How do we deal with Covid-induced school dropout?
The 2023 Education Watch study titled "School Education in Bangladesh: Post-Pandemic Resilience and Sustainability," the findings of which were released on March 30, 2024, was conducted to ascertain the dropout situation of sample cohorts of students between 2020 and 2022, family expenditure on education, and coping with students' learning gaps. The survey involved over 7,000 respondents (students, teachers, parents, and education officials) from 25 upazilas and four city corporations across the country.
The Education Watch studies of 2021 and 2022 showed that lack of access to digital devices, absence of reliable internet connectivity, and low digital literacy of many students increased pre-existing educational inequalities, particularly affecting marginalised communities. The 2023 study found that students rely heavily on private tutoring and coaching (around 75 percent of both primary and secondary students) and commercial guidebooks (over 92 percent at both levels). This means that the education that a child can have is a matter of how much a family can spend. Education, thus, becomes an instrument that further widens the inequality that prevails in society.
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About 4.5 percent of the students who were in Class 2 and 6 percent in Class 6 in mainstream schools in 2020 were no longer in school in 2022. Around three percent of this cohort moved to madrasas. Dropouts in this cohort were additional to overall school dropouts at primary and secondary levels (14 percent and over 30 percent, respectively, in 2021). Family costs per school-going child increased by 25 percent and 51 percent at primary and secondary levels between 2022 and 2023. More than 40 percent of the parents of high school students said they found this level of expenses extremely burdensome.
The government went ahead with the rollout of the new curriculum in 2022. The declared aim was to meet the demands for skills and competencies for the 21st century and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Major changes were foreseen in pedagogy and learning assessment, emphasising "experiential learning" and school-based assessment. Education stakeholders agreed with the aims of the reform. However, how these ambitious changes might be implemented generated much anxiety among parents, students, teachers, and educationists.
School-based formative and continuous assessment of students by their teachers is to be recorded and combined with public exam scores to produce the final results. But can teachers and schools be relied on to implement their part fairly? Are enough of them technically capable of doing so? The purposes and tools for formative teacher assessment and public exams are different. So how can these be combined? Making student assessments valid, reliable, and fair is one of the most complex challenges in any education system.
Based on the recommendations of the study, the following are highlighted as necessary actions to tackle the impacts on children's learning and move forward for recovery and renewal.
Bringing back dropouts and those excluded
A comprehensive approach to track dropouts, understand the causes and support students when they return would entail increasing stipends and targeted financial aid to alleviate barriers for returning students and remove discrimination against married girls, ensuring their equal access to stipends. More academic support must be provided, supplementing regular teachers with local volunteers for returning students and forming partnerships with local education NGOs. Establishing effective communication with parents can enhance their involvement. Additionally, upazila and school-specific plans should be prepared, with the involvement of education NGOs, local government, and teachers' organisations. It is also crucial to make budgets/resources available to schools and to support partnerships with education NGOs.
Meeting post-pandemic learning challenges
Coordinated actions are needed to develop simple tools to assess learning lag, train selected teachers on their use, and organise remedial learning—grouping students based on the severity of lag. Also, local volunteer teachers, in partnership with education NGOs, can enhance teaching-learning capacity and provide extra lessons.
To facilitate the recommended actions, supportive policy decisions are needed with strong political backing and should encompass public budgetary support to schools to cover additional activities and alleviate the economic burden on poorer families, reversing the downward trend in the public education budget in real terms and allocating resources by student numbers in upazilas. We need greater accountability and transparency to control corruption and mismanagement in education decision-making and management.
Providing support and incentives for teachers
To address teacher workload and shortages, policy measures are needed to offer financial incentives to teachers for additional tasks such as extra classes, parent communication, home visits, and additional training. Local volunteers, selected and supervised in partnership with local NGOs, must also be employed to assist teachers in their additional activities.
Alleviating the economic burden of families
Key steps to this end would be to work with parents and teachers to discourage private tutoring and relying on guidebooks, and provide additional lessons and support for students; control and eliminate both the formal and informal fees charged by schools; and introduce school meals in primary schools and provide subsidised nutritious snacks at the secondary level with public budget support.
Promoting ICT-based 'blended approach'
Larger investments must be channelled towards expanding the blended learning approach encompassing connectivity, hardware, and digital learning content aligned with the curriculum, as well as ensuring maintenance and technical support, and preparing teachers to mediate between technology and learners. ICT-based learning should also be used and expanded to enhance teachers' skills and support students in the learning recovery and renewal effort.
Capacity-building for pedagogy, assessment reform
To effectively implement the proposed transformative reforms, schools, teachers, students, and parents need to be thoroughly prepared and supported. Urgent steps include appointing a committee of experts and practitioners, teachers, and individuals not directly engaged in the current initiative to undertake a rapid assessment to identify the challenges and necessary steps to better implement the reforms. The committee's findings should be shared and necessary adjustments must be made in pedagogy, student assessment, teacher and school support, supervision, continuity of curricular content across grades, and parent involvement. The rollout timetable should also be adjusted to consider 2024 as a period for learning and reflection to ensure a smoother and more effective implementation.
Enabling actions at the national level
To facilitate the recommended actions, supportive policy decisions are needed with strong political backing and should encompass public budgetary support to schools to cover additional activities and alleviate the economic burden on poorer families, reversing the downward trend in the public education budget in real terms and allocating resources by student numbers in upazilas. We need greater accountability and transparency to control corruption and mismanagement in education decision-making and management. Policy decisions should allow teachers greater autonomy to manage lessons and learning time, while schools showing better results should enjoy higher levels of authority and responsibility. There must be a change in policies and the mindset of policymakers against partnerships between the government and non-state actors.
All these must receive priority within the Digital Bangladesh and Smart Bangladesh policy frameworks in terms of effective connectivity, device access, digital learning content, and blended learning. The regulatory body (BTRC) could promote free Wi-Fi hotspots in educational institutions, subsidise devices and internet connections for students, and collaborate with technology companies and digital service providers to promote ICT-based learning.
The fate of the new generation and of the nation hinges on forward-looking leadership in the education sector. Two helpful measures would be to consolidate the oversight of the education system under one ministry (with various divisions) and to establish a permanent statutory education commission as envisioned in Education Policy 2010. A concurrent leadership agenda should be to safeguard education institutions and personnel decisions from partisan political interference.
Dr Manzoor Ahmed is professor emeritus at Brac University, chair of Bangladesh ECD Network (BEN), adviser to CAMPE Council, and associate editor at the International Journal of Educational Development.
Dr Mostafizur Rahaman is deputy director, Research and Advocacy at Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE).
Dr Manzoor Ahmed and Dr Mostafizur Rahaman are, respectively, the principal researcher and research coordinator of the 2023 Education Watch study. The research team also included Dr Syed Shahadat Hossain, Dr Ahsan Habib, Ghiasuddin Ahmed, Mohammed Nure Alam, and Abdul Quddus.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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