Changes in Education Sector in Rural Bangladesh

Education Sector Education sector has faced significant changes over decades in rural Bangladesh. Earlier the maximum level of education that people received was mainly upto primary education. The drop-out rate was very high. The number of female students was very low and they used get married while studying in primary level. As a result, the number of female students in the secondary level was almost zero. The main reason behind this low enrollment in secondary level was ignorance of the parents.

They had this mind setup that primary education was good enough for their children and encouraged them to get involved in income earning activity for which they got no time to study. But, people are learning about the importance of education gradually, although the number of drop-outs is still not very low in poor families and among girls. Another trend in the village was late admission. By the time they completed primary education they had become 17/18 years old.

Nowadays, in the village a student completes his/her higher secondary education at this age. The medium of education has also changed. Earlier parents were inclined to ‘madrasa’ education. They wanted to make their children ‘moulana’. But today the parents see their children becoming doctors or engineers in the future. Earlier the villagers used to send their children to colleges near the village or at best near the district. But in recent years, parents are showing interest in sending their children to the capital for studying in college.

Many of them are getting admitted in BUET, Dhaka University, and other prestigious universities of the country. One of the main reasons of this radical change in education level of the village is the establishment of school, colleges in the recent years. Earlier, there was only one or two primary and high schools in the village. But many schools, colleges are being established nowadays with the initiative of the government and NGOs.

The government is offering different scholarship programs for encouraging the rural people to send their children to schools, colleges and receive education. Awareness programs are being held by NGOs and the government for making people conscious about the importance of education. Another important change in the education system in rural Bangladesh is increased enrollments in diploma level of education. This trend has started very recently. Some of the students has already passed diploma others and are on the way of passing.