The number of secondary- and higher secondary-level students, including the technical and vocational ones, dropped for the second consecutive year in 2024, according to government data.
The Bangladesh Education Statistics鈥�2024 showed that in 2023-24, about 11 lakh students in these levels decreased with 5.54 lakh in 2024 alone, but the number of the educational institutions for these levels increased in the period.
Officials of the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics said that an increase in the dropout rate in the primary level and a rise in the enrolment in both qawmi and alia madrassahs were the key reasons for this situation.
They also said that a decline in the population of primary- and secondary-level students was also a reason for the fall.
The bureau prepared the Bangladesh Education Statistics鈥�2024 based on a countrywide survey.
As per the latest Bangladesh Education Statistics, the number of students at secondary schools, school and colleges, colleges, technical-vocational (independent) institutions, professional education institutions and teacher education institutions was 1,47,51,222 in 2024.
The number was 1,53,05,563 in 2023 and 1,58,49,760 in 2022. From 2023 to 2024, the number of students dropped by 5,54,341 and from 2022 to 2023, the number decreased by 5,44,197.
In 2021, the total number of students in these levels of education was 1,58,04,073.
Comparing with these, the number of the students under the madrassah education was 27,96,191 in 2024, 27,58,504 in 2023 and 27,62,277 in 2022.
The data were based on mostly private and some public madrassahs registered with the government authorities.
The bureau has no updated statistics on the qawmi madrassahs in the country as those are not registered with the government authorities.
In cases of the number of the secondary- and higher-level educational institutions, including the technical and vocational ones, the number was 27,899 in 2024, up from 27,387 in 2023 and 27,236 in 2022.
Sheikh Mohammed Alamgir, chief of the statistics division at the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics, told 抖阴精品 on Sunday that as the dropout rate of the students in primary education was increasing, the number of students in the secondary- and higher-secondary levels were decreasing.
As per the Annual Primary School Statistics 2024, published by the Directorate of Primary Education, the dropout rate increased to 16.25 per cent in 2024 from 13.15 per cent in 2023 in the primary level.
鈥楢nother major reason for the decline in the number of secondary- and higher secondary-level students is an increase in the enrolments in madrassahs, including the qawmi ones,鈥� Alamgir said.
He also said that in recent years the population of the six-year and 10-year children also declined, the age brackets eligible for entering the primary- and secondary-level education.
The Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics 2023, conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, showed that the percentage of the population of the age group of 5 to 14 years was 18.56 per cent in 2023, 18.63 per cent in 2022, 18.82 per cent in 2021, 19.7 per cent in 2020 and 20.12 per cent in 2019.
Officials of the bureau鈥檚 statistics division also said that many people were shifting their children to madrassahs from schools due to poverty and experiments on the national curriculum by the past government.
In many madrassahs, students can study for free and they can also eat without paying, they said.
The year 2024 began with a big change in Class IX鈥揦 with the removal of the division of groups under the national curriculum of 2021.
The interim government, however, has decided to reintroduce the group divisions, restoring the 2012 curriculum after the ouster of the Awami League-led government on August 5, 2024, in the mass uprising.
The government is now planning to introduce a new curriculum from 2027.
The poverty rate rose to 27.93 per cent in May 2025 compared with that of 18.7 per cent in 2022, showed findings of a recent survey by the Power and Participation Research Centre, a local research organisation.
With income inequality widening, food costs eat up more than 50 per cent of a household鈥檚 monthly expenditure, the survey found, inevitably reducing the household鈥檚 ability to spend on children鈥檚 education.
