Pre-schooling in Bangladesh

Pre-schooling in Bangladesh

Pre-primary education stands as a critical strategic intervention for promoting the quality of primary schooling for children.  It helps children transition from home to formal schooling. Participation in pre-school education has been increasing in Bangladesh at the rate of 0.06 percent per year and the net enrolment rate was found to be 13.4 percent in 2005. Enrolment of over-aged children in pre-school education made the gross-enrolment ratio as high as 30.4 percent. However, over half of the four to five year old at school were actually enrolled in primary school and not in pre-school. Moreover, 71 percent of the four to five year group was out of school. Only a third of the four-to five year old children enrolled in schools had the opportunity to attend English medium kindergartens or NGO run non-formal school, both of which provide better quality pre-school education. Urban children especially those with educated parents and from more privileged socio-economic backgrounds, were more likely to have access to pre-school education. The lack of a common pre-school curriculum seems to have created further inequity among children at this early age.

The first years of life are particularly important because vital development occurs in all domains as Shonkoff & Phillops2000 research reveals. Many studies suggest that early learning contributes to the brain’s developing architecture.  ( Blackemore& Frith 2005) and the earliest interactions between child and careers provide the cultural structure that underpins the development of intellectual schemes.It has been estimated that over 200 million children under the age of five are not fulfilling their developmental potential and these disadvantaged children are likely  to do poorly in school and subsequently  have low incomes, high fertility, and provide poor care for their children, thus  contributes  to the intergenerational  transmission of poverty according to the research of  Grantham- MeGregor 2007)

The positive effects on cognitive development at school entry-promote children’s positive social adjustments, which facilitates improved learning in adolescence and beyond. Apart from significant cognitive and non-cognitive benefits to children, research also indicates that long-term effects of early education will occur as program participation enhances family functioning and parenting practices. Pre-school programs can also help reduce social inequality by compensating for disadvantage resulting from factors such as poverty, gender, ethnicity, caste or religion as the report  UNESCO 2007.Although not much attention was given to pre-school education at the Jomeien conference in  1990, the Dakar forum in 2000) did so with great significance . One of the six goals of the Dakar Framework of Action was on early childhood care and education. It urged the expansion and improvement of comprehensive ECCE, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children. However, UNESCO Education for All  monitoring report  observed  that progress  towards  wider  access remains  slow as children from disadvantaged  backgrounds are more likely  to be excluded  from ECCE. Comparing the children from various regions, it stated that a child in sub-Sharan Africa can expect only .3 years of pre-primary schooling compared to 1.6 years in Latin America and the Caribbean and 2.3 years in North America and Western Europe. In many developing countries ECCE programs suffer from teachers with low qualifications as well low rates of enrolment.

The Second Primary Education Development Program ( PEDP II) of Bangladesh  has now included  the establishment of a baby class, in all primary schools through a school and community partnership. The National Curriculum and Textbook Board do not prove any curriculum for this stage of schooling. However,  kindergartens and English medium schools have been providing  pre-school education for a long time and as a result of growing demand from parents  and the community , some government primary  schools  and other formal schools have also introduced  pre-school programs  in their institutions.  There are no government statistics on the number of children receiving pre-school education overall or any breakdown according to type of institutions.

The Education Watch school survey date also show  that on an average each baby class  contained 52 children with 48.5 percent  girls. Jahan ( 2005) observed that these baby classes  were often poorly organized and crowded  with children aged three to five/six years . she also  observed  that the young infants  did not understand what was being taught, and appropriate  play materials  were rarely  found in the classrooms. The kindergartens and English –medium schools provide pre-school education more seriously than the above-mentioned formal schools. Eighty-six percent of the kindergartens and the English medium schools have such provision. Course duration ranges from one to four years depending on the community’s demand and the school authority’s decision, but most  schools provide  one-to two-year courses using local textbooks of varying quality. English medium schools, however, are the expectation by providing three-to four year courses using overseas textbooks, as their long-term objective is to prepare students for British O-Level/A Level or Junior /Senior Cambridge Examinations.

BRAC pre-primary program organizes pre-primary classes for young children aged five to six years. Some of these programs are established in the campuses of the formal primary schools both at government and non-government but many about two-thirds are conducted outside. It is a one-year program where each class contains 25 children who are taught by two local school girls with minor training and classes take place two  hours a day and six days a week. Although the official age for primary education is six, a sizeable proportion of the pre-primary aged children were found in primary school, 18.2 percent in 1998, followed by 16.7 percent in 2000 and 15.5 percent in 2005. This shows that the majority of pre-primary classes instead of pre-school classes, though the gap has been narrowing over time. On the other hand, the opposite case was also found with many primary school-aged children enrolled in pres-schools instead of primary school. 12.6 percent in 1998 and 2000, increasing to 17.1 percent in 2005. The gross enrolment ration in pre-school education increased from about 22 percent 1998-2000 to over 30 in 2005. It is stressed here that this ration includes over-aged in pre-school places.

Over 70 percent of the pre-school aged children were not enrolled in any educational institution, 85 percent of four year olds and 57 percent of five year old. And only a minor improvement of .2 per year was found in this respect over the seven-year period. Furthermore, according to the latest national census in 2001, there were around 7.7 million Bangladeshi children of pre-primary age and if the population growth over the last five years is taken into account, at least over five million children in this age group would be currently out of school. In both 1998 and 2000 about 9 percent of rural children and 11.4 percent of urban children aged four to five years were enrolled in preschools and the difference between the two groups was significant. A wide age range was found among the children who were enrolled in pre-schools, namely from four to eleven years of age. For example, in 2005 the proportion of children of different ages enrolled in pre-school was as such: 13.7 were aged four, 30.1 aged five, 24.4 aged six, and 20.3 percent aged seven in 2005 were of pre-school age.

Children receive pre-school education in various types of institutions e.g. government primary schools, registered and non-registered primary schools, NGOs run non-formal schools, madrasa, kindergartens, and the primary section of high schools. At the national level in 2005 the majority of children received pre-schooling in government primary schools, followed by kindergartens and English –medium schools and non-government and NGO-run non-formal schools. Analysis by year shows that the dominance of government primary schools in providing pre-school education has weakened over the years, from comprising almost 62 percent of the provision in 1998 to 43.5 percent in 2005 which represent a reduction of 18.5 percent points. NGO non-formal schools, kindergartens and English medium schools have experienced considerable growth over time with NGO provision growing nearly six-fold in 1998 to 15.9 in 2005. In rural areas, government primary schools played the major role in pre-school provision, whereas in urban areas it was the kindergarten and the English medium schools are the dominated scene. The present education policy of the government attaches importance to pre-schooling. How the gaps will be minimized remains a question. (This write- up has been developed on the basis of the report published in the ‘ International Journal of Early Years Education by Samir Ranjan Nath and Sylva, Kathy)

Masum Billah