Editorial
For an inclusive enrolment policy
A five-pronged strategy needed
WITH well over 50percent dropout from the fifth grade in school, the national goal of education for all by 2014 is evidently not on track to fulfillment. Huge planned efforts are needed backed by financial investment and targeted commitments to make it possible within just about four years.
The causes of dropout are all pretty much known, the principal ones being poverty, social exclusion and lack of schooling in remote areas. Now, we have to prioritise the problem areas and steam ahead addressing them squarely.
A point of caution needs to be spelt out at the outset, this relating to making sure that in our endeavour for quantity, quality is not lost sight of. The literacy that we aim to universalise should be truly functional and that it will be of life-long utility through appropriate reorientation interventions.
From the roundtable titled "A National Priority for Education for all(EFA): Reaching Vulnerable Children" organised by this paper, Campaign for Popular Education (Campe) and Save the Children on Thursday emerged a five-point formulation of a virtual stratagem. First and foremost, local bodies like union parishads and upazilas would have to be involved to ensure enrolment and roll back dropouts, the focus being on vulnerable groups. Second, the local bodies and the NGOs should work in coordination with each other to implement the programmes targeted at the hard-to-reach children. Third, programmes to offer midday meals and stipends would have to be extensively implemented. Fourth, primary education ought to be made a precondition for gaining access to social safetynet programmes. Last but not least, the employers of child workers should be made responsible for the basic education of those under their employ.
Two fundamentally important points should be borne in mind simultaneously. Even with the current enrolment figure the teacher:student ratio is highly adverse. For a radical improvement in the situation the dire need is to set up strings of teachers training institutes to turn out new generation of teachers. This issue is intertwined with that of quality education.
Finally, we in the media must make it into a mission to generate more information with the help of the educational authorities, government and NGOs in order to (a) bolster awareness and sensitisation campaigns; (b) bring up the marginilised and vulnerable into a new focus; and (c) highlight success stories as inspirational guidelines for helping replication.
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