Primary education is like the foundation of a multi-storied building. As a weak foundation brings to the fore the risk of the entire building collapsing, the lowest tier of our education system is fraught with such a danger today.
Although the country has succeeded in substantially raising enrolment in primary schools in terms of quantity, it is facing a downhill crash qualitatively. Behind such a dismal scenario is poor quality of teachers usually recruited with minimum higher secondary certificates.
What is very serious has been the widespread allegations that most of primary school teachers are being recruited on political and monetary considerations without taking into cognizance their merit and aptitude.
Former Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam quite aptly underscored the importance of the beginners' education when he said: "Creativity is the key to success in the future, and primary education is where teachers can bring creativity in children at that level." It is only at the primary stage that teachers have to teach a child how to think, not what to think.
But that is not to be in Bangladesh. That is why, donor agencies have accorded top most priority to primary education.
The state of primary education has reached such a sorry state that the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has recently filed seven cases against seven primary school teachers in Banshkhali upazila of Chittagong. It accused them of getting their teaching jobs with fake academic certificates. The report is just a tip of an iceberg.
In fact, the dawn of independence saw a reawakening in the realm of primary education. In the light of this, steps to upgrade the education system were taken right after independence. In 1972, the Kudrate-e-Khuda Education Commission was formed to recommend objectives, strategies and action plans for creating a modern education system. But the ground realities are far from what the Commission had envisioned.
Once, teachers who joined the education sector were of high educational qualifications. Now, the last of the occupational options is teaching at schools. When there is finally a 'discovery' by educators on joyful learning, it shows just how awful the state of education is-learning should be innately joyful, or else it isn't learning-it is turning kids into talking parrots.
On the other hand, a large portion of the development expenditures in primary education are spent on building new schools. There is a need for more school buildings but what good is a school for without quality teachers, a school without educational equipment and books?
According to an estimate, there are about 50-60 children enrolled for each teacher in primary schools. This implies that even if all teachers teach during school hours, the total amount of teacher-time per child is, on an average, just around one hour a month.
A World Bank report has revealed that most children who have studied up to Class 5 are unable to read or write. The report showed that only 25 per cent of the total number of students enrolled acquired desired skill in Bangla and 33 per cent in Arithmetic. English is almost Greek to them during primary schooling. But it is at this stage that familiarity with English language should dispel fear of a foreign language.
The World Bank report also emphasised that those learning little or finding lessons uninteresting in the lower classes are dropping out before completing education up to Class 5.
Even though enrolment has increased, about five million children from poor families are out of school, and slum children in urban areas are deprived of educational facilities because of poverty and lack of proper environment. Unhappily, the objective of the government to introduce year-long pre-primary course in existing primary school infrastructure has not been followed up. There was clearly a benefit to be derived from keeping the preschool children in the fold of primary education, thereby encouraging them to stay on. There is nothing like instilling the habit of learning early in the day.
Another study has unmasked how free our free primary education is as it found that annual spending of primary school students is around Tk 37.34 billion. On paper the primary education is free, but in reality, all households including the poorest among them have to bear several types of expenditure for their children's education, it said.
The study on "Bangladesh Primary Education Stipend: A Quality Assessment" was jointly conducted by the Directorate of the Primary Education Bangladesh (DPE), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC). The study said, on an average, the annual cost of a primary school student is around Tk 4,788, of which 54.1 per cent is spent on private tuition. The total number of students in primary schools is nearly 7.8 million (2013 estimates).
It is high time the government carried out extensive reforms in the education system so as to make its primary segment strong. This will have positive spill-over effects on quality of secondary and higher secondary tiers. Billions of taka now being spent on education will not go waste.
arjayster@gmail.com
© 2026 - All Rights with The Financial Express
