Headmasters of 7,627 of the 18,598 secondary schools have said their institutions have poor teaching and learning facilities and those schools as have been categorised as ‘poor’ or ‘non performing’ ones in a government survey. The survey titled ‘Performance-Based Institutional Self-Assessment Summery 2013’ was prepared by Secondary Education Sector Development Project under the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education based on evaluation of the performance of the schools by the headmasters concerned.
The report was disseminated at a workshop at the National Academy for Educational Management in the capital on Monday.
According to the survey, teaching and learning environment includes classroom space per student, number of student per classroom, furniture, library condition, office room, safe drinking water and toilet facilities and condition of teachers work area.
The data were collected from 18,484 of the 18,598 government and non-government secondary schools across the country between February and May by the field officials of the directorate.
In terms of teaching and learning facilities, the 2013 report placed 1,506 schools in top performing category, 3,893 in well performing category, 5,458 in moderate performing category, 7,031 in poor performing category and 596 in non-performing category.
The survey conducted in 2012 had placed 1,398 schools in the top performing category, 3,360 in well performing category, 5,456 in moderate performing category, 7,486 in poor performing category and 766 in non-performing category.
As a large number of schools have been found to be poor or non performing ones, proper planning for developing infrastructure of the said schools should be taken, said Secondary Education Sector Development Project director Ratan Kumar Roy.
Education secretary Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury emphasised proper self-assessment of the headmasters in the study.
‘I believe the assessment report had depicted almost actual position of the secondary schools’ said Nurul Islam Nahid, who recently resigned as education minister.
He said, ‘All people concerned should be more careful about schools performing poorly. A strategy should be chalked immediately to improve the quality of education.’ he said.
According to the officials, the poor and non performing schools will be notified to submit a development plan describing actions to be taken to improve the condition and performance. The schools will get three years to implement the development plan to meet or exceed minimum performance standards.
The accreditation and monthly pay order facilities might be suspended for the schools who would fail to meet the minimum standard of education by the specified deadline, the officials said.
-With New Age input
