The conundrum is that, even after completing five years of primary schooling, most children in Bangladesh are not able to read a simple text, write a message, or use the four basic arithmetic rules for calculation. VISUAL: ANWAR SOHEL
On the occasion of the International Literacy Day on September 8, Primary and Mass Education Adviser Dr Bidhan Ranjan Roy Podder announced that the literacy rate among people above seven years of age, per the Bangladesh Economic Survey 2024, was 77.9 percent—an advance over 76.8 percent in 2022. Interestingly, the adviser was sceptical about the quality of the skills the declared literates actually possessed, and if they could use the skills in their lives. The "functional literacy level" might be much lower, the adviser observed.
Several pertinent questions, then, arise: what really is literacy that is functionally useful in a person's life? How is it measured? And, most importantly, how can it be ensured that citizens, particularly young people, achieve the basic skills that are regarded as the foundation for further learning and success in life?
The conundrum is that, even after completing five years of primary schooling, most children in Bangladesh are not able to read a simple text, write a message, or use the four basic arithmetic rules for calculation, as indicated by the National Student Assessment 2022 data for primary schools. By a World Bank estimate, 51.2 percent of adolescents in the country were in the "learning poor" category in 2024. The lack of ability of 10-14-year-olds to read a short, age-appropriate text is defined as learning poverty.
The Awami League government, during its first tenure (1996-2001), carried out a literacy campaign called the Total Literacy Movement (TLM). People aged 15 years and above were enrolled in courses set up by the politicians' favourite NGOs, and the enrollees were declared to be literate after six months. Quality control and assessment of the skills acquired were ignored. Thus, many upazilas were proclaimed to be free of illiteracy and the official literacy rate increased every year. The TLM project became popularly known as "Total Loss of Money."
The BNP-Jamaat regime of 2001-2006, focused on allegations of corruption and mismanagement of the previous regime, shut down the Directorate of Non-Formal Education, then replaced it with the Bureau of Non-Formal Education (BNFE). The bureau reduced authority, staff and budget. New initiatives were lacking. Whatever momentum in non-formal and adult education existed was lost. Some activities continued mainly through the work of various NGOs, which provided literacy and vocational skill training to vulnerable populations.
Assuming power again in 2009, the Hasina government, despite its manifesto pledge of ending illiteracy by 2014, managed to start the Basic Literacy Project by 2018 to teach literacy and life skills to 450,000 people aged 15-45 years in 64 districts. The life skills component was dropped "due to fund crisis." The results remained unclear due to lack of assessment.
The history of literacy education for children and adults in Bangladesh suggests a confusion among some policy and decision-makers about what literacy skills mean and how these are taught, as well as wilful denial of the problems. Add to that the absence of political commitment and a culture of impunity to corruption, incompetence and mismanagement.
UNESCO's updated statement (September 2025) about the concept of literacy says, "Literacy is now understood as a means of identification, understanding, interpretation, creation and communication in an increasingly digital, text-mediated, information-rich and fast-changing world." It is a continuum with varying levels of skills ranging from those who can barely recognise letters of the alphabet to those who can use the skills in varying contexts in their life and for further learning.
It is difficult to precisely measure literacy competencies as a multifaceted set of skills. It also may be questionable whether a single statistic can represent the literacy status meaningfully. If a core definition of literacy is taken, the logical approach would be to administer a simple test of one's reading, writing and counting abilities. In practice, a "self-reporting" method is applied in surveys—a person declaring oneself as literate or a household head doing so for the family rather than applying a test. Then, all children completing five years of schooling are also automatically categorised as literate, ignoring the problems about school performance. The literacy statistics reported every year is based on these faulty premises and methods.
The conundrum is that, even after completing five years of primary schooling, most children in Bangladesh are not able to read a simple text, write a message, or use the four basic arithmetic rules for calculation, as indicated by the National Student Assessment 2022 data for primary schools. By a World Bank estimate, 51.2 percent of adolescents in the country were in the "learning poor" category in 2024. The lack of ability of 10-14-year-olds to read a short, age-appropriate text is defined as learning poverty.
To be fair, measurement methods in Bangladesh are those commonly used in most countries and are accepted by UNESCO for compiling global data. This explanation does not solve the problem of poor skills of our youth and adults. In fact, an OECD-sponsored measurement called the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) applying a "tested literacy" method has been in use in more than 30 rich countries. UNESCO itself has been working on a Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Programme (LAMP) using tests, though it has yet to gain currency among developing countries. Why UNESCO continues to endorse and rely on patently inadequate literacy assessment is another story.
It is obvious that realising the goal of functionally useful literacy skills for youth and adults call for a two-front approach: i) primary schools have to do a good job and not add new generations of youth into the pool of illiterates; and ii) adult education programmes that succeed in attracting youth and adults and enable them to acquire functional literacy in combination with skills for life and livelihood.
The consultation committee for primary education reform, appointed by the interim government, has made elaborate recommendations on improving students' learning outcome. It has emphasised the importance of language and mathematics as foundational skills, which deserve special attention at the primary stage. The recommendations can be the basis for designing the next phase of primary education development (PEDP5).
Regarding literacy for youth and adults, the BNFE, taking a cautious approach, proposed a second expanded phase of the project called the Skill-Based Literacy for Out-of-School Adolescents (SKILFO), which was recently implemented in Cox's Bazar. It also proposed a three-year project called Alternative Learning Opportunity in one upazila with low literacy rates in each of the 64 districts. The success of these projects will depend on learning and applying the lessons from the long history of past projects that have not produced the intended results.
Recently, a non-formal education development programme was formulated by the BNFE, in collaboration with NGOs and academic stakeholders. It anticipated a workable multi-tier partnership model at national, district, upazila and union levels to set up a network of community learning centres and to expand the opportunity for literacy as a first step for lifelong learning. It is premised on a concept of strong partnerships of state and non-state actors; substantial roles for NGOs, community organisations, local government; and supportive and facilitative regulatory processes and mechanisms, along with adequate funding. Ambivalence at the policymaking level about the anticipated strong role of non-state actors appears to have stalled the consideration of the proposal. The political dynamic of policy and decision-making keeps success unattainable in respect of meaningful literacy.
Dr Manzoor Ahmed is professor emeritus at BRAC University, chair of Bangladesh ECD Network (BEN), and adviser to the Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE).
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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