Publication: Secondary School Madrasas in Bangladesh : Incidence, Quality, and Implications for Reform
Date
2010-03
ISSN
Published
2010-03
Author(s)
World Bank
Abstract
This report presents findings from the
first ever comprehensive survey to document the incidence
and quality of secondary madrasas in Bangladesh. Analysis
also draws upon other publicly available administrative and
household level datasets. Currently the authors have very
little information on school quality in general due to no
national learning assessment system and because schools from
different streams are tested under different Boards. Thus it
is always important to examine the quality of aided madrasas
relative to aided secular schools. The report highlights new
challenges: while gender equality in access has been
achieved in both schools and madrasas, girls remain
systematically disadvantaged in terms of learning outcomes.
The female learning penalty remain is particularly
pronounced in case of madrasas. Overall, the quality of
mathematics and English learning is low in madrasas, but
performance of students of mainstream schools is also
unsatisfactory average quality remains poor across the range
of rural institutions. Overall, this report represents an
empirically grounded investigation into the hitherto
undocumented changes Bangladesh has witnessed in the
secondary madrasa school sector in the past two decades.
Based on their analysis, the authors suggest a range of
policy initiatives that cover the entire secondary education
sector, not just the madarasa education. Given the wealth of
data collected on secondary institutions and households
during the survey, this report only represents the first of
a series of rigorous empirical research and analysis which
will be undertaken. It is hoped that the report will provide
an impetus towards an evidence-based policy debate on
madrasas and other critical issues in the education sector.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2010. Secondary School Madrasas in Bangladesh : Incidence, Quality, and Implications for Reform. Bangladesh development series paper;no. 27. © Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18487 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”