A new UNESCO report says that families in Bangladesh pay 71 per cent of total education expenditure while the country should spend at least four per cent of its gross domestic product on education as per the UN recommendation.
Bangladesh spends less than 2.5 per cent of its GDP on education.
The UNESCO research report in association with BRAC was released on Tuesday at a programme in the capital, according to a press release issued by BRAC.
The report shows that non-state actors in South Asia are more involved in every aspect of education system than in any other regions of the world.
According to the report, with the global pandemic, the cost of education such as tuition, private tuition, stationeries has risen, resulting in many families in debt to pay for education.
The BRAC-UNESCO research report states that while access to education has grown faster than in any other regions in the past few decades in South Asia, learning levels are more than one-third below the global average and growing more slowly than in the rest of the world.
Addressing the event as the chief guest, education minister Dipu Moni said, ‘We need to make teaching profession much more attractive. If we fail to do that, people who cannot go anywhere else will take this job. But if we can attract people who really love this profession, we will get much better result from them.’
UNESCO’s GEM Report’s director Manos Antoninis, who presented the research report, said that financing was not adequate, and it lacked equity focus.
‘In Bangladesh, the monthly pay order system is not sufficiently focused on promoting quality. The government should set quality standards that apply to all institutions and improve state capacity.’
Professor Emeritus of BRAC Institute of Educational Development at BRAC University Manzoor Ahmad, who presented the background study of Bangladesh, said, ‘We have economic progress. But education investment did not increase accordingly. Other south Asian countries are in a better situation than Bangladesh. Teachers have no accountability in many cases. More reforms in the Monthly Pay Order model is necessary.’
The report recommends that all state and non-state education activities be viewed as part of one system, supported and coordinated by ministries of education so that quality and equity can be improved.
