Our education its success, challenges and future plans

The government efforts to bring all the children to schools have been going on under different initiatives. The government has recently decided to give stipend to mothers of pre-primary and primary level learners so that they become encouraged to send their wards to schools

Bangladesh has made progress in various levels of literacy but at a slow pace, which is 0.7 percent annually and the country needs 44 more years to have an initial level of literacy skills for all citizens and 78 years to attain the advanced level if progress in literacy continues at current pace. The progress rate was relatively better in reading and writing skills but very poor in numeracy and application of the 3R's. “Education Watch 2016: Literacy, Skills, Lifelong Learning, SDG 4 in Bangladesh: Where are We” -released this report. It also says population in each level of literacy has increased due to increase in overall population. In 2002, there were 45.8 million non-literate, 8.6 million semi-literate, 19.5 million literate at initial level and 18.9 million literate at advanced level population in the country. By 2016, the figures increased to 50.9 million, 12.8 million, 33 million and 33.9 million respectively. In the last 14 years, 28.5 million literate people joined the population at the rate of more than two million per year.3,510 households from 270 neighborhoods in nine strata were covered through a household survey. Of the 15,265 individuals lived in the households, 11,280 aged 11 and above were surveyed. “Literacy” was measured through an assessment test developed originally for Education Watch 2002 study, says the report. Of the surveyed people, 80 percent use cellphones and two-thirds watch programs on television.
The report recommends that the national definition of literacy be revisited with an aim of making literacy skills the foundation of lifelong learning as envisioned in SDG 4.It further says quality of school education must improve to ensure that early primary grades produce students with an initial level of literacy. Besides, by the end of primary education, they should achieve a self-sustaining level of literacy and numeracy. CAMPE Executive Director Rasheda K Choudhury said they had maintained a democratic process while preparing the report. Speaking as the chief guest, Primary and Mass Education Minister Advocate Mostafizur Rahman said’ the government is working to eradicate illiteracy from the country.’
The government efforts to bring all the children to schools have been going on under different initiatives. The government has recently decided to give stipend to mothers of pre-primary and primary level learners so that they become encouraged to send their wards to schools. The number of dropout students will see thin picture through initiative. We have achieved success to enroll girl students in primary schools which is now 98 percent. The primary education completion rate has reached 80 percent. The pre-primary students now get Tk 100 per month and primary students 150 which is given them every three months. The distribution sees some problems which is expected to be addressed through mobile banking and mothers will be given mobile seam free of cost. It will further enhance women empowerment. Research shows that if mothers have money in their hands they can help the families more and send their children more to schools.  Giving stipend to mother has been added to other positives steps such as free distribution of textbooks, midday meal, digital curriculum, student stipend. 
Still we cannot deny the facts that thousands of teacher positions remain vacant in many primary school. Quality teaching is still stands a far cry, private coaching poses to be an unethical practice in many cases. Students remain absent from the classes as there lies no interest or attraction in the class during the distribution of stipend money they come to schools. At present there are one crore 17 lakh students registered and the number of mothers is 86lakh.if one mothers’ more than one children read in the school, she will get the stipend of all together. Each mother will be given a SIM from TeleTalk. They will get the money from SureCASH of Rupali Bank. For the expansion of female education stipends are given to girl students and its result we have enjoyed. Now giving stipend to mothers will surely bring some more positive fruits. Side by side, their spirit and interest should be roused. Moreover, they must be given ideas of the importance of sending children to school as it’s a long time benefit. Mothers play the vital role to send the children to school and their children’s education. We must not forget in this perspective that most guardians show little interest to send their wards to government primary schools even though it is absolutely free and trained teachers are there. The government officials even in the education department show reluctance to send their children to government primary schools. In kindergartens the space is not student friendly, teachers are not trained but most people show interest send their children there. The matter must be scrutinized well and necessary measures to be taken otherwise only distributing stipend to mothers may not bring positive fruits. 
Government’s good intention regarding education has been flashed through hosting the 11th biannual E-9 meeting from 5-7 February 2017 in Dhaka for the first time. The first two days the representatives shared their progress, concerns and plans in education and the Dhaka Declaration was made on the final day. The E-9 is an international platform of nine counties that are working together to attain the goals of UNESCO’s Education for All (EFA) initiative. ‘ E’ stands for education and the ‘9’ represents nine member countries –Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan-representing over half the world’s population and 70 percent of the world’s illiterate adults. It was launched in 1993 at the EFA Summit in New Delhi, India which is still working on the common educational goals of nine countries. 
In this E-9 ministerial meeting in Dhaka 8-point commitment has been declared for ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education for all. The commitments include advance SDG-4 and corresponding targets set within "The 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development" and "The education 2030 framework for action", which serve as the overall guiding framework for education development enhancing lifelong learning opportunities in the few years and initiative action to formulate country specific targets within the broader scope of the SDG-4. SDG-4 , one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals , is a pledge the world community made in September 2015 at the United Nations  to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning for all. 
Bangladesh Prime Minister said while inaugurating the meeting “Education is one of the areas receiving my government’s highest budgetary allocation’ Bangladesh can achieve inclusive and equitable quality education by 2030 braving all the challenges. The premier also mentioned that the challenges of terrorism, violent extremism and armed conflicts affecting human rights and peace and stability of the world can be addressed with innovation, understanding, right attitude and farsighted policies. We are reforming our curricula and learning materials keeping peace building in view.”  She further said, “Learning environment in educational institutes, a component for sustainable development should be ensured by improving sanitation, water, hygiene and infrastructure. “ I hope this meeting will start the process of sharing our best practices, devising action plan and programs, finding new modes of partnerships as well as welcoming regional and international dialogues on education.”“ Our journey towards quality with quantity in attaining SDG-4 will start from this meeting and ‘Dhaka Declaration’ would come to be a source of our inspiration. The era of SDGs makes it very timely and meaningful now to hold this E-9 ministerial meeting and integrate SDG-4 on education with E-9 initiatives and strategies taking along the lessons and achievements of Millennium Development Goals and Education For All (EFA).
Minister Nurul Islam Nahid  said the main goal of the Dhaka declaration is to ensure education for all as well as equal opportunity for both male and female students. The Dhaka declaration also is giving an emphasis to improve quality of education alongside checking drop-out rate.”The "Dhaka Declaration" has recommended increasing government funding for education, enhancing its efficient use and facilitating mobilization of domestic resources from both public and private sources. The declaration has recommended reaching the internationally recognized benchmarks of at least 4–6 per cent of the gross domestic product, or at least 15–20 per cent of the total public expenditure allocated for education.
The leaders of the participating countries have reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring education for all, gender parity in education and quality education before 2030.  The E-9 countries pointed out the challenges and opportunities in education, and pledged to ensure equitable and inclusive quality education and lifelong learning for all by 2030. They promised to collectively address the challenge of illiteracy issue which plagues the member countries of the forum. If the members of the E-9 countries sit regularly and take effective initiatives with shared experience, other challenges of education can also be addressed. The UNESCO has assured to assist the platform. Nahid said: “We have got the chair of E-9 for the next two years. It presents a bigger opportunity for us. We will try our best to get the best out of the situation. ”Quality education is a challenging matter for all. It is hard to define. No indicator has been defined at this meeting,. But I think it is what students will achieve after going through the books to get the best.”
The declaration commits the nine countries to technical cooperation on SDG-4 related themes such as out-of-school children, Early Childhood Care and Education, Information and Communication Technology in education, joint monitoring of progress towards SDG4 targets and commitments, joint advocacy and work to increase government funding for education. Welcoming its adoption UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education Mr Qian Tang said: “The action oriented Dhaka Declaration represents renewed political commitment at the highest levels and a revitalization of the E9 partnership which augurs well for achieving the SDG4-Education 2030 targets. If the nine countries work together, it will be possible to reach the SDG goals”
 Addressing the meeting, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, congratulated Bangladesh on being one of the developing world’s success stories as one of the few low-income countries to have more girls in school than boys. She said the world had changed since the launch of the E-9 Initiative 24 years ago but its work was as vital as ever. “We have seen ground-breaking progress across all E-9 countries, and there is rich experience to share on how education has been integrated with overall development.”  A lot of work remains ahead actually to reach the goal. 
To attain the real objective of education, morality, ethics, values , social and emotional aspects of learning must be equally included in education.  Morals and values play a significant role in determining the path of an individual. It also helps shape the individual to the type of person he will be in future. Morals guide an individual to the right path according to the law, society and the religion he belongs to. Values guide him that he is following the path that he believes he should follow as a person. In many cases, people are so pressured to follow morals that belong to the society, that they disregard their own values. Values have major influence on a person's behavior and attitude and serve as broad guidelines in all situations. Some common business values are fairness, innovation and community involvement.” Values are a set of rules that are defined by an individual person. It can be influenced by morals, family, background, upbringing, etc. Personal values are believed to provide an internal reference for what is good, beneficial, important, useful, beautiful, desirable, and constructive.  They determine how the individual’s behavior will be during his lifetime. For example, if a person believes that women should be inferior, he would go on to treat women as inferior beings even if the law states that men and women are all equal.  Examples of values include: respect, honor, patriotism, compassion and honesty.
Morals are formed from the inborn values which is a system of beliefs that is taught for deciding good or bad whereas values are personal beliefs or something that comes from within. These are emotionally related for deciding right or wrong. Morals have more social value and acceptance than values, therefore a person is judged more for his moral character than the values. One is said to be immoral for a person without morals but no such term is there for the person without values. Moral is a motivation or a key for leading a good life in right direction whereas value is imbibed within a person, it can be bad or good depending on the person’s choice. It can also be called as intuition or the call of the heart. Morals do not determine the values but are formed because of the values. Morals contribute to the system of beliefs and are the values which we get from the society. Morals are like commandments set by the elders and to be followed by the descendants. They can be set by one’s elders or religious teachers or leaders of society who want to lead people away from immoral thoughts. One always treasures the morals throughout his life and they never change with time or conditions. While on the other hand values are not set by the society or teachers, but are governed by an individual. Morals are deep seated whereas values keep on changing with time and needs.
Morals have a greater social element to values and tend to have a very broad acceptance. Morals are far more about good and bad than other values. We thus judge others more strongly on morals than values. A person can be described as immoral, yet there is no word for them not following values. Morals and values often dictate the behavior, personality and the way of living for a particular individual. Though many people believe that they are the same and can be used interchangeably, they are mistaken. These two terms are related to each other and do often correlate in a person’s life; however they are different from each other in many ways. Morals are a set of rules that differentiate the right from wrong based on the belief system of society, culture, religion. These are ethics that have already been set for us and we have to conform to them while growing up. From the moment that a person is born, they are often told that steeling is bad, being polite is good, offering help is good and being mean is bad. These are examples of morals, which have been passed down from generation to generation. Morals vary significantly depending on the region, culture, religion etc. Many cultures stated that Gods demand a human sacrifice and this was morally acceptable; however other cultures state that murder of any person, under any condition is morally wrong. Merriam Webster defines ‘moral’ as, “of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior; conforming to a standard of right behavior; sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment; capable of right and wrong action. “Values are a person's most deeply held beliefs, while morals revolve around actions. Morals are linked to values.  A moral related to this value would be that you do not steal from others. Both morals and values can come from cultural affiliations.
Our education starting from pre-primary to tertiary level must focus on developing suitable manpower to cater to the needs of the present global complex situations along with forming their moral values if we really want positive behaviour and service from them. We cannot afford to produce only doctors, engineers, teachers, researchers and businessmen without enrich their morals and ethical values. 
If we produce doctors without giving them moral education and ethical values, they will not serve the ailing humanity, engineers will use bamboo instead of rod, teachers will leak questions for unethical benefits and researchers will do the same things. So, the real practice of moral education beginning from pre-primary to the highest tier of education along with developing the 21st century skills of our future generation may promise to bear real fruits. 
    The writer is an educationist. Email:[email protected]

 

Our education its success, challenges and future plans

The government efforts to bring all the children to schools have been going on under different initiatives. The government has recently decided to give stipend to mothers of pre-primary and primary level learners so that they become encouraged to send their wards to schools

Bangladesh has made progress in various levels of literacy but at a slow pace, which is 0.7 percent annually and the country needs 44 more years to have an initial level of literacy skills for all citizens and 78 years to attain the advanced level if progress in literacy continues at current pace. The progress rate was relatively better in reading and writing skills but very poor in numeracy and application of the 3Rs. Education Watch 2016: Literacy, Skills, Lifelong Learning, SDG 4 in Bangladesh: Where are We -released this report. It also says population in each level of literacy has increased due to increase in overall population. In 2002, there were 45.8 million non-literate, 8.6 million semi-literate, 19.5 million literate at initial level and 18.9 million literate at advanced level population in the country. By 2016, the figures increased to 50.9 million, 12.8 million, 33 million and 33.9 million respectively. In the last 14 years, 28.5 million literate people joined the population at the rate of more than two million per year.3,510 households from 270 neighborhoods in nine strata were covered through a household survey. Of the 15,265 individuals lived in the households, 11,280 aged 11 and above were surveyed. Literacy was measured through an assessment test developed originally for Education Watch 2002 study, says the report. Of the surveyed people, 80 percent use cellphones and two-thirds watch programs on television. The report recommends that the national definition of literacy be revisited with an aim of making literacy skills the foundation of lifelong learning as envisioned in SDG 4.It further says quality of school education must improve to ensure that early primary grades produce students with an initial level of literacy. Besides, by the end of primary education, they should achieve a self-sustaining level of literacy and numeracy. CAMPE Executive Director Rasheda K Choudhury said they had maintained a democratic process while preparing the report. Speaking as the chief guest, Primary and Mass Education Minister Advocate Mostafizur Rahman said the government is working to eradicate illiteracy from the country. The government efforts to bring all the children to schools have been going on under different initiatives. The government has recently decided to give stipend to mothers of pre-primary and primary level learners so that they become encouraged to send their wards to schools. The number of dropout students will see thin picture through initiative. We have achieved success to enroll girl students in primary schools which is now 98 percent. The primary education completion rate has reached 80 percent. The pre-primary students now get Tk 100 per month and primary students 150 which is given them every three months. The distribution sees some problems which is expected to be addressed through mobile banking and mothers will be given mobile seam free of cost. It will further enhance women empowerment. Research shows that if mothers have money in their hands they can help the families more and send their children more to schools. Giving stipend to mother has been added to other positives steps such as free distribution of textbooks, midday meal, digital curriculum, student stipend. Still we cannot deny the facts that thousands of teacher positions remain vacant in many primary school. Quality teaching is still stands a far cry, private coaching poses to be an unethical practice in many cases. Students remain absent from the classes as there lies no interest or attraction in the class during the distribution of stipend money they come to schools. At present there are one crore 17 lakh students registered and the number of mothers is 86lakh.if one mothers more than one children read in the school, she will get the stipend of all together. Each mother will be given a SIM from TeleTalk. They will get the money from SureCASH of Rupali Bank. For the expansion of female education stipends are given to girl students and its result we have enjoyed. Now giving stipend to mothers will surely bring some more positive fruits. Side by side, their spirit and interest should be roused. Moreover, they must be given ideas of the importance of sending children to school as its a long time benefit. Mothers play the vital role to send the children to school and their childrens education. We must not forget in this perspective that most guardians show little interest to send their wards to government primary schools even though it is absolutely free and trained teachers are there. The government officials even in the education department show reluctance to send their children to government primary schools. In kindergartens the space is not student friendly, teachers are not trained but most people show interest send their children there. The matter must be scrutinized well and necessary measures to be taken otherwise only distributing stipend to mothers may not bring positive fruits. Governments good intention regarding education has been flashed through hosting the 11th biannual E-9 meeting from 5-7 February 2017 in Dhaka for the first time. The first two days the representatives shared their progress, concerns and plans in education and the Dhaka Declaration was made on the final day. The E-9 is an international platform of nine counties that are working together to attain the goals of UNESCOs Education for All (EFA) initiative. E stands for education and the 9 represents nine member countries Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan-representing over half the worlds population and 70 percent of the worlds illiterate adults. It was launched in 1993 at the EFA Summit in New Delhi, India which is still working on the common educational goals of nine countries. In this E-9 ministerial meeting in Dhaka 8-point commitment has been declared for ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education for all. The commitments include advance SDG-4 and corresponding targets set within The 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development and The education 2030 framework for action, which serve as the overall guiding framework for education development enhancing lifelong learning opportunities in the few years and initiative action to formulate country specific targets within the broader scope of the SDG-4. SDG-4 , one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals , is a pledge the world community made in September 2015 at the United Nations to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning for all. Bangladesh Prime Minister said while inaugurating the meeting Education is one of the areas receiving my governments highest budgetary allocation Bangladesh can achieve inclusive and equitable quality education by 2030 braving all the challenges. The premier also mentioned that the challenges of terrorism, violent extremism and armed conflicts affecting human rights and peace and stability of the world can be addressed with innovation, understanding, right attitude and farsighted policies. We are reforming our curricula and learning materials keeping peace building in view. She further said, Learning environment in educational institutes, a component for sustainable development should be ensured by improving sanitation, water, hygiene and infrastructure. I hope this meeting will start the process of sharing our best practices, devising action plan and programs, finding new modes of partnerships as well as welcoming regional and international dialogues on education. Our journey towards quality with quantity in attaining SDG-4 will start from this meeting and Dhaka Declaration would come to be a source of our inspiration. The era of SDGs makes it very timely and meaningful now to hold this E-9 ministerial meeting and integrate SDG-4 on education with E-9 initiatives and strategies taking along the lessons and achievements of Millennium Development Goals and Education For All (EFA). Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said the main goal of the Dhaka declaration is to ensure education for all as well as equal opportunity for both male and female students. The Dhaka declaration also is giving an emphasis to improve quality of education alongside checking drop-out rate.The Dhaka Declaration has recommended increasing government funding for education, enhancing its efficient use and facilitating mobilization of domestic resources from both public and private sources. The declaration has recommended reaching the internationally recognized benchmarks of at least 46 per cent of the gross domestic product, or at least 1520 per cent of the total public expenditure allocated for education. The leaders of the participating countries have reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring education for all, gender parity in education and quality education before 2030. The E-9 countries pointed out the challenges and opportunities in education, and pledged to ensure equitable and inclusive quality education and lifelong learning for all by 2030. They promised to collectively address the challenge of illiteracy issue which plagues the member countries of the forum. If the members of the E-9 countries sit regularly and take effective initiatives with shared experience, other challenges of education can also be addressed. The UNESCO has assured to assist the platform. Nahid said: We have got the chair of E-9 for the next two years. It presents a bigger opportunity for us. We will try our best to get the best out of the situation. Quality education is a challenging matter for all. It is hard to define. No indicator has been defined at this meeting,. But I think it is what students will achieve after going through the books to get the best. The declaration commits the nine countries to technical cooperation on SDG-4 related themes such as out-of-school children, Early Childhood Care and Education, Information and Communication Technology in education, joint monitoring of progress towards SDG4 targets and commitments, joint advocacy and work to increase government funding for education. Welcoming its adoption UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education Mr Qian Tang said: The action oriented Dhaka Declaration represents renewed political commitment at the highest levels and a revitalization of the E9 partnership which augurs well for achieving the SDG4-Education 2030 targets. If the nine countries work together, it will be possible to reach the SDG goals Addressing the meeting, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, congratulated Bangladesh on being one of the developing worlds success stories as one of the few low-income countries to have more girls in school than boys. She said the world had changed since the launch of the E-9 Initiative 24 years ago but its work was as vital as ever. We have seen ground-breaking progress across all E-9 countries, and there is rich experience to share on how education has been integrated with overall development. A lot of work remains ahead actually to reach the goal. To attain the real objective of education, morality, ethics, values , social and emotional aspects of learning must be equally included in education. Morals and values play a significant role in determining the path of an individual. It also helps shape the individual to the type of person he will be in future. Morals guide an individual to the right path according to the law, society and the religion he belongs to. Values guide him that he is following the path that he believes he should follow as a person. In many cases, people are so pressured to follow morals that belong to the society, that they disregard their own values. Values have major influence on a persons behavior and attitude and serve as broad guidelines in all situations. Some common business values are fairness, innovation and community involvement. Values are a set of rules that are defined by an individual person. It can be influenced by morals, family, background, upbringing, etc. Personal values are believed to provide an internal reference for what is good, beneficial, important, useful, beautiful, desirable, and constructive. They determine how the individuals behavior will be during his lifetime. For example, if a person believes that women should be inferior, he would go on to treat women as inferior beings even if the law states that men and women are all equal. Examples of values include: respect, honor, patriotism, compassion and honesty. Morals are formed from the inborn values which is a system of beliefs that is taught for deciding good or bad whereas values are personal beliefs or something that comes from within. These are emotionally related for deciding right or wrong. Morals have more social value and acceptance than values, therefore a person is judged more for his moral character than the values. One is said to be immoral for a person without morals but no such term is there for the person without values. Moral is a motivation or a key for leading a good life in right direction whereas value is imbibed within a person, it can be bad or good depending on the persons choice. It can also be called as intuition or the call of the heart. Morals do not determine the values but are formed because of the values. Morals contribute to the system of beliefs and are the values which we get from the society. Morals are like commandments set by the elders and to be followed by the descendants. They can be set by ones elders or religious teachers or leaders of society who want to lead people away from immoral thoughts. One always treasures the morals throughout his life and they never change with time or conditions. While on the other hand values are not set by the society or teachers, but are governed by an individual. Morals are deep seated whereas values keep on changing with time and needs. Morals have a greater social element to values and tend to have a very broad acceptance. Morals are far more about good and bad than other values. We thus judge others more strongly on morals than values. A person can be described as immoral, yet there is no word for them not following values. Morals and values often dictate the behavior, personality and the way of living for a particular individual. Though many people believe that they are the same and can be used interchangeably, they are mistaken. These two terms are related to each other and do often correlate in a persons life; however they are different from each other in many ways. Morals are a set of rules that differentiate the right from wrong based on the belief system of society, culture, religion. These are ethics that have already been set for us and we have to conform to them while growing up. From the moment that a person is born, they are often told that steeling is bad, being polite is good, offering help is good and being mean is bad. These are examples of morals, which have been passed down from generation to generation. Morals vary significantly depending on the region, culture, religion etc. Many cultures stated that Gods demand a human sacrifice and this was morally acceptable; however other cultures state that murder of any person, under any condition is morally wrong. Merriam Webster defines moral as, of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior; conforming to a standard of right behavior; sanctioned by or operative on ones conscience or ethical judgment; capable of right and wrong action. Values are a persons most deeply held beliefs, while morals revolve around actions. Morals are linked to values. A moral related to this value would be that you do not steal from others. Both morals and values can come from cultural affiliations. Our education starting from pre-primary to tertiary level must focus on developing suitable manpower to cater to the needs of the present global complex situations along with forming their moral values if we really want positive behaviour and service from them. We cannot afford to produce only doctors, engineers, teachers, researchers and businessmen without enrich their morals and ethical values. If we produce doctors without giving them moral education and ethical values, they will not serve the ailing humanity, engineers will use bamboo instead of rod, teachers will leak questions for unethical benefits and researchers will do the same things. So, the real practice of moral education beginning from pre-primary to the highest tier of education along with developing the 21st century skills of our future generation may promise to bear real fruits. The writer is an educationist. Email:[email protected]