Role of Education in promoting Peace and Development:
The Bangladesh Perspective
As we
know, in pursuance
of the United
Nations General Assembly's
SDGs 2030 Resolution (70/1,
September 25, 2015) the General Assembly adopted another Resolution on December
3, 2018 proclaiming
January 24 the
International Day of
Education to be observed
by all Member
States and other
relevant bodies including
civil society organizations that
immediately relates to SDG 4.
Accordingly today's assembly is being organized by the Bangladesh
National Commission for UNESCO in cooperation with the Ministry of Education,
Government of Bangladesh as a mark of celebration of the Day.
It is needless to say
that we cannot go along a modern decent life, both as an individual as well as
a member of society, without education. Education is like light. It
extinguishes all kinds of darkness
from the mind
and heart of
a recipient. It makes a person self-conscious, self-confident, creative,
and innovative, sensitizes to
one's surroundings or environment, imparts moral values, and
inculcates human virtues leading to develop a secular universal mind.
Human beings
aspire for peace
and development. Peace
and Development are intrinsically linked to Education. Peace
is not just absence of hostility and being free from fear of war or violence.
It is a state of mind that demands for a positive view towards life,
beliefs, behaviours and
attitudes necessary for
tolerance of diversity
and living in harmony
with others in
the community and
society. Peace education
is vitally important in
this respect, which teaches
the art, skill
and method of
pacific resolution of
conflicts and how to
develop a positive
attitude towards life
including culture of
peace. Further there is
a close relationship between
peace and development
playing a mutually contributory role.
Development is
understood in terms
of continued availability
of goods and
services required for quality
living for citizens.
It is a process of positive change, sustainable growth, equity,
and of creating
new opportunities and
comforts through material advancement and improvised service
sectors. This demands for materialisation of two key factors i.e.,
capacity-building at individual as well as national level and empowerment of women, who
constitute on average
fifty percent of
population. Education plays a key
transformative role in the spree of development. Nowhere in the world had any educated nation
remained backward, poor, sluggish or impoverished.
Bangladesh perspective
47 years
ago in 1971
Bangladesh emerged as
an independent state
through a War of
Liberation against the Pakistani occupation army under the leadership of the
Father of the Bangali Nation, Bangabandhu
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Over a period
of less than
five decades there has
taken place a phenomenal
growth and development
in the country
in almost every sectors
coming to be
accredited by the
world community as
a model for developing nations.
Contributions of education sector are pre-eminently large in this
stride. Further this may be primarily attributed to the foundational role and leadership
of the Father of the Nation and to her daughter, Sheikh Hasina, the four-time
Prime Minister of the government.
Bangabandhu's thought of education andpolicy
initiatives
Bangabandhu not
only dreamtof an
independent Bangladesh but
also of a
happy, prosperous developed state free from hunger, poverty, illiteracy
and exploitation founded upon the principles
of democracy and
secularism, a vision
of 'Sonar Bangla'
(Golden Bengal), as he
perceived. For materialisation of
such vision, he
put top priority
and importance to education.
During Pakistan period
in his nation-wide
address over Radio and
Television preceding the
1970 general elections
what Bangabandhu said
about education vindicated his thought onit, as he maintained,
No investment
is as vital
for the healthy
development of the
Society as in education..... Primary
education is denied
to more than
half of the
nation children. Only 18
percent of our
boys and 6
percent of our
girls complete first
five years of elementary school. We believe that at
least 4 percent of the Gross National Product should be committed to education. The
salary of the
college and school
teachers particularly school teachers
must be substantially
increased. Illiteracy must
beeradicated. A crush
programme must be
launched to extend
free and compulsory education to all children within 5
years. Secondary education should be made readily accessible to all sections of
people. New universities including medical and technical universities must be rapidly
established. Poverty should not be allowed
to deprive meritorious boys and girls of the opportunity to pursue higher
education.
In the
constitution of the
new state framed
by his government
in 1972, education
was declared as a
fundamental right of
citizen. The same
Constitution incorporated a
provision on state education policy under Article 17 stipulating that 'the state shall
adopt effective measures for
the purpose of
(a) establishing a
uniform, mass-oriented and universal
system of education
and extending free
and compulsory education
to all children to such stage
as may be
determined by law;
(b) relating education
to needs of society
and producing properly
trained and motivated
citizens to serve
those needs; (c) removing
illiteracy within such
time as may
be determined by
law'. In brief,
state education would be
uniform, mass-based and
universal, free and
compulsory for all
to a certain stage,
need based, capable
of creating skilled
human resources and
removing illiteracy withina stipulated time.
Despite a most
challenging situation presented by a war-ravaged economy, Bangabandhu
established 11 thousand new primary schools and many more other schools and
colleges in the country. In 1972 he also
constituted a commission known asDr.
Qudrat-E-Khuda Education
Commission to formulate
a National Education
Policy in line
with Article 17 of the Constitution. To the great
misfortune of the nation, the assassin's bullet in
August 1975 not only
took away the
life of the
Father of the
Nation but also
put all his policies and initiatives in the shelves by
the new pro-Pakistani military regimes.
Measures and achievements
of governments under Sheikh Hasina
Like many
other things, Bangabandhu
laid the foundation
of education policy
of the new state,
as seen above.
Coming to form
her first government
in 1996 after
21 years of relentless
struggle following the
assassination of Bangabandhu,
Sheikh Hasina had a
recourse to retrieval
of the policies
and great initiatives
made by the
Father of the
Nation hitherto abandoned by non-Awami League governments. After
succeeding victories in the general elections, she came to form her second,
third and fourth governments consecutively in 2009, 2014 and last 2019 for a
term of five year each. During the December 2008 general elections she
presented an unconventional manifesto
known as Vision
2021 or Charter
of Digital Bangladesh before the nation based on short-term, mid-term
and long-term goals in different sectors with a targeted time scale of
achievements.As a matter of fact, for the last ten years during her second and
third governments, a phenomenal change and development have taken place in the
country in all sectors including education.
Measures
Measures adopted by
Sheikh Hasina's governments in education sector include: (i) stress on eradication
of illiteracy, (ii) guarantee
of enrolment of every children of school
going age, (iii) special attention to reduce rate of drop outs, (iv)
distribution of books on the first day
of the calendar
year among students
up to secondary
level free of
cost, (v) special attention and
assistance (scholarships, stipends)
to promote female
education, (vi) free female
education up to
secondary level, (vii)
concerted efforts to
remove gender gap or
disparity in education,
(viii) Braille books
for blind students,
(ix) books in
mother languages for pre-primary
school children of
small nationalities, (x)
various types of scholarship, stipend
for hundreds of
thousands of students
of varied background,
(xi) Prime Minister's Education
Assistance Trust, (xii)
stress on technical
education, (xiii) ICT education
in different levels of education system, (xiv) ICT Training and
Resource Centres at Upazila
level, (xv) establishment
of 22 public
universities including 14 Science and Technology Universities and 55
private universities, (xvi) establishment of 5 specialised universities including
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman Digital University, (xvii)
establishment of 3
Medical Universities, (xviii)
plan to establish
100 technical schools at Upazila
level, (xix) plan to establish
4 women
polytechnic institutes in 4
divisional Headquarters, (xx) a ten
year (2009-2018) Higher
Education Quality
Enhancement Project (HEQEP)
to promote researches
at university level,
(xxi) Accreditation
CouncilAct 2017 to
ensure quality higher
education, (xxii) Bangladesh Research and
Education Network (BdRENT)
covering both public
and private universities under
the initiative of
UGC, (xxiii) Institutional
Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC)
in both public
and private universities,
(xxiv) modernisation of
madrassa education, (xxv) a
five year
(2016-2021)College Education Development
Project (CEDP) for training
16 thousand plus
college teachers in
abroad and Bangladesh
and Institutional Development Grants (IDGs) for 122 colleges.
Achievements
The achievements include
: (i) National Education Policy 2010 on the basis of consensus among all
stakeholders, (ii) against
17% in Pakistan
period, 73% rate
of literacy attainment (second
highest in South
Asia after Sri
Lanka), (iii) enrolment
of nearly cent percent school going students as against
61% ten years ago, (iv) reduction of rate of drop outs at primary level to
18.8% in 2015 as against 47.2% in 2005, (v) starting from 2010,
distribution of over
35 crore 42
lac free of
cost books among
students up to
secondary level in 2018 alone, (vi) increase of enrolment in technical
education from 1% in 2009 to 15% in 2018,
(vii) higher ratio
of female students
vis-a-vis boys up
to higher secondary level (the
ratio is also
increasing in university education
wherein female students currently constitute 35% on average), (viii) successful
completion of 429 higher research works
(including 18 for
patent) by public
university faculties under
the HEQEP, (ix) relief of 2.8 million national
university students from acute session jam.In
place of being
a food deficient
country few years
ago, Bangladesh is
now self-sufficient in food production, power generation capacity
stands at 20,000 MW (currently covers
90% of the
population) as against
only 3,200 MW
in 2006, rapid
women empowerment and
employability, rate of population growth from 2.89% in 2005-2006 to
1.2% in
2018, life expectancy
from 27 year
during Pakistan period
to present 72
year, rate of growth
7.86% in 2018
(continued 6+% over
the last one decade),
per capita income to US$ 1752
(only US$ 100 in 1972 and US$ 560 in 2006), reduction of poverty from 47% in
2001-2002 to 22% in 2018 (extreme poverty goes down from 22% in 2007-2008 to
11.8% in 2018), which
indicate a remarkable
change anddevelopment in the
country. Contributions of
education sector, direct
or indirect, to
all these achievements need not
be emphasised. Further the recent graduation of Bangladesh from
a least developing country (LDC) to a developing country owes a great deal to
education.
Conclusion
The importance
of education is
being stressed in
all civilisations by
thinkers and philosophers
beginning with Plato in ancient Greece, Confucius in China and Kautilya in
India down to
modern time. As an approach, education is holistic. It is a great change maker and transformer.
For transforming life be it individual, national or global covering all facets,
such as, poverty,
hunger, health, global
warming, gender equality,
water, sanitation, energy, urbanization,
environment, social justice,
as set out
in the 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development, from
despair to happiness
and from underdevelopment to
development through attainment
of desired goals,
the role of education
would be paramount. This has
been globally recognized
through the proclamation of
January 24 'the International Day of Education' by the UN. Admitted the importance
of education, it is an omen
for Bangladesh that there has
taken place an enormous
expansion in the
field of education
beginning from elementary
to higher level. Rapid and sustainable development demands for
innovative education as sine qua non. Innovative education can be possible
mainly in quality higher education. It is noteworthy that the higher education
subsector in the country is also expanding rapidly. While there
were only 6
public universities (and
none private university)
with only 12 thousand
students in 1972,
the number has
been raised to
44 public and
103 private universities and
3.5 million students
on the role. Now
the task is to relate these seats of learning to SDG 4 i.e., quality education
for development through innovation.
References
1. Bangabandhu Parishad,
Bangabandhu: Politics and Administration (in Bangla), Dhaka 1999.
2. The Constitution of the People's Republic of
Bangladesh, November 1972.
3. Exemplary Development in
Education, 2009-2018(in Bangla), Ministry of Education, July 2018.
4. Achievements in Higher
Education in Bangladesh, 2009-2018(in Bangla), Bangladesh University Grants
Commission, December 2018.
5. Harun-or-Rashid,
Bangladesh: Politics, Government, Constitutional
Development, 1757-2018, (In Bangla) Anya Prokash 2018.
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