Abstract
This chapter presents an overview of the achievements and challenges of the education sector in Bangladesh, ranging from the elementary to tertiary levels. While achievements have been made in education quantity improvements and in narrowing the gender gap, Bangladesh still needs significant improvement in education quality and performance. The current shortcomings arise from various issues, including school dropouts due to seasonality and academic calendar mismatch with the farming calendar, the low quality of teaching and learning, inadequate technical and vocational training. A pronounced female dropout rate—especially at the upper secondary level—may be attributed to early teenage marriage and low labor market opportunity. For improving access to tertiary education for rural and poor households, it is critical to increase the capacity of the universities.
The authors would like to thank Minhaj Mahmud and Mai Seki for their constructive comments.
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Notes
- 1.
The budget allocated for the education sector was 2.11% of GDP in 2013–2014, and 47.5% of this budget was allocated for primary education. The education sector received 14% of the total budget in 2013–2014.
- 2.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics Database: http://www.uis.unesco.org/DataCentre/Pages/country-profile.aspx?code=BGD®ioncode=40535.
- 3.
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Kono, H., Sawada, Y., Shonchoy, A.S. (2018). Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Education in Bangladesh: Achievements and Challenges. In: Sawada, Y., Mahmud, M., Kitano, N. (eds) Economic and Social Development of Bangladesh. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63838-6_7
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