Editorial
Primary school dropout
Review the realities
The dropout rate in primary education, we have just been informed by the minister for primary and mass education, stands at 21 per cent. There are those who will not be unduly alarmed by the figures, considering that enrolment over these past many months has been nearly 100 per cent in the nation's primary schools. It would be quite in the fitness of things to expect a segment of pupils to drop out, for schools not to be able to hold on to them. That is how one could look at conditions philosophically.
On a more realistic observation of the situation, however, there is reason for worry. And it is there because of some stark truths we can hardly avoid. Foremost is the question of why pupils drop out after they have enrolled in classes. One explanation is that in a number of instances the children who stop going to primary school are often needed to help their families carry out different chores and sometimes even help to earn a little money. Another is the parental thought that in school their children will be guaranteed at least one meal a day, which for impoverished families makes a whole world of difference. Given that the national goal is the creation of an illiteracy-free Bangladesh, one would do well to ask if a system that ensures midday meals to the young could not be devised and put in place, through government efforts as well as philanthropic endeavours. A third and equally important reason behind pupils dropping out of school is either uninspiring teachers or instructors whose low income pushes them into a state of indifference to classroom teaching. It is here too that attention must be refocused if the old cliché of teaching being a noble profession is to be translated into a manifest reality.
In a world where inter-dependence is the unalloyed reality, it makes sense to ask that serious efforts be expended toward ensuring a hundred per cent attendance in the primary schools. That entails a serious look into the points made earlier.
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