Experts have called for decentralizing the regulatory framework for education governance.
They made the observation on the political economy of education in the virtual discussion centred on a book, titled “Political Economy of Education in South Asia: Fighting Poverty, Inequality and Exclusion”, organized by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) on Wednesday.
“There is a need for decentralization. Education governance should be decentralized with regulatory frameworks covering state, private and hybrid institutions, all upholding public good,” said Dr Manzoor Ahmed, who co-authored the book with John Richards and Shahidul Islam.
The book talks about the current, medium and long-term implications of education challenges in Bangladesh.
This book has presented the ways to overcome the challenges from a political economy perspective.
In his speech, Dr Manzoor Ahmed emphasized having only one ministry to work effectively at the policy level.
He added that all schools should come under one ministry with a decentralized governance structure.
Saying that in the South Asian region illiteracy concentration, school dropouts and the level of poverty are high, he added: “We are also lagging behind in fulfilling the indicators of SDG-4. The political decisions are the foremost barrier in achieving these.”
He shed light on the prevailing situation of school, madrasa, vocational and tertiary level education, saying: “The proficiency level of teachers acquires a huge place in education. We have to increase the standard of teachers to achieve our goal in education.
“Only higher GDP and mega-development projects are not enough. Everything is about political priorities and decisions. The state and other stakeholders need to work together. Education has to keep a distance from short-sighted politics.”
Meanwhile, CPD founder Rehman Sobhan, while illustrating the current scene in Bangladesh, said: “We in Bangladesh have a tendency to be frogs in a well, with very little idea of what is going in the world around us, particularly in the world of education.
“And if we ever need to actually do something about our education we need to get out of the well and look at the world around us, learn from others, then see what we can actually do to upgrade what is one of the major deficits of our development experience.”
Dr Binayak Sen, director general of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), said: “ The quality of education we are seeing now may be driven by the stage of economic development we are in now.”
Professor Syed Manzoorul Islam, in his remarks, said: “Political economy of education is basically something that treats education as a factor shaped by the power relations of different economic, political and social groups. When it comes to power relations we are in the dark. We don't know who the stakeholders are and who decides what.”
He also added: “If the policies are not aligned toward the need of education we are promoting, I don't think anything can be achieved.”
In her opening remarks, CPD Executive Director Fahmida Khatun said: “All policies have political dimensions, so does education.”
Experts said that the role of education was undeniable in building a prosperous Bangladesh where every stakeholder needed to work together.
The discussion highlighted the points of failure in implementing different education commissions of Bangladesh and the inability to ensure secondary level education for everyone, need for improvement of primary education, the importance of a comprehensive education sector plan and learning achievement of students, the impact of a pandemic on education and the role of vocational institutes.
