Monday, April 29, 2024
About 41 per cent of the country's 5 to 24-year-old population was not enrolled in any educational institution last year, which is an increase of 11.45 percentage points since 2019, the year before covid-19 pandemic hit Bangladesh.
This amounts to 2.62 crore people who either did not enroll in the appropriate age for education or discontinued at some point, according to a report titled “Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics 2023” released by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) recently.
The report which was conducted on three lakh families also highlighted that 39.88 per cent of 15 to 24-year-old population are neither studying, nor working or undergoing any sort of trainings.
This indicates that a significant number of dropouts are not engaged in any productive activity as well.
Furthermore, the inactivity rate is more than three times higher for girls than for boys in Bangladesh. The inactivity rate for girls aged 15 to 24 years is 60.85 per cent, while for boys, it is 18.35 per cent.
According to the report, the rate of out-of-school population has decreased very slightly compared to 2022.
However, this rate is still much higher than before Covid-19 pandemic. Just before the epidemic, the rate of population not in formal education program in the country was 29.27 per cent in 2019.
Accordingly, the rate of out-of-school population has increased by about 11 percentage points in the last five years.
According to the BBS report, currently 59.28 per cent of people aged 5 to 24 years, the age of getting education from pre-primary to higher level, are receiving formal education. However, the out of education rate has dropped a little from 40.91 per cent in 2022.
Apart from this, the dropout rate has also decreased. The dropout rate among 5- to 24-year-olds was 10.58 per cent in 2022, down from 9.36 per cent last year. In 2019 the year before the pandemic, the dropout rate was only 3.1 per cent.
The literacy rate among people aged 7 and above is currently around 78 per cent, which is one percentage point higher than in 2022.
About 80 per cent of men and 76 per cent of women are now literate.
Apart from this, 91 per cent of the students are in general education system, 7.29 per cent in religious education system and 1.22 per cent in technical education.
While of the 40 per cent inactive youths, girls are 60.85 per cent and boys 18.35 per cent. In 2022, 61.71 per cent girls were inactive while the rate among the male youth was 18.59 per cent in the previous year.
Prominent educationist and former advisor to the Caretaker Government Rasheda K Chowdhury said, after Covid-19 pandemic the drop of students at educational institutions started. “In 2020 Education Watch conducted a perception survey talking with students, teachers and guardians and found that the pandemic would cause three types of problems. Drop out of students was one of those.”
She said that many students dropped out and engaged in income generating works. “After four years it is not possible to bring them all back to the educational institutions. We need to make a road map and make separate plan to incorporate them.”
She suggested introducing skill based education for the drop outs along with non-formal education. “Otherwise, this huge number of children and youths will not be able to get the benefit of education,” she said.
