ONE of the most alarming crises in the education sector today is the systematic erosion in the percentage and number of trained teachers in secondary schools and madrassahs. This is occurring at a time when the number of students and the number of institutions are increasing every year. The government, however, tends to see the question of the declining number of trained teachers as an episodic interruption, arguing that teacher training was simply disrupted during the Covid pandemic and later aggravated by the political unrest during the July uprising. However, the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics shows the decline is steady and across time. In secondary schools, trained teachers declined from 75.36 per cent in 2011 to 66.1 per cent in 2024. In madrassahs, the decline is even more catastrophic, as only 9.19 per cent of teachers were trained in 2024. There is no updated information at all on colleges or qawmi madrassahs. The number of teaching facilities is also inadequate. There are 14 government teachers鈥� training colleges and five higher secondary-level teachers鈥� training institutes. The Bangladesh Madrassah Teachers鈥� Training Institute, under the Directorate of Madrassah Education, provides training to the madrassah teachers. The crisis makes visible a systemic negligence in ensuring teacher training.
Educationists have termed this alarming and warn that the damage caused by untrained teachers inside classrooms is no longer abstract, it is already unfolding. According to the 2022 National Student Assessment, only 35 per cent of Class III students can read with comprehension, and just 25 per cent can perform basic arithmetic operations. These figures highlight a systemic flaw that the much-publicised increase in school enrolment does not in any way guarantee that students are acquiring even the most basic foundational skills. The introduction of competency-based curriculum for primary and secondary schools also faces challenges because the inadequately trained teachers are struggling to cope with the complex new curriculum. The government鈥檚 move to ensure that children from ethnic communities are given early education in their mother tongue is also falling flat due to a lack of teachers with a good command on these languages. Successive governments have been more focused on increasing the number of student enrolment and reducing the number of dropouts in schools. These quantitative goals left the very foundation of primary education, teaching quality and teachers鈥� well-being unattended. 聽
The government should recognise that at this rate, Bangladesh will not simply fail to meet the sustainable development goal on quality education but will result in inequality inside classrooms, where children from poor families, rural schools, madrassahs and girls鈥� schools will pay the highest price. The government, under the circumstances, should prioritise primary and secondary school teacher training and allocate adequate resources accordingly.
