All rural children must be brought under primary education system
08 November 2022
The challenges of pursuing primary education for children in rural Bangladesh are manifold, poverty, child marriage, and communication disruption are only to name a few. The situation deteriorated during the pandemic-enforced school closures, which lasted for over 18 months, and the grim economic situation following the Russia-Ukraine war is also not helping these children.
On top of it, there's an acute teacher crisis in most of these village institutions, making the situation even more difficult. In Nilphamari's Khalisha Chapani Farhana Rouf Government Primary School, around 181 students are currently enrolled at school and there's only one teacher available for them. Attendance dropped massively after the school re-opened following Covid closures, and it hit rock bottom as classroom activities became irregular because of a lack of teachers. The head teacher went into retirement two months ago, while two teachers were transferred to other schools a year ago.
The gravity of the bottleneck is reflected by the voice of a student who said they prefer to stay home and assist family as going to school has now become a waste of time with no teachers to teach us there. The school management committee said their efforts for increasing attendance in the school are falling short because of the teacher crisis. Upazila Education Office has ordered two teachers to join the school, but they are still trying to lobby their way out of this duty due to the remoteness of the school and the poor facilities there.
Our mesmerising development cannot shine out until we heavily invest in education and development. Virtually, the incumbent failed to bring out the sustainable change in education, due to high corruption, politicisation, politically-motivated allotments, using education as a political success, breaking down the moral standard of teachers and education administrators, etc. Still one of every four is illiterate in the country and the ratio is higher in remote areas and more than five million students are drop-out or never enrolled in primary education. Without bringing the children under the education system, our triumph to become a developed country will be slipped out.
