Cohesive Approach to Primary Education in Bangladesh: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

Education is a dynamic force in the life of every individual, influencing his/her physical, mental, emotional, social and ethical development. It is also equally important from the social and national point of view. National development of a country obviously depends on educational especially primary educational advancement, but what are the conditions of our education system? In our country it is divided into different sections due to hues amount of economic imbalance and divided our population into different division from the beginning of life. The three main educational systems in Bangladesh, ordered by decreasing student numbers, are: • General Education System • Madrasah Education System • Technical - Vocational Education System Other systems include a Professional Education System. Each of these three main systems is divided into four levels: ♦ Primary Level (years 1 to 5) ♦ Secondary Level (years 6 to 10) ♦ Higher Secondary Level (years 11 and 12) and ♦ Tertiary Level. Primary level education 1s provided under two maJor institutional arrangements (stream)-General and Madrasha. Nevertheless, other types of institution like kindergartens and junior sections attached to English Medium schools are also imparting primary education. A number of pre-conditions jointly could contribute to the development of quality primary education, where specific and proper education policy, specific syllabus and books, teaching methods and teachers training system are the key factors. Present research is empirical and descriptive in nature. Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) has been selected as the research area because Rajshahi is famous as an education city. From the colonial period, lots of educational institutions have been established in this area. Not only that, the city corporation areas are considered as the model of all types of developments. Primary and secondary data have been used in this research. Primary data have been collected through observation, in depth interview, schedule questioner, record and picture from the students and their guardian, teachers, members of policy implementation (PTI, DPEO, TEO and RCC) and governing bodies of Government primary schools, Madrasahs and English medium Schools of Rajshahi City Corporation area and secondary data have been collected through document study like- existing education policies, syllabus and text books using in different primary education institutions, teachers training guide, different types of journals, news papers, articles, thesis papers, web sites and other documents. Statistical methods and computer have been used to analyze the collected data. Purposive and random sampling methods have been used to select the sample size. The sample size is 255. Some research questions have been raised critically. Such questions are- • What are the differences among General primary, Madrasah and English Medium education system? • What are the reasons of the differences among them? • What are the common subjects of these three types of education system? • Whether the methods of teaching and marking system of the common subjects in these education systems are same or different? • What is the status of the students from these three types of education system in competitive examination? • How these three types of education system can be turned into a cohesive and uniform structure? • What problems would be created for this? The main objective of this research is to identify the status of similarities and dissimilarities of our existing primary education systems and to achieve this purpose the other objectives are-