Cricket and Primary
Education - these most valued issues are playing a pivotal role in carrying
Bangladesh’s pride to the world community. Like Shakib, Mashrafi, Mushfiq and
Mustafiz, primary school children and their parents under the leadership of
present government introduce Bangladesh differently to the other nations of the
world as a role model to follow. Primary education in Bangladesh is the
flagship of bringing rapid revolutionary success in the indicators like access,
attendance, gender parity etc. presenting the country as a role model to the
countries all over the world that are lagging far behind in the above mentioned
indicators. The success in primary education was not an event but was a process
which started immediately after emerging as an independent nation under the
visionary and foresighted leadership of the architect of the country, the
Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Realising the
importance of primary education as the first and foremost weapon of economic
development of a newly born country, the Father of the Nation took the brave
and historical initiative of nationalizing primary education with a view to
mainstreaming it. Despite facing a crippled and uncertain economy, the great
leader left no stone unturned to educate the country’s entire future generation
with a view to building a developed nation for strengthening its economy.
Following in the Father’s
vision, the prime minister and daughter of Bangabandhu continues the spirit of
developing primary education. As a
result, the country has been able to achieve the envious success of rising
enrolment and attendance rates, reducing dropout rates and removing gender disparity.
At present almost the
entire school going children (99.8%) are enrolled into primary schools. But the
scenario is completely different if you visit slums, markets, manufacturing
& construction areas and various transports of Dhaka and other cities and
urban areas in the country, you can find out of school children during schedule
school hours. The issue is the same in the tea gardens and low lying remotest
areas of the country. It is true that children of aforesaid vulnerable groups
definitely enrolled into schools as it was mandatory for teachers to bring all
of a school’s catchment area children into schools. Moreover, it was the
commitment of the government too. But hard reality of prevailing family poverty
compelled these ill lucked children out of school.
The
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics Child Labour Report was published in December
2015, but the survey work was conducted in 2013 following the guidelines of the
Bangladesh Labour Act 2006 and the conventions of the International Labour Organisation
(ILO). According to this report, there are now as many as 3.45 million working children
in the country between the ages 5 to 17 years. Out of them 1.75 million are not
child labour by definition and 1.70 million are child labour which includes
1.28 million hazardous child labours. The number of working children in the
rural areas is 2.47 million, in urban areas it is 0.57 million and 0.43 million
in City Corporation areas. The Report also found that the working children are
engaged in different sectors which include agriculture, manufacturing,
construction, transport, warehousing, wholesale and retail business, vehicle
repairing and mineral. The agriculture sector employs 36.9% working children
while manufacturing sector employs 27.3%. The report also says that only 28.6%
child labours, 30.9% working children and 19.2% hazardous child labours are
currently attending school. As high as 29.3% of the child labour could not ever
attend school in order to support family income and this rises to 38.9% among
the hazardous child labour. On the other hand, 26.1% child labour and 31.3%
hazardous child labour could not ever attend school owing to lack of expense.
The importance of economic causes among the child labour and hazardous child
labour for not attending school and drop out is notable. That report found that
most children – 1.4 million to be specific – employed in hazardous jobs are in
Dhaka, the capital city and the centre of all economic activities in the
country. The survey found that most children drop out of school because their
families cannot afford the expenses of education. Sometimes families take their
children out of school thinking learning mathematics and English was less
important than learning household work, especially for girls.
Although
mainstream primary education is responsible for ensuring primary education for
children of 5+ to 10+ age group and Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has
initiatives of providing basic education to dropped out and never enrolled
children only up to age group 14 from vulnerable families under projects like
ROSC, Sishu Kalyan Trust etc, there may be some destitute children up to age
group 17 those who have no opportunity to access elementary education. On the
other hand, poverty and uncertainty in life because of lacking five basic needs
compelled millions of working children to remain out of schools or absent from
schools instead of taking advantages of government opportunities. Besides
ongoing extraordinary initiatives, the government may think of giving the
responsibilities of educating these ill lucked working and vulnerable children
to domestic and foreign NGOs through setting up Learning Centers (LCs) in the
urban / slum areas with same curriculum designed for mainstream primary
education under the supervision of the ministry or its field level agencies.
The philosophy of educating these children should be “Children will not come to
Learning Centers, rather centers will go to them in their comfortable time and
places providing food, clothing and learning materials.” In addition, learning centers
might also provide medical facilities and income generating opportunities to
its students’ family members with a view to build ownership for sustaining the
spirit of learning. There should be the provision of signing contact with
working children’s parents and owners of their working places by the NGOs on
behalf of the government for ensuring their regular attendance at LCs as well
as completing the cycle of primary education. The government might only take
responsibility for running mainstream primary education from pre-primary to
grade eight aiming to ensure qualitative education.
Inclusiveness
in primary education not only means ensuring access as well as regular
attendance of all school going children irrespective of gender, religion, economic
condition etc. but also ensuring equal qualitative learning of each and every
child. Therefore, considering the hard reality of many children as first
generation learners, the government might set up “Supportive Learning Centers
(SLCs)” in all primary schools with a view to support children to complete
their daily lessons. These centers might be run by the NGOs with flexible
timetable after schedule school time appointing local part time teachers under
the supervision of local primary education authorities.
Economic
emancipation and awareness for education are two vital elements for educating
dropped out and never enrolled children up to age 17. Therefore, the day is not
so far away from now when the country will be able to provide qualitative basic
education to its entire children as nowadays people are more motivated to see
their children educate as well as the government is enabled to reduce poverty
stricken people significantly and making it a lower middle income country. Teachers,
field level and Directorate officials and NGOs concerned with primary education
might be made accountable by setting annual achievable targets for them determined
on the basis of current information regarding quantitative and qualitative
aspect of primary education. Moreover, the primary education department badly
needs professionalism to get positive outcome. Hopefully the people of the
country might experience an educated future generation as the country has a
visionary government under the pragmatic leadership of a development friendly
Prime Minister.
MD BAYAZID KHAN
The
writer is working for primary education in Bangladesh
