Bangladesh: Second Primary Education Development Program

Abstract

Bangladesh has one of the largest primary education systems in the world. The strong national commitment to education over the past decades is evident in the rapid growth in participation and completion rates and strong overall growth in the primary education system.

While access to primary education has been provided, its quality needs improvement. High pupil-teacher ratios, insufficient contact hours, high dropout rates, low attendance by students, poor teacher training, insufficient teacher salaries, poor physical facilities, and low-quality textbooks and supplemental materials are among the critical issues. The Second Primary Education Development Program seeks to provide high-quality primary education to all children in Bangladesh and to create the environment for nationwide improvement in primary education. The flagship program of the Government of Bangladesh, assisted by 11 development partners with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as the lead agency, was approved in 2003. This brief provides an overview of the Second Primary Education Sector Development Project in Bangladesh.