Educational Profile of Bangladesh

The Ministry of Education - Government of Bangladesh is Apex body of government for taking decisions on education and education policies. The ministry is responsible for governing education beginning from pre primary to higher, higher technical and vocational education. The ministry also looks after the education provided by Madrasahas. There are about 30864 post primary secondary schools/colleges/madrasahs and 26 public and 56 private universities.The education in Bangladesh has three stages-
Primary education lost for five years, and meant for children age between 6 to 11 years.
Secondary education is distributed into three years of junior secondary, 2 years of secondary and 2 year of higher secondary. A child starts taking secondary education at 11 years of age and completes at 16 / 17 years of age.

Primary level education is provided in two major categories -

(a) General, and

(b) Madrasha.

Secondary level education has three major streams -

(a) General,

(b) Technical - Vocational, and

(c) Madrasah.Similarly, higher education has three streams-

(a) General (inclusive of pure and applied science, arts, business and social science),

(b) Madrasah and

(c) Technology Education.Technology education includes agriculture, engineering, medical, textile, leather technology and ICT. Madrashas (Arabic for educational institution), functional parallel to the three major stages, have similar core courses as in the general stream (primary, secondary and post-secondary) but have additional emphasis on religious studies.For students who wish to pursue specialization in specific disciplines, there are colleges / universities both self supported and supported by governments. Seeing the education opportunities in Bangladesh, foreign educators also started setting their bases here.