Third and Fourth Periodic Report on CRC - Unicef

Convention on the Rights of the Child
Centre-based group learning activities have been initiated for 20,600 children in selected urban slums <strong>and</strong> for
20,587 children in three districts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). An evaluation of the group learning
activities in CHT showed positive results in terms of school readiness. The trained frontline workers have
provided education to thous<strong>and</strong>s of caregivers.
The MoPME is now working for development of a Pre-primary Education Framework. The Working Group
constituted for the purpose has already drafted the framework, <strong>and</strong> awaiting approval for
introduction/implementation.
7.2.3 Primary education
During the decade of 90s, gross <strong>and</strong> net enrolment rate, <strong>and</strong> completion rates at primary level all increased
significantly. One of the important factors in this improvement was enactment of Compulsory Primary Education
Law in 1990 (for children aged 6 to 10 years). Incentive in the form of ration, stipends, food for education,
stipend for around 40 percent poor students in the rural areas, free distribution of books, etc.. Primary education
is currently provided through eleven different types of institutions, maintaining a gross enrolment rate (GER) of
97 percent since 2002. About 320,000 teachers are presently employed in 78,126 institutions, the teacher
student ratio being 1:47 in 2005, compared to 1:55 in 2000. There is variation in the ratio between locations, but
classroom over-crowding is quite common in most schools.
Table 7.1: Growth of Primary Schools, Students <strong>and</strong> Teachers
Year Number of Schools Number of Students Number of Teachers Student/
Govt. Non-govt Total % Total % % Total % Teacher
Increase Increase Girls Female Ratio
1995 3,7710 25310 63020 - 17133186 - 47.1 258,884 24.2 66.18
2000 37677 40455 78126 8.5 17659220 3.1 48.9 320,694 33.8 55.07
2005 37672 42725 80397 2.9 16225658 (8.10) 50.1 344,789 36.3 47.00
Source: BANBEIS
The Net Enrolment Rate (NER) is also on increase. The NER of children at primary level has increased from
82.7 percent in 2003 to 87.2 percent in 2005.
The drop out rate has gone down from 35 percent in 2000 to 33 percent in 2002, further dropped to 32 percent
in 2004, indicating that still a large number of students cannot complete the primary education. BBS reports
suggest that in 2004, the drop out rate varied between 34 percent of boys against 31 of girls, with slight variation
between urban (31 percent) <strong>and</strong> rural (34 percent). In primary level, repetition rate is 10.5% <strong>and</strong> attendance rate
st<strong>and</strong>s at 77 percent (MoPME).
Studies carried out by Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) on primary education provide
several important conclusions. These show that access to primary education is found to be highly correlated
with family resources <strong>and</strong> parental education while progression <strong>and</strong> performance in primary education is
significantly correlated with institutional factors i.e. quality of teachers, contact hour, physical infrastructure <strong>and</strong>
school management. It has not been possible to bring all children to school in neither the formal system nor the
non-formal stream. Available statistics on exclusion indicate that children never enrolled <strong>and</strong> children enrolled
but dropped out account for nearly one-fifth of the primary school age group.
The causes of exclusion are social, economic, physical as well as environmental. Non-enrolment varies
between the regions of the country. The statistics indicate that a significant percentage of boys <strong>and</strong> girls from
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