Achievement of Primary Competencies: A Comparison between Government and BRAC Schools

Using the competency-based test instrument developed for Education Watch 2000 this study made a comparison of learning achievement of two types of primary schools viz., government primary schools (GPS) and BRAC primary schools (BPS). Sixty schools from rural Bangladesh equally distributed by type was randomly chosen for the study. Number of students under test was 600 from BPS and 581 from GPS. Education Watch data of 2000 and other datasets on BPS on the same issue were used to see the improvement in performance over time. The analyses reveal that the overall performance of BPS was slightly better than that of GPS. The gap between BPS and GPS narrowed down from 2000 to 2006. There is still scope for both the sub-systems to improve in achievement of more competencies by the students including gender equity. Students were well in the test items assessing knowledge but they were found weak in those items requiring 'understanding level' of skills. Scope to improve 'understanding level' of skills of the students cannot be ignored.

Keywords: Competency Assessment, Primary Education, Non-Formal Education

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Nath, Samir and Roy, Goutam and Dutta, Notan and Hossain, Anwar, Achievement of Primary Competencies: A Comparison between Government and BRAC Schools (May 1, 2007). BRAC Research Report, May 2007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2919748 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2919748