A Pedestrian Education Budget

It is disappointment again for the advocates of education who have been pleading for stronger public commitment to education. The new budget maintains Bangladesh's record for having one of the lowest allocations in South Asia and among developing countries for education as share of GDP and of the national budget. Moreover, there is no sign of an education rescue and recovery plan to offset the impact of the pandemic.

Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE), a civil society forum of education NGOs, had warned that progress made in the last two decades in education in the country is in danger of being lost due to the immediate and longer term consequences of the Covid-19 crisis. Similar alert has been raised by UNESCO for low and middle income countries. CAMPE urged in an open appeal to the prime minister to allocate at least 15 percent of the national budget and initiate a three-year education recovery plan.

The proposed total education budget for FY 2020-21 is Tk 66,000 crore, or 11.6 percent of the national budget. The development part of the budget is Tk 23,379 crore, or 11 percent of the development budget. The nominal increase from the current fiscal year's education budget of Tk 61,000 crore (in total) and Tk 19,500 crore (for development) barely offsets the annual inflation rate of 5.6 percent.

Ten years ago, in FY 2010-11, the education budget was Tk 18, 277 crore (including Tk 400 crore for the science and technology ministry). Proportionately, this was 13.9 percent of the national budget. The proportions have gone down every year since then, except for a spike in 2016, due to a large external assistance disbursement for primary education that year. The low education allocation trend continues, despite the call for protecting and raising education investments in the face of the pandemic's immediate and longer term impact.

A paramount question is why the education budget has not proposed special initiatives or shown a sense of urgency to offset the pandemic's impact, despite the fact that various rapid surveys and studies have warned about it and a recovery and rescue plan has been urged.

Any new initiative or creative idea has to emerge from, and designed and proposed by, the education authorities. There are three "divisions" under the two ministries of education and various directorates. They apparently have not come forward with new initiatives to confront the crisis. They have opted for continuing in a business-as-usual mode.

There is an upbeat official narrative as heard in the finance minister's budget speech: "Bangladesh is now a role model for the developing countries in terms of increasing the literacy rate and eradicating gender gaps in education." He, however, admitted that due to the pandemic, "the loss to the overall education sector has been enormous." He added, "Our most important task in education for the next fiscal year would be to bring back continuity in the curriculum and cover this loss from a long study break." In the coming days, there will no doubt be a claim that the "highest ever" allocation has been made for education—which will be the case every year just because of the normal growth of the economy, the national budget and inflation.

There is a surfeit of ideas about what could be included in an education rescue plan. A post-pandemic recovery plan could emphasise teaching and learning as well as extra classes (offering support to schools and incentives to teachers for this purpose), rather than conducting examinations and preparing for examinations. "Bringing back continuity" should not be about just going back to the familiar ways which have not been so great for the majority of students, who have now become more vulnerable. 

CAMPE recommended an expansion of the scope of school meal and stipends going beyond current services. Health check and mentoring of students, and counselling for students and parents were proposed. Investments were urged for making online and ICT-based learning a regular feature in schools. ICT infrastructure, connectivity, broad-band access, availability of devices such as tablets, educational technology support and training for teachers were suggested as necessary components. 

Going beyond the allocation numbers, a continuing concern is the use of the funds allocated. A combination of inefficiency, corruption and lack of accountability has proven to be a deadly virus that kills imperceptibly and slowly. It cannot be denied that the special initiatives suggested call for responsive and flexible action at the school and community level that is challenging for the usual bureaucratic ways and practices.

The decision-makers are averse to entertaining the idea that effective implementation of responsive measures requires decentralised planning and management of primary and secondary education in each upazila, involving local administration and close collaboration with NGOs and CSOs.

One suggestion, not considered by the authorities, was to make a special allocation of Tk 5,000 crore to be used to engage education NGOs actively at the upazila level to support measures responsive to the specific circumstances of students, families and communities. These could be designed at school level to prevent dropout and irregular attendance, offer extra lessons and counselling for lagging students and incentives for teachers to take on these tasks. A fund of Tk 10 crore on average for each upazila, prorated by the student population, could be allocated to support students through school-based plans. These plans could be reviewed and approved at upazila level by an education recovery committee involving local government, education authorities and NGOs, and implemented with the help of the education NGOs.

Are our decision-makers inspired by the notion of "radical uncertainty?" It is a concept put forward by John Kay, director of Sai'd Business School at Oxford University, and Mervyn King, former governor of Bank of England and professor at London School of Economics. There are situations when parameters are not known, there is no basis for assigning statistical probability to variables, and a reasonable model of scenarios cannot be constructed. The choice then may be to do nothing or have various contingency plans and be prepared to adapt and adjust these as we go along. Another option is to rely on divine intervention. (Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers, John Kay and Mervyn King, Norton, 2020)

The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have placed us in the realm of radical uncertainty. 

At least for the education sector, the strategy seems not to do much and hope for going back to the old normal over time. Without excluding divine benediction, a rational course could be to plan for contingencies and adjust these as we learn from experience.

Can the parliamentary discussion of the budget proposal help make the budget more responsive and cognisant of the crisis? It can also decide to make the budget a provisional one and come back in six months to look at options based on the reality by then.

Manzoor Ahmed is professor emeritus at Brac University. The views expressed are his own.