Building better futures: Why the solutions to our educational challenges must come from within Bangladesh.

To address the problems of the present, there is a strong need for an ambitious vision for education and for solutions to our challenges to come from within the country. Photo: Collected

Foreword

One of the earliest and most important Roman deities is Janus, the god who oversaw all entrances and departures. In building better futures, we need that Janus-like quality of being able to look in two directions simultaneously: drawing from the past and looking towards the future, by keeping a keen eye on international standards and building nationally sourced solutions. Drawing upon experience to build a better future, we are inevitably influenced by the present.

Shaped by the Present

The education landscape in Bangladesh is complex. On the supply side, the statutory provision for education for 5–14 years supports an estimated 38,000 primary schools and 23,000 high schools, and there is also a diverse private sector with established secondary and tertiary institutions.

On the demand side, 26% of the country's population is aged up to 14 years old, the statutory age range for education, with a high success rate in primary enrollment of 98% (source: Statista) and an improving completion rate of 80% (source: World Bank). Gender parity of access has been achieved at the primary level, whereas in secondary schools, enrollment is now at 54%, and disparities between social classes are narrowing (source: World Bank). However, schooling is not learning.

Significant challenges remain the quality and relevance of the curriculum, specifically at the tertiary level; high repetition and dropout rates, with an estimated 4.3 million children out of education (source: UNICEF); and uncompetitive educational outcomes. Children experience a learning loss of around 40% due to the poor quality of education across their eleven years of schooling (Source: World Development Report, 2018). The current resourcing of education is constrained at around 2% of GDP, much lower than comparative countries, and much of the educational infrastructure is dated and overcrowded (source: World Bank). Stunted educational futures can be traced to the lack of access to early childhood education programmes.

With an economic imperative to improve education, we turn away from the industrial-scale solutions of the past. To address the problems of the present, there is a strong need for an ambitious vision for education and for solutions to our challenges to come from within the country. While the context is unique, the challenges we face and the solutions we forge are shared by countries and continents.

Conversely, there is a widely held belief that importing international teachers is the only way to improve schools in the short term. Counterbalancing this view is a belief in investing in overseas solutions, with plenty of pricey consultants waiting to find the right school at the right cost. This is bad for the country through exchange outflows, bad for fragmented family relations, and bad for the child, resulting in a loss of their own cultural heritage.

With an ambitious yet attainable vision, we can build better schools, develop better teachers, and coach better leaders in the core interests of our students, all via in-country solutions.

Developing Better Teachers

Some years ago, the world's leading expert on assessment, Prof. Dylan Wiliam, argued that it is the duty of education to create a culture of self-improvement, turning good teachers into better ones through a sustained commitment to professional improvement (source: Wiliam, 2014). This year, the global authority on what works best, Prof. John Hattie, released the results of a meta-analysis of more than 2,100 studies related to achievement, arguing for a significant change in a culture focused on the quality of student learning. For Hattie, schools need to create time to evaluate impact, helping 'teachers use the most robust evidence-based interventions' (source: Hattie, 2023).

Coaching Better Leaders

Having great school leaders is the key to making this happen. People who have the capacity to plan and lead, to implement and to manage People with foresight and a keen eye for professional improvement This cannot happen by chance. It needs an institutional framework to train and coach current and future leaders, built on international standards and drawing from the experience of others but not necessarily made in Bangladesh.

In establishing a new school in Tbilisi committed to European values, the unique partnership between the United Nations and the European Union had the vision to create an independent Learning Academy. With a short-term focus on recruiting and training outstanding teachers for the school, it has a long-term aim to encourage professional improvement across the country. Internationally validated, resourced, and certified, the same can happen here.

Building Best Practises in Our Schools

Standards-led and impact-driven, we do what works with students. At my own school, Haileybury Bhaluka, we believe in setting high standards and sharing expertise with other schools in areas of common interest, specifically safeguarding, student engagement, and professional learning. Haileybury has the confidence to collaborate.

Haileybury Bhaluka has formed a unique international partnership with Evidence Based Education (https://evidencebased.education/) to improve student outcomes across Bangladesh. We are resourcing ten schools in their professional improvement plans for a 3-year period by framing and supporting their professional learning programmes.

In doing so, we aim to enhance teaching and learning quality through innovative, impactful, and engaging practice (source: EBE). Raising the quality of teaching within schools is the single most effective method we have for improving student attainment and equity. Impact-led, we are determined to see gains for students, teachers, and leaders.

For professional development to have an impact, context is key. There must be explicit support from school leaders and a commitment to direct involvement. The school must have a clear strategic focus, a mechanism for success, and a plan for improving pupil outcomes. In return, we must be sure that the professional development programme meets individual school needs and that our investment in programmes is going to be matched by the school's investment in time.

We are building professional learning communities and a school network to encourage collaborative impact. These communities will develop a common language for teaching across our schools, improve teaching in evidence-based ways, and showcase the quality of our achievements together. The schools' network will be the agent of change. With the expert support of The British Council, we are launching this exciting plan, the most significant inter-school collaboration for professional improvement in Bangladesh.

In building better futures, we move forward together.

Simon O'Grady is the Founding Headmaster of Haileybury Bhaluka, the first premier boarding school in Bangladesh. He has led outstanding schools on three continents, and he is also a lead consultant to the United Nations-European Union, building a teacher training academy in Tbilisi, Georgia. He draws on this experience to argue that the solutions to the country's educational challenges lie within Bangladesh.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.