A nation’s position and fundamental philosophy around education reflects through its education policy. In Bangladesh, a long-awaited education policy, believed to be inclusive, prop-poor and accepted by all, was declared in 2010. That was a huge step towards realising the right to education for all. Article 17 of our national constitution mentions free and compulsory education. It articulates that the “State shall adopt effective measures for the purpose of (a) establishing an uniform, mass-oriented and universal system of education and extending free and compulsory education to all children to such stage as may be determined by law and (b) relating education to the needs of society and developing properly trained and motivated citizens to serve those needs; removing illiteracy within such time as may be determined by law.”
Education policy and legislation
Since the declaration of the education policy in 2010, the nation were expecting a fresh legislation will also be in place according to the new education policy, which would basically aim to implement the policy promises and provide a system of rules to be passed by the government obeyed by all. Keeping this hope alive, a twenty-member education law drafting committee was formed by the government on March 16, 2011. On June 1, 2012, a nine-member working committee was declared to prepare the draft of the law. Thanks to these two committees, the draft law was prepared and posted on the Ministry of Education website on August 5, 2013, with the aim to collect feedback from the educationists, experts, academia, education rights activists and all concerned. However, the main criticism of the proposed Education Law 2013 is that it is not satisfactorily inclined to protect the right to education of the people.
Citizen’s right to education is at stake
The Bangladesh constitution doesn’t yet recognise education as a “fundamental human right.” Hence, the state and its government are not obligated to protect and fulfil the right to education of citizens. Article 5 (1) on page 4 of the draft law mentions that primary education will be recognised as a child’s right. However, terming primary education as a child’s right doesn’t actually pledge that the state will be accountable for the fulfilment of the education rights of all children. Therefore, the law needs to clearly define the right to free and compulsory education where there will be no charges, direct or indirect, for pre-primary and primary education. Education must gradually be made free at all levels. In fact, declaring an education law is not sufficient unless it is accompanied by an amendment of the constitution, where education is recognised as a fundamental human right.
The draft Education Law 2013 ought to mention the measures to be taken to ensure children’s, particularly girls’, safety en route to and in school. The act has to clearly define the confidential systems for reporting and addressing any form of abuse or violence against girls.
The proposed law doesn’t clearly define the duties, responsibilities and obligations of the government, local government, school authorities, parents, learners, teachers, and communities. Education acts of most of the neighbouring countries have categorically articulated the duties, responsibilities and obligations of different parties. For example, it is well-defined in the Indian and Vietnamese education acts.
The draft law needs to spell out one dedicated article about child’s right to adequate school infrastructure where there will be an appropriate number of classrooms, accessible to all, with adequate and separate sanitation facilities for girls and boys.
The draft law hasn’t clearly defined the role of the state in providing mid-day school meal although a need for state-provided midday cooked meals is high on the agenda due to the fact that it is nutritious, culturally appropriate and meets the hunger of the children.
The draft education law needs to explain the scope for citizen participation in local education and should mention the mechanisms of how schools as social institutions will be accountable to people. Traditionally, citizens have very limited or no voice and participation in the assessment process of local schools.
At present citizens have limited access to information on school performance, budget, and expenditure. Therefore, aligned with the right to information act, the draft education law should define from which sources citizens will get educational information, statistics and data.
The draft law must demystify the nature of decentralisation of education and should also elaborate the roles and responsibilities of local government in education. This is due to the fact that historically one of the fatal mistakes of our education system is the lack of involvement of the local government.
The draft law must uphold the value of public education and deject commercialisation and privatisation of education and any step undermining the role, and accountability of the state in fulfilling and protecting rights to education. The law must keep provision for penalising any commercial agreements that consider education, research, and other social services as tradable items.
The draft education law hasn’t spoken about teachers’ union rights to give the teaching professionals the opportunity to exercise collective bargaining, addressing the conditions of service and pay for the teaching staff, and of course to devise movements for quality public education.
Conclusion
The proposed education law 2013 doesn’t fairly uphold the value of democracy as it doesn’t allow the citizens to take any legal step if the law is not obeyed and allows only the government parties to do so.
This clearly manifests a totalitarian mind-set of the government where no particular clause is specified for the citizens so that they, in case of the violation of their education right, can take legal steps against the education service providers, eg the school authority and education administration.
Therefore, the draft education law 2013 requires to articulate specific clauses to particularly support the parents of those children who suffer discrimination in receiving quality public education.
As long as the state’s education legislation is concerned, civil societies need to bravely challenge the discriminatory articles and clauses within the proposed law to hold the government accountable to deliver on people’s rights to quality education.
