If over the next two decades Bangladesh is to stay on course with its economic growth—and maintain the impressive 6-plus percent annual growth in GDP that it has had over the last decade—there has to be special policy level attention to education investments, much larger spending and better accountability of education officials for good management and results. Four priorities must be on the education agenda.

First, the government should consider expenses in universal education as an investment instead of treating schools as cost centres. Recent experience of election to the state legislature in Delhi, and the stunning victory of the Aam Admi Party (AAP) defying the political tide, demonstrates that higher spending in public education combined with good school management pays off. It has resulted in better learning outcomes, higher students' attendance, and improved school infrastructures and has earned political credits for AAP. This is a lesson worth noting in Bangladesh.

Second, all providers, public, non-state and private, in primary and secondary education should focus on student learning outcomes—not just enrolment, dropouts and completion. Great strides have been made in Bangladesh in bringing children including girls into schools. National Student Assessment (NSA) is undertaken every two years on a nationwide sample of grade 3 and 5 students and schools by the Directorate of Primary Education. NSA measures student learning in Bangla (the first language) and arithmetic against basic skills specified in the curriculum. NSA showed more than half of class 3 and class 5 students did not perform at grade level in Bangla and arithmetic. In other words, after five years of primary education, the majority of students do not acquire literacy and numeracy at a functional level, handicapping them for further education or vocational skills training. 

Education researchers and academics suggest two measures to help children achieve the essential competencies specified in the curriculum: i) attract and retain enough capable teachers in the system and support and motivate them to perform in classrooms according to set performance standards; and ii) discontinue the present high stake nationwide public examinations at the end of grade 5 and 8 which push students to memorise guidebooks and spend time and money for private tutors; and force teachers and parents to aid and abet this distortion of learning.

Testing is not a substitute for good teaching. School-based formative assessment of learners should be emphasised. The assessment of system, school and teacher performance can be better done through an adaptation of the NSA approach, without putting young children in a tough competition with their peers.  

Third, Bangladesh should consider joining OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment for Development (PISA-D). It is a pilot project that aims to make the cross-country assessment more accessible and relevant to a wider range of countries. PISA measures key knowledge and skills essential to function in modern societies across countries.

In today's global world, Bangladesh has to compete in the world market and be at par in skills and competencies with other countries. Up to 700, 000 young workers, almost half of all new entrants to the workforce every year, go abroad as migrant workers. They and those staying home must earn the skills and capabilities to adapt to the changing needs of the world of work.

Cambodia, a country facing quality issues similar to Bangladesh, has joined PISA-D in its bid to improve student learning and assessment capacity. Its eye is on equipping the young learners with 21st century skills in demand globally.  Cambodia is being assisted by UNICEF-sponsored Southeast Asia Programme on Learning Metric (SEA-PLM). Bangladesh can benefit greatly by joining PISA-D.

Fourth, school level education planning, budgets, governance, and management need to move progressively towards meaningful decentralisation with devolution of authority with accountability to district, upazila and individual institutions. No other education system of the same size and scale of Bangladesh with 40 million students, a million teachers and 200,000 institutions, is run in such a top-down way. The decisions that should be taken by the schools or local education authorities are often decided in the capital, frequently by passing the buck to the highest levels of the government. Schools of the 21st century must be responsive and adaptive to the diverse needs and circumstances of the learners across the country.

Mohammad Shahidul Islam is an education policy researcher at the University of Toronto, and former Senior Education Adviser of USAID in Bangladesh and Afghanistan.