Bangladesh Education Scenario

In Bangladesh the overall literacy rate (7 years and above) is about 44.3 per cent (1995), where the female literacy rate is 28.5 percent and the male literacy rate is 50.4 percent. The gap of literacy rate between the urban and rural areas is very wide - 36.6 percent in rural and 63.0 percent in urban areas.

Class-wise Enrolment by Gender in all Types of Primary Level Institutions, 1999-2000:
Class	1999			2000
	Total	Boys	Girls	Total	Boys	Girls
Grade I	4,288,519	2,227,753	2,060,766	4,367,006	2,286,274	2,080,732
Grade II	3,851,203	1,988,003	1,863,200	3,851,259	1,970,914	1,880,345
Grade III	3,595,519	1,849,321	1,746,198	3,546,145	1,804,076	1,742,069
Grade IV	3,115,755	1,589,359	1,526,396	3,129,325	1,578,426	1,550,899
Grade V	2,770,735	1,410,583	1,360,152	2,774,250	1,393,008	1,381,242
Total	17,621,731	9,065,019	8,556,712	17,667,985	9,032,698	8,635,287

‘Access to primary education over the last 20 years has increased steadily. The gross enrolment rate has risen from nearly 60 percent in 1980 to 73 percent in 1990 and 96.5 percent in 2000. In absolute numbers, in the last two decades, primary education enrolment has more than doubled from 8.2 million to 17.6 million. The current estimate of net enrolment rate has also narrowed to a ratio of 51 to 49 between boys and girls. The rate of dropout in primary school has gone down from 60 percent I 1990 to 35 percent in 2000. The achievement in enrolment has been made possible by legislative support, provision of physical facilities massive social mobilization and increased to 62,117 in 2000 of which, government primary schools were 37,677 (61 percent of total primary schools). Over 15,000 full primary schools have been added since 1990. This increase reflected government’s policy to establish school in unschooled areas with participation. In addition, full or partial primary level education is also offered in High Schools, Madrasahs, Kindergartens, Satellite Schools, etc. The number of these institutions was 14,692 in 2000.

The rate of adult literacy in Bangladesh according to population census was 25.8 per cent in 1974, which increased to 29.2 per cent in 1981 and to 35.3 percent in 1991. The inter-census average annual literacy growth rates were 1.78 per cent (1974-81) and 1.92 percent (1981-91), while the population growth rates were 2.35 per cent and 2.17 per cent respectively.

Initiatives Taken by Bangladesh	Implementing Agencies
Bangladesh is a signatory of World Declaration on Education for All (WCEFA) held in Jomtein, Thailand in 1990. As a follow-up of WCEFA, a National Plan for Action (NPA) for Education for all (EFA) 2000 was prepared NGOs are playing a vital role through implementing non-formal basic education for children, adolescents and adults. They are making a great contribution to achieving EFA by running non-formal primary/ basic education centers supplementary to the formal education system	Ministry of Education (MoE) PMED NGO (CAMPE) BRAC NGOs such as BRAC, RDRS, Swanirvar, Surovi, DAM and others
The government has developed ”National Education Policy 2000”, where creating awareness has been given priority. One of the main strategy of the policy is including environmental studies in the primary level	National Curriculum and Textbook Board
National Academy for Education and Management (NAEM) Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC) has pre-service and in-service training where environmental education is a part of training curriculum	NAEM4 BPATC
Some national Universities has includes environmental studies in their education system In addition some private Universities i.e. IUB, North South University, Queens University have furnished environmental science discipline, environmental Law at Bachelors’ Degree level.
The govt. has initiated an Integrated Non-formal Education Program (INFEP), under which following programs were implemented: (i) Establishment of an Pre-Primary stream for infants (4-5) (ii) A Non-formal Basic Education Programme for out of school and school dropout children (6-10) (iii) Establishment of a Non-formal Education system for Adolescents (11-14) (iv) Introduction of a functional literacy course for adult literates (15-45) (v) Consolidation of acquired skills of neo-literates through providing post literacy service.	Directorate of Non-Formal Education under the Primary and Mass Education Division
An Education Policy giving priority to female education and for eradicating illiteracy by 2005 has been formulated Initiated special programs i.e. stipend for girls up to eight, Food for Education etc.	Directorate of Non-Formal Education under the Primary and Mass Education Division
A peace accord (between GoB and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Shanghati Samiti) for attaining self-governance/ affirm the right of the of the Chittagong Hill tracts indigenous people was been signed on December 02, 1997.

Source: Draft WSSD, IUCN