Bangladesh has seen asymmetrical results from investment in education. Pre-primary and primary education have received somewhat positive evaluation in terms of almost 100 per cent enrolment in primary schools, gender parity, reduced dropout and improving quality; shortage of qualified teachers and appropriate classrooms has continued though. Tertiary education has shown impressive growth: 2.6 million enrolment (1.7 per cent of the population) with major questions on quality variation from institution to institution.
It is in the secondary education, which is regarded as the backbone for human resources development, that a major quality decline seems to have taken place. Despite spending thousands of millions of taka in the Monthly Pay Order (MPO), the downward slide in quality has persisted. There is an urgency in looking into the quality improvement in secondary education and a review of the MPO scheme.
It may be necessary to stop any further expansion or even existence of the scheme for those which (a) do not exist, (b) show blank performance in public examination results, (c) exaggerate in the number of teachers and (d) do not sharing of the tuition revenue from the students. Experience in several Asian countries -- Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka -- suggests a positive relationship in the process of the knowledge-based societies. For Bangladesh, a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is perhaps a necessity towards establishment of thousands of technical and vocational skills training centres or strengthening the same in the secondary schools for skills training towards the transformation of the young into human resources. Another step forward in education may be a compulsory residence of all tertiary students in the rural areas for a 09 credit full semester preferably in winter. The students under faculty and expert supervision will (a) live with and learn from the peasants the practical ways of eking out an existence, (b) help birth registration, (c) advocate small family norms in a planned population growth, (d) motivate resource preservation, regeneration and use of renewable resources for sustainable development, (e) resource mapping and so on. Such a practical orientation would make the graduates feel, plan and work better for the people they would be knowing in the process.
Tertiary education should, in general, have higher contents of technological and scientific coverage of relevance to the factor endowment context of Bangladesh.
GOVERNANCE IS A KEY FACTOR PROMOTING OR HINDERING GROWTH: Even if all the other conditions are favourable, ideal growth scenario may elude Bangladesh unless there is a confidence about political stability and continuation of the economic policies. On paper Bangladesh offers one of the best incentive schemes for the foreign direct investment (FDI) to flow in. The end result is a $1.7-billion inflow in 2012-13 which is not the most encouraging development. The investment-GDP (Gross Domestic Product) ratio is stuck at around 25 per cent and the private sector investment is on the decline.
Soul-searching is essential to find out if the hesitation of the investors is caused mainly by the shortage of physical infrastructure or is it a silent devaluation of confidence in good governance that keep them from rushing boldly and hugely. Availability of electricity, gas, land and even a stable law and order is perhaps only a necessary condition for achieving more than the growth rates Bangladesh has experienced in recent times. A twin strategy of gradually increasing the investment-GDP ratio to 30 (should not be difficult as the national savings rate is already at 29 per cent of GDP) and an overall confidence generating governance system without fear or favour reducing the Incremental Capital-Output Ratio (ICOR) to 3.5 will break the current trap and attain a 9.0 per cent growth rate in the next five years or so.
In the arena of law and order, exemplary but expeditious punishment within the framework of the due process, to the perpetrators of abduction and murder, land grabbing, usurping water bodies and tender terrorists may have a salutary effect in curbing crimes and confidence building. In the long run, however, constitutional reforms in the areas of (a) intra-party democracy, (b) term limitations of the head of the government, (c) one-person-one-position principle, (d) limiting the operation of Article 70 of the Constitution to only two instances, no-confidence motion and passage of the national budget, (e) commitment to accept election verdicts and limiting opposition to the constitutional means, preferably in parliament and (f) review of balance of power between the head of the government and the head of the state may be necessary to help remove the uncertainties, reach consensus on major national issues and assert a strong march towards the cherished goal of a democratic, progressive, non-communal Sonar Bangla (Golden Bangla).
This an adapted version of a presentation, made by Dr. Mohammed Farashuddin, President, East West University and a former governor of Bangladesh Bank, at the conference of Bangladesh Economists' Forum, held in Dhaka on June 21-22, 2014.
Physical infrastructure versus good governance
Mohammed Farashuddin concluding his two-part write-up on \'Infrastructure Constraints to Growth & Development\' | Published: June 27, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
Share if you like