Mohana Rahman will sit for the SSC examination next year from the humanities group, but despite attending classes regularly, she still takes private tuition in mathematics and English.
Her mother Lovely Akter told TIMES, “Her results in class are good. But students do not understand what the teachers teach in some classes. That is why we have to arrange private tuition to maintain good results.”
Like Mohana of Kataduar village in Pirganj upazila of Rangpur, many students depend on private tuition in science subjects and English.
Parents say many teachers understand their subjects but struggle to explain them clearly, forcing better-performing students to turn to a small group of private tutors.
Unesco’s latest global education statistics also point to serious weaknesses. Nearly half of Bangladesh’s secondary-level teachers have not met the minimum proficiency standard.
The proportion of qualified teachers is 54.7 per cent at the lower secondary level and 55.2 per cent at the upper secondary level, placing Bangladesh last among South Asian countries.
Proficiency was assessed on whether teachers had the required training and whether their formal academic qualifications were appropriate for the classes they taught.
The Maldives topped the region with 98 per cent qualified teachers, followed by Bhutan, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Professor Wasim Md Mazbahul Haque, director general of the National Academy for Educational Management (NAEM), said training remained critical.
“The quality of a country depends on the quality of its teachers. Teachers’ skills are important for teaching. Training makes a major contribution to developing skilled teachers. That is why training needs to be made more effective,” he told TIMES.
Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS) data for 2024 show that only 17 per cent of secondary-level English teachers have a bachelor’s or master’s degree in English. For mathematics, the rate is below 15 per cent.
Educationists say effective training could help bridge such subject-specific gaps.
BANBEIS counts teachers with BEd and MEd degrees as trained. The country has 14 government and 90 private Teachers’ Training Colleges, while Bangladesh Open University also offers BEd and MEd courses.
But educationists allege that many teachers take the courses mainly to obtain certificates, without significantly improving their classroom skills or keeping pace with modern teaching practices.
A 2023 Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) report identified inadequate and poor-quality teacher training as a major challenge in secondary education.
It said the National Academy for Educational Management and Higher Secondary Teachers’ Training Institutes mainly focus on education administration, management and teaching methods, with little emphasis on subject-specific content.
The institutions can train only about 6,000 teachers a year, a small share of the total workforce.
Internationally renowned educationist and BRAC University Professor Emeritus Manzoor Ahmed said improving teacher quality was essential to improving education.
“During the interim government, we educationists submitted detailed recommendations on these issues. But when the government changes in Bangladesh, the recommendations of the previous government are no longer considered,” he said.
“But recommendations for improving education quality should not be linked to political change. This is harmful to education.”
Professor Manzoor headed two advisory committees during the interim government on improving primary, secondary and higher secondary education.
He also called for state initiatives to improve teachers’ performance and professional status.
“The salary level of schoolteachers in Bangladesh is the lowest in South Asia, where average salaries are 50 per cent higher in India and 30 per cent higher in Pakistan,” he said.
He said teachers’ professional organisations were often linked to political parties and focused mostly on bargaining for material benefits rather than institutional performance.
Educationists said Unesco recommendations on teachers made 60 years ago remain relevant and should be implemented instead of repeatedly drafting new plans.
Meanwhile, the government is implementing the Higher Education Acceleration and Transformation project, a joint initiative of the University Grants Commission and the World Bank, at a cost of nearly Tk4,000 crore.
The project aims to improve higher education, research and digital transformation, train at least 5,000 teachers and establish a permanent Higher Education Training Academy.
Asked about university teacher training, Md Mahbubul Hoque Patwary, additional secretary (university) at the Secondary and Higher Education Division, told TIMES that he did not know about matters related to such training.
UGC member Professor Abdullah-Al-Mamun recently said that although training centres had been established for different professions since independence, no institutional training centre had been created for university teachers.
He said work was under way to establish a university teacher training academy and that the government had already allocated funds.
“The academy will not be limited to conventional classroom-based training. Various modern and necessary facilities will be provided for teachers so that they can receive training and opportunities for professional development in an integrated environment,” he said.
Dhaka University physics professor Kamrul Hassan Mamun, however, questioned the government’s approach.
“There can be teachers’ training institutes for schoolteachers. Training in pedagogy or teaching methods is extremely important for teachers there,” he told TIMES.
“But a university is open. There is no textbook here. There is no pedagogy. University teachers can be trained in some basic matters such as ethics and coordination with students. But their main training should come through research activities and participation in national and international seminars.”
He said greater emphasis should be placed on developing university teachers through research, the exchange of perspectives and knowledge-sharing.
