study. Research and Evaluation Division of BRAC is unique in integrating the expertise of the disciplines of philosophy, sociology, psychology, anthropology and economics. In consequence this volume has examined the issues of rural education from a multidisciplinary perspective. The five research papers in this volume have closely examined issues of the quality of primary education in Bangladesh with reference to teaching and learning strategies, cognitive styles, school management and their achievements in comparison with primary school children educated entirely in government schools. It received the touch of professional researchers to find out, enter deep into the issues of educational problems and finding out the ways to address the problems professionally to offer scope of education to the total population. Chapter one, three and four are extremely relevant and should help increase the understanding of those who know very little about BRAC schools, the comparison between non-formal and formal schools, the constraints of non-formal schools, some of their success stories despite problems and some chronic and common ills in the government primary schools. One of the strengths is that the research examined the success of any innovation side by side with the identification of reasons of failure. The community people join in different phases of school development of the non-formal schools. A person's interest in winning the government election influenced him in establishing the Bandarban School. None of the teachers, School Managing Committee (SMC) members and the parents of Dhaka school know much about the history of the school. This signifies an alienation of the community in a metropolitan city from the school and an opposite situation in the rural areas. At the initial stage people in the communities who are interested in education play important roles in publicising the schools and asking the parents to send their children to those institutions. The second paper of this collection of books by Hossain and his colleagues is based on a study done after a decade of the first one. As part of investigation the quality of primary education, the classroom teaching learning process was observed. Although government primary school, registered non-government primary school and BRAC non-formal primary school were considered in the study, the researchers also observed the culture in Ebtedayi Madrasas. Two schools from each type were selected from one upazila after consulting with the respective authorities. The multifarious dimensions or the primary education splitting can find a collective proof in this collection. Aiming to know why some primary schools are providing quality education despite the well documented constraints they face, this paper investigated six mainstream primary schools selected by a team in the directorate of primary education. Attempts were made to draw on anthropological and ethnographic research traditions to achieve original insights into the schools. Six standalone case studies were prepared on them which are presented here as a cross-case analysis. The findings reveal that these schools were promoted by their higher authorities including providing head teachers with leadership quality, additional financial support and adequate number of teachers which made these quality educational institutions. Annual school plan, regularity discipline of staff and regular SMC meetings and teachers' accountability to SMC were found as significant features of the government schools. Classroom performance of the teachers was excellent. The government schools under study received additional support from higher authorities, besides they had their own income source. The government school enjoyed certain autonomy in financial matters and temporary staff recruitment. Unlike the formal schools, there was no school managing committee for BRAC non-formal primary schools; however, a seven-member parent's committee existed for each of the learning centre. Only the parents of the learners of a particular centre are eligible to become members of the committee for that centre. There were no regular forum meetings of these committees. However, each member visited the respective centre once a week. It is the responsibility of the committees to organise the parents' teacher meeting once a month separately for each centre. This portion reflects how non-formal schools are run. The study was accomplished based on the team work of seven researchers, two principal researchers and five junior researchers. The principal researchers were trained in anthropology, education research and statistics. Both have previous experience in preparing school case studies. The junior researchers were educated in anthropology. They also had some knowledge and experience in ethnographic fieldwork in educational research. Four of the junior researchers were assigned to four study schools for fieldwork. They were stationed in places near the schools. The remaining one was responsible for overall coordination of fieldwork. Rapport building, introducing themselves to the communities and knowing the people took about three weeks of fieldwork. The future education researchers can find a good amount of resources to conduct an authentic and professional research. The teachers whose classes were observed knew that punishment does not promote learning; even then they were seen scolding and beating up the young learners. The researchers found out the flexible and weak assessment system of the teachers. Their own weakness and giving additional scores to the undeserving students were discerned. Each school put emphasis on administrative work rather than academic supervision which contributes to poor performing results of the students. These significant findings will show the ways to those who really want to better the slippery situation of primary education of the country. The writer is Programme Manager: BRAC Education Programme, and can be reached at Email: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com