Among some of the achievements that Bangladesh takes pride in is the rate of increase in school enrolment. While we have sufficient reasons to be elated over the good news on increased enrolment in schools over the last decades, especially of girls, perhaps a concern of equal degree confronts us. This aspect should never take a back seat in our mind. Unfortunately, we find that those who are in schools are not learning much.
A public seminar, organised by the Research and Evaluation Division of the BRAC, has warned us not to be complacent about accomplishment in enrolments. In fact, a learning crisis seems to afflict South Asia as revealed by a study conducted by Dr M Niaz Asadullah, Abdul Abdul Alim and Fatema Zohara Khatoon.
Children's learning may be suffering irrespective of how far they progress through education system. This is a serious concern not only in Bangladesh but also in South Asia in general where children, especially girls, drop out early. A World Bank document in 1992 covering 5,200 individuals found that majority of those who completed primary schooling failed to attain minimum standards in four areas: reading, writing, written mathematics, and oral mathematics. In fact, this may be called a sordid situation of 'schooling without learning'. The above-mentioned researchers, on the basis of a survey conducted in 31 sub-districts, confirm the weak relationship between schooling and learning in Bangladesh. The findings are very interesting and we will dwell on a few of them considering their policy implications.
According to the study, the proportion of children failing a simple 4-item written numeracy test (where ability to read and write is required) is 52 per cent among children completing primary school and 68 per cent among those having less than a primary education. Given that these tests are designed to assess rudimentary mathematics skills taught at the primary level, they highlight very low level of achievement in rural Bangladesh. Second, on an average, sample children increase their written math scores (i.e. percentage of correctly answered questions) by 6.4 percentage points per year of schooling (grades 1-9). Once we account for child attributes, parental characteristics and a measure of cognitive ability called Raven's scores, the figure is even lower - 4 percentage points per school year or grade completed. Third, among adolescents who have recently completed five years of schooling - called primary school graduates - the sample survey shows that 30 per cent do not have basic numeracy skills while 33 per cent and 66 per cent cannot read two simple sentences in Bangla and English respectively.
Thus the evidence indicates that a large proportion of adolescents continue post-primary schooling in order to attain these basic numeracy and literacy skills, even though they are supposed to have achieved this by the end of primary schooling. These findings do not change even after taking account of various correlates.
What are the reasons behind the slip between the cup and the lip? Obviously, a host of socio-economic and even political factors could be adduced to these untoward happenings such as disincentive to teachers on account of very low pay, poor logistics in classrooms, overcrowded classes, selection of teachers through corruption, politicisation of the management committees etc. that have historically bedeviled better education in rural areas of Bangladesh.
Besides these factors, one could also cite another important reason. Social customs and norms outside schools may also limit opportunities for learning. Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of early marriage in the world. Millions of children are raised by mothers who themselves are victims of child marriage and therefore, constrained to assist their children in learning activities at home. Using Bangladesh data, the researchers documented the inter-generational consequences of early marriage on mothers and their adolescent children sampled from poorest 19 north-eastern districts of Bangladesh. There is a causal effect of mother's early marriage on children's cognitive development. Moreover, the effect is significant only for daughters.
More interestingly, the survey data covering 64 districts reveals that two-thirds of Bangladeshi women (20-40 years old) reported themselves as 'literate' (i.e. can read and write) and on average have completed seven years of schooling. This implies that two-thirds of them failed in a simple combined test of literacy and numeracy even though they have good numeracy skills. It has thus challenged the commonly perceived positive link between school completion and functional literacy. One, however, needs to note here that numeracy skill is a function of some outside-the-classroom factors such as workplace and nature of work. For example, it was found that women could acquire important numeracy skills through outside employment and participation in microcredit. But literacy depends on access to schools.
By and large, the overall preliminary findings confirm that children's learning in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh is suffering, irrespective of how far children have progressed through education system. Given the shallow grade learning profiles, policies prioritising universal secondary schooling would not even succeed in delivering universal primary standard learning in the region.
Failure to address the learning deficit is likely to be catastrophic for South Asian women who have limited opportunities to acquire literacy and numeracy skills in post-schooling years. As we presume, there are a few policy points raised by the researchers - recruitment of qualified teachers and payment of higher salary, emphasis on classroom teaching, improvement of training of teachers and finally, end to early marriage as it cuts an adolescent girl in two ways - that disproportionately harm the women and their babies to come. Those who advocate lowering of the age of marriage for girls should clearly bear the consequences in mind. Child marriage is like a poverty trap that affects not only the present mother but also the future one and their generations to come.
 After a long journey on way to quantity, Bangladesh should urgently look at the quality of education to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the post-Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) days.
The writer is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.
abdulbayes@yahoo.com
Those who are in schools are not learning much
Abdul Bayes | Published: August 27, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: August 26, 2015 20:25:30
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