People belonging to the world of education expect the highest allocation for education in the national budget every year but they get frustrated seeing the picture of allocation in this vital area. This year, we have been waiting to experience a new budget in the changed perspective of the country. By this time, we have sensed that the next budget would not be allowed to cross much of the existing one Tk 7 lac 90 and it could be Tk 7 lac 97 thousand crores.
In the midst of this humming, Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Education Siddique Jobayer declared that the highest allocation will be ensured for education in the upcoming 2025-2026 budget adding that currently, the education sector is witnessing massive development. He noted that previously, allocations were given solely for providing education, but now the focus has expanded. "Teachers are being trained, and academic buildings are being constructed to improve the quality of education," he said. Whenever, the question of quality education comes, we all talk about teacher training. Teacher training in the existing setup can partially bring some change in the character of the teachers. It, however, shows very little success in the real classroom. Our teachers continue receiving training year after year and some continue doing it throughout their life, still no change happens in their delivery and dealing with students and students’ real academic progress does not happen, let alone occurring significant change in education. We rather see the quality of education and teaching learning situation is getting bad to worse even though a huge amount of budget from this poor economy is spent for teacher training as huge establishment for provdng training has been nurtured.Receiving training means gathering various sorts of information which teachers hardly can utilize in their own classrooms to develop their own students. They themselves can hardly do anything. It can be compared with the spectators who just clap witnessing playing techniques of the players in the field but don’t play by themselves. They must be practicing in the original field to be good enough in playing football and cricket in the read field. That does not happen. They just continue receiving training after training , that literally means storing various information without promising their real development, quality and innovation. The same thing happens to our teachers. Now, training means giving them some money and spending an amount of budget. To speak the truth, the current way of training hardly gives any benefit to teachers’ real development. This huge training both in the government and private sector, it is said that just warm the pockets of some teachers without reflecting anything in the real classroom. You can get this proof by interviewing and talking to the students. Quality just downgrades day by day. So, what is the necessity of so-called training and spending budget? The previous government spent huge amount of money in the name of ‘competency-based curriculum’ but only one or two percent teachers could grasp the idea. Finally, we see it could not be implemented at all.
The national budget plays a crucial role in our economy, serving as a key instrument for economic planning and development which reflects the government's strategic goals and priorities aimed at the maximum welfare of people throughout a fiscal year. Our economy is experiencing a series of severe challenges including currency devaluation, soaring energy tariff, persistent inflationary pressure, and high lending rate influenced by recent geoeconomic downturn which have disrupted the usual economic spree. Whether our limited resources with two trillion-taka revenue shortfall can provide the highest allocation for education remains a question. The previous government tried to hoodwink the people showing a confused figure that education received the highest allocation. This government most probably is not going to play that game. It rather will explain the limitations of finance to support education. Despite limitations people desire that all education stipends should be increased in the budget for FY2025, the VAT on the tuition fees for all academic institutions, including English medium schools, should be exempted and the exemption should remain in place indefinitely. It is also desirable that all taxes and duties on foreign imported books and pure education materials should be exempted in the budget Corporation income tax on private universities and colleges should be reduced.
Bangladesh currently needs high quality education that must begin from basic level of education and we know that multiple factors contribute to low quality education. We time and again talk about quality teachers who can really give quality education and make competent students. Here lies the problem. When our entire gamut of education witnesses a dilapidated situation, the production of quality professionals necessarily appear rare and teaching comes as the lowest choice of any professionals ( with some rare exceptions). Does it mean that only increasing budget in this field can do it ? The serious moral degradation of the society seriously influences the social institutions including our schools, colleges, madrasas and universities. If we caste our eyes around, what picture can our eyes catch? All the higher education institutions, either private or public, experience students’ protest against the administration and individual teachers with shutting down the doors of classroom and laboratories. Students of schools and colleges are also not in the classroom to receive education comfortably. They resort to all sorts of easier means to cross the ladder of classes and education without study and toil. All this totally means low quality production where budget does not stand as a great factor. The government primary school teachers have gone on strike to press home their three point demands even though their salary grade has been upgraded. They want status and promotion. When those will be met , they will clamour for some more unknown demands. The state has to remain keeping busy with satisfying them without asking them to produce deserving students and citizens going to the class. It hints that private or non-government primary school teachers don’t have any demand. They also produce far better quality students than government schools. On the other hand, secondary level teachers show the plea that they cannot give quality education because of their being non-government. When they will be government, they will continue protesting to upgrade their status and salary without giving any attention to real classroom situation as currently happens in government schools. Teachers meet their students sincerely in their own teaching rooms. Does budget means here the prime factor?
Classroom is the real place of development for teachers who experience myriad causes which need to be addressed that means it’s a big field of research. Teachers have enough scope to innovate something experiencing their own classroom and dealing with their own students of various types. Ignoring this big and practical field, they go for training to learn some theory and the country loses a huge amount of money for that impractical situation.
Tertiary level teachers do research , ask for budget for that totally ignoring the real problems they meet every day in their classroom and with students and situation. They again do research based on theory without doing any practical work that can really give something to our education field. Finally, the government spends another big chunk of money in the name of free distribution of textbooks that also does not bring any positive results rather it contributes to demeaning our education. As it has become a business for NCTB, its cronies and education businessmen. These free textbooks never reach the students timely and which is not literally possible either. Students suffer , lose the interest of using textbooks and government strives to manage money for that. Can we afford to do it in the coming budget again?Writer: Former Teacher of Cadet College