The participation rate in schools of children from national minorities is significantly below the national primary enrolment rate. The rate of literacy, the ability of a person to write a letter, amongst those belonging to national minorities is also far behind the national rate, government surveys and studies conducted by development partners and research organisations reveal.
The dropout rate and the number of students who repeat their class are also higher for national minority children.
The constitution ensures equal rights to citizens, including that of education, and the constitution further suggests special attention for the development of ‘backward’ people.
According to the household census in 2011, 17,84,000 people belong to 27 national minority groups in Bangladesh.
Researchers and leaders of the groups, who call themselves ‘indigenous’ communities, however, claim that they comprise 50 lakh belonging to more than 48 distinct communities.
The monitoring section of the primary and mass education directorate, referring to the past year’s annual primary education census, states that 97 per cent of children aged between 6 and 10 accounted for about 97 per cent of students who attend schools.
The monitoring cell, however, does not have any database providing information on the ethnicity of the people.
The latest household survey conducted by the Human Development Research Centre in the Chittagong Hill Tracts shows that the enrolment rate for the 11 national minority groups in the CHT is 76 per cent when the rate for the Bengali children in the area is 87 per cent.
Commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme, the HDRC survey found that 49 per cent of the national minority people aged more than 15 years could write letters when the literacy rate for the Bengalis in the area is 62 per cent.
The average rate of literacy in the country is 60 per cent, according to the latest literacy survey report of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
The HDRC submitted the findings of its survey to the ministry of CHT Affairs in September.
According to the study, people living in remote areas in the CHT have far less access to education. And the picture is worse for smaller groups.
Less than a fourth of the Mro children go to school when more than a half of the Khumi children are deprived of education.
The rate of enrolment for Bawm, Chak, Tanchangya and Tripura children is below 80 per cent although the rate is above 85 per cent for Chakma, Khyang, Lushai, Marma, Pankhuya groups which is almost the same as the rate for Bengalis in the area.
According to the survey, the overall dropout rate in Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Facility-supported primary schools in 2012 was 3.4 per cent when the corresponding national figure during the same period was 1.2 per cent.
‘The situation is very complex in the CHT because of the diversity of demography and environment,’ the team leader of the study, Abul Barkat, told New Age.
‘We have seen that the overall picture is worse than the national rate. And the situation is worse for smaller groups compared with bigger ones.’
The situation is even worse for national minority groups living in the plain land, another study conducted by the HDRC shows
The ethnographic research on ‘indigenous people’ living in the plain land in Bangladesh was commissioned by Oxfam.
Based on the survey, a book titled ‘Life and Land of Adibasi: Land Dispossessions and Alienation of Adibasis in the Plain Districts of Bangladesh’ was published in 2009.
The survey found nobody from the Dalu community who had finished the secondary education and it reported only 20 graduates from around 13,500 Hajong people.
Only 25 per cent of the Hajong children go school.
The survey found only 25 per cent of the Koch children going to school of whom around 40 per cent children completed primary education.
There is no government school for the population of more than 5,300 Khasias living in the Sylhet region.
Sanjeeb Drong, general secretary of the Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples’ Forum, said that less than a third of the children from Khumi, Bhumijo, Munda, Burman, Dalu, Hajong, Koch communities go to school.
‘Indigenous people living in the plain land have less participation in schools compared with communities living in the CHT,’ Sanjeeb Drong told New Age.
‘The government has no special programme for indigenous people living in the plain land nor do the UNDP, the UNESCO, the UNICEF and others run any programme as they do in the CHT,’ Drong added.
According to Drong, only missionaries and a few NGOs such as BRAC and Oxfam have some education programmes in plain land. ‘But the total number of indigenous groups in plain land is higher than that in the CHT,’ Drong said.
Misbah Kamal, chairman of the Research and Development Collective, told New Age, ‘Indigenous people in the CHT get some support, which is not adequate, and the indigenous people living in the plain land are deprived of any benefits.’
‘In fact, the government should take intensive programmes targeting indigenous people as their problems are different from those of the Bengalis,’ Kamal added.
Abul Barakat outlined the steps that should be taken to deal with the disparity.
‘It should be addressed through exclusive programmes such as introducing outreach schools, midday meals and various other motivation programmes considering the demand of the indigenous communities.’
The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, said that the government had taken special programmes such as publishing textbooks in seven national minority languages.
‘We have already addressed the issue in the national education policy and will take necessity steps such as appointing more teachers from communities to absorb them in the mainstream education,’ the education minister said.
-With New Age input
