The Secondary Education Scenario

1. Public-Private Partnership to Improve Access to and Quality of Secondary Educationin BangladeshMd. Ashraful MoqbulAdditional SecretaryMinistry of Education, BangladeshConference on Quality Education for AllOctober 2007, New Delhi

2. The Secondary Education Scenario • An interesting case of public-private partnership. 98% of provision of secondary education is private. Still, 95% school funds come from Government in the form of subvention. • The positive aspect: Community initiated, community owned and managed, potential for comprehensive country-wide coverage

3. The Secondary Education Scenario • The issues: • Regulations and systemic arrangements to facilitate better performance of the system and quality improvement in an environment of ever-expanding provision • Ensuring incentives for expansion of secondary education in disadvantaged areas and communities • Warding off bad political interference in establishing schools, getting subvention support and recruiting teachers • Measuring and monitoring performance of institutions • Poor quality is still a huge issue in secondary education.

4. GOB Initiatives • GOB has taken a number of initiatives focusing on: • Governance and systemic improvement for better and more equitable allocation of resources and to enhance quality and access • Provision of incentives to institutions for better performance and for private provision of education in disadvantaged areas • Provision of incentives to children and families to access secondary education • Measures to improve teacher quality • Improvement of the quality of textbooks and curriculum • Assessing and monitoring performance of institutions In these efforts, GOB is supported by a number of DPs.

5. A. Governance and Systemic Improvement The objectives are: • To establish transparency in the use and allocation of resources to schools and colleges, • To make resource allocation more equitable and targeted to the poor • To increase the accountability of non-government institutions, and • To develop a more efficient management of secondary and higher secondary education with greater stakeholder involvement.

6. A. Governance and Systemic Improvement Issue: School recognition and subvention Although there were comprehensive quality and access criteria for granting recognition and providing subvention to new schools, they were not adhered to, due to lack of evaluation capacity of Education Boards and political pressures on the MOE officials. Action: Evaluation of non-government schools/colleges for recognition and subventions are now left to independent evaluating agencies. These agencies themselves are evaluated from time to time.

7. A. Governance and Systemic Improvement Issue: Tightening and better monitoring of criteria for financing schools may lead to greater inequity in access, with the poorer areas being most adversely affected. Action: MOE is catalyzing community initiatives to establish new schools/expand existing schools in underserved areas with due attention to the realities on the ground.

8. B. Incentives for better performance Issue: Tying subvention to performance. Absence of this practice led to a situation where schools lacked incentive to improve performance in the past. Action: MOE issued an administrative order amending the criteria for receiving subvention. Schools not meeting revised performance criteria are notified that their subvention would be stopped unless they improve performance within two years. Schools not performing well are then provided needed support and well performing schools receive rewards and recognition.

9. B. Incentives for better performance • A number of measures taken to further improve performance of students and institutions: • Incentive for school improvement plans • SSC incentive awards and recognition to schools • Achievement awards and recognition to best performing students • Achievement awards and recognition to most improving students

10. C. Incentives to Enhance Access • A country wide stipend to promote girls’ education • Now being extended also to boys • Being targeted to the poor based on a set of poverty criteria • Girl students supported by Family Attractiveness Program • New School Program for disadvantaged and underserved areas and communities.

11. D. Improving Quality of Teachers The objective is • to develop a transparent and high-quality system of teacher recruitment and teacher training.

12. D. Improving Quality of Teachers Issue: In the past, the existing rules and regulations for teacher recruitment were not followed strictly. This led to rent-seeking, nepotism and political interferences in recruiting teachers. Action: To combat this, the Government has established an autonomous Non-government Teacher Registration and Certification Authority (NTRCA) responsible for “pre-qualifying” teacher-candidates based on academic qualification and standardized examination. SMCs are to recruit from a pre-qualified pool of teachers.

13. D. Improving Quality of Teachers • GOB is establishing a National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) to coordinate, streamline and define standards for teacher education. • Beginning 2008, all new teachers to be accredited will need at least one year B. Ed. training. • Under a five-year plan, all untrained teachers existing in the system are being provided in-service training • 40 Mobile Training Resource Teams (MTRT) are providing hands-on training to teachers at their institutions.

14. E. Textbooks and Curriculum The main objective is: • To improve transparency in selection and approval of textbooks, competitive production of better quality textbooks in a cost-effective and timely manner. • To revise curriculum to meet the changing demand

15. E. Textbooks & Curriculum Issue: NCTB was not transparent in evaluation of textbook manuscript, especially in case of private publishers. This led to rent-seeking, poor quality textbook production, high production cost and unavailability of textbooks on time. Action: Production of textbooks for all grades from 6 to 12 is open to competition.

16. F. Assessing and Monitoring Performance Issue: Inadequate data collection, monitoring & evaluation constrained policy-making. Action: MOE is tracking education performance and public expenditures. It is working on institutionalizing data collection, enhancing data collection capacity – all geared toward helping better policy and planning.

17. F. Assessing and Monitoring Performance • Assessment of students • At entry level Grade 6 to see the quality at entry • At Grade 8 to see how the system is performing in terms of student achievement • At terminal exams at Grades 10 and 12 • Also performance of Bangladeshi students is benchmarked against international standards (e.g., TIMSS) to help policy formulation, planning and needed intervention • Still a long way to go, but the process has been initiated

18. Some Preliminary Evidence on Impact • 1300 institutions were served warning regarding suspension of subventions. Subventions of 368 of worse performing institutions suspended in 2005 and 2006. • 2608 schools showed significant improvement in performance • 57 new schools have been established in disadvantaged areas • Pass rates in SSC exam rise to 59% in 2006 from a baseline of 40% in 2002. Pass rates in HSC examinations rise to 64% in 2006 from a baseline of 38% in 2002. • Teacher absenteeism in 2005 was down to 11% from a baseline of 17% in 2002. Political interference and nepotism in teacher recruitment are reportedly substantially reduced. • 27% of public resources are now targeted to the poor against a baseline of 24% in 2003

19. Some Preliminary Evidence on Impact • 21% in-service teachers trained against the baseline of 10% in 2003 • Significant decline in cheating in standardized examinations; • Competitive process followed for production and publication of all textbooks at secondary and higher secondary levels. • For the last few years, books have been delivered to students on time.

20. A long journey, which has started, hopefully in the right directionThank you .