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Bangladesh has achieved an average GDP growth rate of approximately 5.8% in FY2010 (ended June 2010) which was marginally higher than the 5.7% of FY2009. This growth was helped by favourable weather, continued government support, good harvest and farming. This offset a decline in industrial growth due to a fall in external demand and continued shortages of power, gas, and transport facilities. Services also grew only marginally.
Total fixed investment, after remaining stagnant over the past half a decade, rose from 24.4% of GDP in FY2009 to 25.0% in FY2010. The rise in private investment provided the main impetus to performance.
The continued robust performance in export earnings in March 2010 raised the prospect of exceeding the FY2011 annual export target of $18.5 billion. In the first 8 months of FY2011, rapid growth in readymade garment exports (woven by 38.0% and knitwear by 43.9%), representing over three quarters of total exports, was partly due to importing countries replenishing their inventories, though it also reflected a sharp rise of wages in some other garment-exporting countries including countries such as Japan, the Republic of Korea, South Africa, and Turkey.
Exports of other items such as frozen foods and jute also grew strongly. Very high export growth in the first part of FY2011 is expected to moderate as inventory rebuilding comes to an end, pointing to a 21.0% expansion in exports for all FY2011. In FY2012, exports are projected to grow by 22.0%.
Foreign remittances in the last fiscal year increased barely 2% to US$11 billion from 2009. Remittances from UK (July 2009-June 2010) consisted of US$ 829m (7.5% of total remittances into Bangladesh). According to ADB, Bangladesh is in 5th position (USD 11.1 b) among the highest remittance recipient countries
There is a high ratio of mobile phone users. The present growth and potential of future growth are attracting foreign investors and big names in the world's telecom sector for a stake in the Bangladeshi market. The total number of Mobile Phone Active Subscribers reached 74.188 million at the end of April 2011. Telecommunications has broadened rural access to banking, education, health and entertainment services.
There are over 8 million internet users in the country, which will soon cross the 10 million mark, keeping pace with the boom in mobile users, according to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
Bangladesh government recently has launched E-books for students at primary and secondary level under Access to Information (A2I) project. Students, their parents, teachers and researchers will be able to open or download text books under national curriculum free of charge.
Bangladesh’s mainly youthful population has an enrolment rate primary level at 85% (2004 – 2009). The adult male (15-24 years) literacy rate in 2004-2008 is 73% and female (15 – 24 years) literacy rate is 76%.
The current Bangladesh government has announced a new education policy:
- Primary education extended up to Class VIII and made free and compulsory
- Public examinations will be held upon completion of Class V and a second one at Class VIII. These will be known as Junior Secondary Certificate and will be arranged by the education boards
- Education from Class IX to Class XII will be considered secondary and the SSC and HSC exams will continue as usual
- There is a Unified curriculum for general, madrasa, vocational education up to secondary level
- Pre-primary education for 5+ children
- All 3-year degree courses to be made to 4-year
- Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Bangladesh Studies have been introduced as new subjects at primary and secondary levels
- Some fundamental subjects will be made compulsory these include Bangla, Moral Education, mathematics, natural environment, social studies, IT and science
- The policy says technical education institutions would be established in every upazila (district) and the number of educational institutions on polytechnic, textile and leather will be increased
- Decentralisation of the National University by setting up a centre in all divisions and upgrading the centres to affiliated universities in phases
- The policy also recommends unifying the syllabus for degree-level subjects across all universities
In Bangladesh, the school structure is broadly divided into two types: Bangla medium and the English medium Schools. In Bangla schools, the Bangla language is the medium of instruction, and students follow the national curriculum, whereas English medium schools use English as their medium of instruction and they follow either the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) for IGCSE or EDEXCEL's GCE O- and A-levels. These examinations are conducted by the British Council.
One important thing to note is that a student has to apply for undergraduate courses within two years of passing the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC), otherwise, they will not qualify as a regular student and will have to appear as a private candidate.
The 2010 Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) pass percentage and its equivalent examinations is 74.28, which is 1.50 percent higher than the 2009 results. A total of 28,671 candidates got GPA 5. A total of 736,373 students (400,464 males and 335,909 females) sat for the examinations held under 10 education boards. Only 20 percent of the students passing the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examination can enter a university.
There has been an increase of 825 Bangladeshi students studying in the UK to 5175 in 2009/2010. The recent HESA report below shows that the percentage of postgraduate students increased to 28% and undergraduate 10%. The number of students in further education sector has increased to 840 in 2009/2010, a growth of 15.9% on 2008/2009 figures.
Source: HESA Student Record (HE Data); Devolved administrations of the UK (FE data)
Between January and December 2010, the British Council in Bangladesh conducted 7000 Professional exams, 21000 IELTS exams and 70000 GCE O/A level exams.
Australia still attracts a high percentage of Bangladeshi students. In 2010, 2,632 Bangladeshi students studied at HE level in Australia (Source: AEI). IDP arranges a small, low profile exhibition in Bangladesh. Canada holds an education fair biannually. 2,619 students went to the US in 2009/10 (Source: IIE). Also Japan has a large market in Bangladesh and 1540 students went to Japan in 2009/10 (Source: JASSO). Malaysia, Singapore and India are also popular destinations for Bangladeshi students although it is difficult to obtain exact numbers.
The British Council has four offices in Bangladesh: a main office and a teaching centre in Dhaka, the capital, and two small offices in Sylhet and Chittagong. It has been operating in Bangladesh since 1952 and is famed for it’s prestige and brand.
The British Council Bangladesh website attracted 277,005 unique visitors whilst our regular presentations attracted over 3,000 students. British Council Bangladesh has managed 106 promotional visits of UK institutions from April 2010 to March 2011 while 78 promotional visits were made from April 2009 to March 2010. With our overall Education UK activities, we reached 28,557 (10/11) people (22,765 in 08/09). British Council Bangladesh offers an objective, trustworthy and personalised consultancy service for students called PASS (Professional Advisory Service for Students) which is a placement service. From August 2010 to March 2011, we have processed 268 students’ applications through this scheme and the number is quite high though the Tier 4 visa was on suspension till July 2010.
The 2012 Education UK Exhibition will be the 14th education promotion event and the highest profile event organised by British Council Bangladesh. It receives substantive media interest, both electronic and print. This leads to increased hits on the website and a tripling of educational enquiries.
The 2011 Education UK Exhibition in Dhaka had 41 UK institutions participating (34 the previous year), while Chittagong had 18. They attracted 4710 visitors and a lot of media interest.
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