Background

‘AMAR Odhikar’ is basically revealing itself as a ‘citizens’ group’. Amar Odhikar will conduct its activities with a view to unite people from all walks of life and to do advocacy with the government with the purpose to ensure rights which are of public importance and to achieve socioeconomic freedom; all in accordance with the constitution and spirit of the liberation war of Bangladesh. ‘Amar Odhikar’ will work step by step in order to materialise the fundamental rights that the state owes to its citizens. But at the moment ‘Amar Odhikar’ has started its movement regarding ensuring the rights to quality primary education for all. ‘Amar Odhikar’ believes that the present educational institutions are building up the future of Bangladesh. Education, explicitly or implicitly, influences the development of democracy, economy, culture, environment and technological spheres; basically the overall development of the society of any country. According to Rabindranath Tagore, ‘the biggest way to the solution of all our problems is education.’ It is not possible to look at life and education separately. With just a proper and effective investment in the education sector a faster development of the society can be achieved. Primary education is the basic step towards an educated nation. As Amartya Sen states, ‘Elementary education is a central component of any kind of economic development’.

The present state of primary education
The education system of Bangladesh is not yet universal, mass-encompassing or indiscriminating. The poor quality of primary education, madrasa based education and kindergarten based English medium education of the country stand as the evidence of the discriminating rule of the state. On the other hand though the rate of children getting admitted in educational institutions has increased numerically, considering the drop out rate, the right to enter labour market and degradation of cultural value, the situation is actually depressing and the rate does not reflect any relevance to its result. In Bangladesh, the number of school going children aged 6-10 is 1,98,97,000. (source: UNICEF). As per Banbase’s information the total number of primary education institutions including government, non-government and madrasa is 80,397 and the total number of students is 1, 62,00,000. That means no measure has yet been taken to send about 37 lakh children to school. It is stated in the ongoing, second Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP2) that, in 2009, after materialising the targets, the total rate of admission in primary schools will be 88 per cent and the rate of completion of primary education will be 82 per cent. Thus an acceptable rate of literacy will be achieved and numeric literacy will be 50 per cent (source: Government of Bangladesh and the PEDP-2 project making team, October, 2002) which means even after the successful materialisation of PEDP-2 project, 18 lakh children will still be deprived of schooling by the year 2009. Moreover, according to the report of UNESCO Dhaka, only two third of primary school children finally pass class V. That means, although the rate of joining school has increased; only 55 per cent of the total number of students could complete primary education within the given age-range.

The demands made by ‘Amar Odhikar’ in order to ensure right to education and quality primary education for all

We want education to flourish in a way that it can succeed fulfilling the need of society. We firmly believe that, one of the effective ways of building a hunger and poverty free Bangladesh is to strengthen the base of elementary education. It is stated in article 17 of the constitution of Bangladesh that ‘state will take proper steps to (a) establish uniform, mass and universal education and ensure free and mandatory education for all boys and girls up to a certain level determined by the law; (b) make education relevant with the need of society and to do so, will create properly trained and enthusiastic citizens; (c) take steps as per law to eradicate illiteracy. This particular article of the constitution though considered as state’s principle and promise, it has not been granted as the fundamental right of the people. It is also not possible to make the state answerable to the people regarding this issue. We also need to make the state answerable to the people in achieving the principles regarding poverty and economic development described in the sections 14, 15 and 16 of the constitution. We also want the state and the development partners to play their role properly in achieving the pronounced agendas by the year 2015. In this context, ‘Amar Odhikar’ demands;

1. Each village must have at least one primary school;
2. One teacher must be appointed for each group of 40 students
3. School must provide midday meal for the children; and
4. The right to education must be included in the constitution as a fundamental right.

It is the duty of the state to ensure the fundamental rights of the people. If mere business in the name of leaving responsibility of the fundamental issues like education, food, health etc at the hand of private sector goes on, it is similar to cheating with the whole nation, with the spirit of liberation war, foremost, with the oath that the policy makers take while taking up the responsibility to serve the country. ‘Amar Odhikar’ is going to start working with the zeal of rectifying the situation and of establishing people’s rights. We hope to see all participate and cooperate with the initiative we took