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Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org
ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online)
Vol.9, No.31, 2018
60
Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Inequality in
Bangladesh
Fazle Rabby Nayeem Sultana Md. Israt Rayhan
Abstract
Education and economic growth have an important relationship. Former education inequality studies found that
between groups inequality was lower than within group inequality. This paper aims to investigate the both within
group and between groups inequality and interpret inequality among schools and colleges with their
performance. This study measures education inequality through analysis of Secondary School Certificate and
Higher Secondary Certificate examination results of Bangladesh through Theil index. Analysis shows that
inequality among schools at different board decreases over the year. Inequality among colleges shows non-
uniform pattern. It is also found that urban areas have higher inequality than rural areas. However, inequality in
urban-rural is declining, but the inequality gap between them is mounting.
Keywords: Education inequality, Theil index, inequality within group, inequality between groups, inequality
gap.
Introduction
Educational inequality is the difference in the learning results, or efficiency, experienced by students coming
from different groups. Educational efficiency is most often measured by grades, GPA scores, test scores, dropout
rates, college entrance statistics, and college completion rates. From the different studies it has been seen that
there is an important relationship education and economic growth (Hanushek and Wobmann (2010); Hawkes and
Ugur (2012); Delgado et al. (2014)). Education helps individuals in developing necessary skills and mental
capacity by enriching knowledge, in return helps their productivity. As education is important for economic
growth, in the recent years many researches were carried out to reveal the distribution of education. Education
inequality is one of them. Gini coefficient is one of the popular inequality measures. One important difficulty of
the Gini coefficient is that it is not easily decomposable.
Theil index can decompose inequality into between and within group components easily, the use of this
index is increasing day by day. This study has employed the Theil index in computing education inequality to
investigate between and within group inequality. Nevertheless, without awareness of average performance,
knowledge of education inequality alone may not be sufficiently informative. Therefore, in this study,
interpretation is carried out by combining education inequality and average performance.
Bangladesh is a developing country and its education rate is growing in recent years (BBS 2016). But to
comprehend the reality this study focuses on decomposing the inequality. In its most general form,
decomposability of inequality measures needs a consistent relation between overall inequality and its parts. More
specifically, when doing decomposability, within inequality (W) and between inequalities (B) is to be
distinguished. The within inequality captures the variation of education within the group, whereas the between
inequalities capture the variation of education across different groups. For example, if the population is divided
in urban and rural individuals, the W element identifies the contribution to inequality due the variability of urban
and rural education taken separately. The B element, instead, identifies the inequality due to education
differences between groups. So both the measures are important to understand the existing education inequality.
To understand the inequality of education between and within groups, decomposing is an important analytical
tool. It can provide us true picture of education inequality in different groups.
Ferdaush (2011) examines the inequality in primary education of Bangladesh for different reasons. In case
of rural and urban areas, inequality in the percentage of dropout rate of children was found high. The percentage
of dropped children in rural areas has decreased from 10.1 percent in 2000 to 5.86 percent in 2010 with an
average reduction rate of 0.42 percent per annum. However, in urban areas, this percentage has increased from
9.5 percent in 2000 to 10.39 percent in 2010 with an average increasing rate of 0.09 percent per annum. Al-
Samarrai (2009) examines the reason behind education inequality because of governance. The paper he has
demonstrated that despite being a central goal of government policy, public education expenditure has not
prioritized the poor. The paper also has shown that the link between government education policy objectives and
budget allocations are weak. During the interpretation of inequality decompositions, within-groups inequality is
often found to be higher than between-group (Elbers et al. (2008)). This condition has led some studies to focus
on within group inequality. In an empirical study done by Akita et al. (1999) promoted them to recommend
policy makers to focus more on within province inequality. The main objectives of the study are to present the
current scenario of pass and GPA-5 over the year in Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary
Certificate (HSC); and to find out the education inequality in different boards and urban-rural areas of
Bangladesh.
Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org
ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online)
Vol.9, No.31, 2018
61
Methodology
This study utilizes information from Bangladesh public examination i.e. the Secondary School Certificate (SSC)
and the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examination results for 7 years from 2009 to 2015, as obtained from
the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information & Statistics (BANBEIS 2016). Data for the analysis are
drawn from 8 education boards (regions) of Bangladesh, those are: (i) Barisal board (ii) Chittagong board (iii)
Comilla board (iv) Dhaka board (v) Dinajpur board (vi) Jessore board (vii) Rajshahi board and (viii) Sylhet
board for 7 years from 2009 to 2015. The number of institutes that are taken for the analysis is given below by
boards for different years.
Table 1: Number of institutes taken for analysis
SSC
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Barisal Board 1277 1607 1259 1264 1295 1324 1341
Chittagong Board 906 917 920 938 954 962 975
Comilla Board 1532 1539 1547 1568 1595 1616 1645
Dhaka Board 3735 3765 3881 3991 4078 4131 4205
Dinajpur Board 2324 2333 2351 2394 2455 2509 2550
Jessore Board 2346 2369 2386 2412 2411 2436 2467
Rajshahi Board 2351 2355 2375 2432 2457 2542 2589
Sylhet Board 703 717 727 740 765 785 812
Total 15174 15602 15446 15739 16010 16305 16584
HSC
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Barisal Board 244 246 245 254 263 272 300
Chittagong Board 173 179 185 188 193 202 214
Comilla Board 279 279 287 295 300 310 323
Dhaka Board 744 775 825 866 906 959 1027
Dinajpur Board 475 473 480 493 514 540 583
Jessore Board 482 488 493 489 513 528 549
Rajshahi Board 632 628 631 638 645 661 692
Sylhet Board 131 132 142 159 164 203 232
Total 3160 3200 3288 3382 3498 3675 3920
The variables used for the analysis are: Year, Total number of students appeared in the examination, Total
number of students passed in the examination, Total number of students got GPA-5 in the examination,
Percentage of students passed in the examination, Name of the education board of the institute, Location of the
institute (Urban or Rural), Point value and Category.
Table 2: Classification of pass rate and their respective points (BANBEIS 2016)
Classification
Pass(%)
Point Value
90-100
10
Excellent
80-90
9
70-80
8
60-70
7
Good
50-60
6
40-50
5
30-40
4
20-30
3
Poor
10-20
2
0-10
1
The Theil index (Akita et al. 1999) is a statistic used to measure inequality. It is a special case of
generalized entropy index. Theil index ranges from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality). If all individuals
are achieving the similar score, Theil index equals to zero. Otherwise, if only one individual is achieved
maximum marks while the rest of them had zero mark, Theil index would be 1. Education inequality was
estimated by using Theil index:
Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org
ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online)
Vol.9, No.31, 2018
62
1
Where,
is the point value for individual , group ; represents number of interested groups;
is the group
size of
group and
is the total point value of individuals in the group .
Theil index can be easily decomposed into 'between-group' and 'within-group' components. The
decomposition is as follows:
Where,
∑
!
"
"
#
$
%
, is the total sample size, is the total point, and is the number of
interested groups.
and
are within and between decomposition components respectively.
Analysis and Results
From the analysis in table 3, it is found that the percentage of pass in SSC examination was increasing from 2009
to 2014, whereas it decreases in 2015. There was a decrease in the percentage of GPA-5 from 2011 to 2012 and
an increase from 2012 to 2014 and again it decreased in 2015. The variation in performance of the schools was
deceasing from 2009 to 2014, while it increased in 2015.
Table 3: Percentage of schools students of SSC examination score
SSC
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Excellent 41.54 56.95 62.83 75.05 84.28 91.36 76.24
Good 54.44 42.05 36.81 24.76 15.60 8.57 23.26
Poor 4.02 1.00 0.36 0.19 0.12 0.07 0.50
Total(%) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Variance 4.70 2.34 1.59 1.19 0.93 0.58 1.57
Pass(%) 67.40 78.36 82.36 86.20 89.60 92.62 86.68
GPA 5(%) 7.75 7.22 8.74 12.14 9.75
The education inequality have decreased in SSC examination from 2009 to 2014 and suddenly increased in
2015, as shown in table 4. Decreasing education inequality is a good sign but the increase in it may be a concern.
In addition, the within boards and between boards inequalities are also decreasing, while there was an increase in
2015. The between boards inequality is too low, that lead us to investigate the inequality within boards.
Table 4: Inequality decomposition by boards in Bangladesh of SSC examination
Theil index
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Total Bangladesh
0.0446
0.0184
0.0114
0.0079
0.0059
0.0035
0.0108
Between Boards
0.0014
0.0006
0.0003
0.0002
0.0003
0.0001
0.0005
Within Boards
0.0432
0.0178
0.0111
0.0077
0.0056
0.0034
0.0103
Table 5 illustrates that the pass rate in HSC Examination increased from 2009 to 2012 and decreased in
2013 and again increased in 2014, but again decreased in 2015 by almost 10%, which is the lowest pass rate in
last 7 years. The variance shows that when pass rate increases, variation decreased among the colleges.
Table 5: Percentage of colleges students of HSC examination score
HSC
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Excellent 39.97 44.19 46.50 51.60 44.37 51.46 40.15
Good 56.71 54.19 50.88 46.95 53.06 45.99 50.74
Poor 3.32 1.62 2.62 1.45 2.57 2.55 9.11
Total(%) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Variance 4.20 3.08 3.56 2.69 3.55 3.36 5.95
Pass(%) 70.43 71.85 72.34 76.34 71.00 75.82 65.94
GPA 5(%) 7.66 9.03 8.08 8.34 6.02
The education inequality have decreased in HSC Examination from 2009 to 2012 and increased from 2012
to 2015 and highly increased in 2015, as shown in table 6. Increasing education inequality is not a good sign. In
addition, the within boards and between boards inequality also increased. The between boards inequality is low
Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org
ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online)
Vol.9, No.31, 2018
63
in respect of within boards, that lead us to investigate the inequality within boards.
Table 6: Inequality decomposition by boards in Bangladesh of HSC examination
Theil Index
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Total Bangladesh
0.0377
0.0266
0.0314
0.0223
0.0321
0.0295
0.0635
Between Boards
0.0029
0.0003
0.0011
0.0011
0.0011
0.0028
0.0084
Within Boards
0.0377
0.0266
0.0314
0.0223
0.0321
0.0295
0.0635
Figure 1: Inequality in SSC Examination in different boards
In figure 1, it is depicted that in 2009, there was different inequalities among the boards, but over the year
the inequality was decreased and in 2014, the inequality became almost same for all the boards. In 2015, the
inequality was increased for all boards, without Rajhshahi board, as the pass rate was decreased for all boards in
that year. Rajshahi board had the maximum inequality in 2009, but, in 2015 Rajshahi board had the minimum
inequality, which is a good achievement for the Rajshahi education board.
Figure 2: Inequality in HSC examination in Different boards
Figure 2 shows that for some boards, inequality decreases over the year and for some increases over the
year. In 2009, Jessore board has the minimum inequality, while in 2015, Jessore board has the maximum
inequality. It a great matter of concern for Jessore education board that over the year inequality among colleges
increasing very highly. And Rajshahi board has the low inequality over the years, which is good sign for them.
Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org
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Vol.9, No.31, 2018
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Table 7: Percentage of schools students by urban-rural classification of SSC examination
Urban
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Excellent 51.59 63.60 72.10 80.74
88.80
93.94 82.16
Good 45.97 35.31 27.58 19.06
11.19
6.01 17.42
Poor 2.44 1.09 0.33 0.20 0.01 0.06 0.42
Total(%) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Variance 4.02 2.34 1.45 1.07 0.68 0.44 1.22
Pass(%) 74.74 82.13 86.93 89.35
92.32
94.70 90.45
GPA 5(%) 15.67 15.48
17.64
23.12 19.08
Rural
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Excellent 38.5 54.97 60.23 73.46
83.03
90.65 74.61
Good 57.0 44.06 39.40 26.35
16.81
9.28 24.87
Poor 4.5 0.97 0.36 0.19 0.16 0.08 0.52
Total(%) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Variance 4.83 2.33 1.61 1.21 0.99 0.61 1.65
Pass(%) 63.43 76.43 80.13 84.67
88.22
91.59 84.83
GPA 5(%) 3.56 2.97 4.04 6.50 4.86
The urban area has higher pass rate than rural area illustrated in table 7. On the other hand, GPA-5 rate also
about 5 times higher in urban area than rural area. But, for both areas over the year pass rate is increasing and
variation among them decreasing, which is a good sign for the education.
Table 8: Inequality decomposition by boards in urban-rural areas of SSC examination
Theil Index
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Urban
Total
0.0344
0.0183
0.0099
0.0069
0.0041
0.0025
0.0080
Between Boards
0.0008
0.0006
0.0004
0.0002
0.0002
0.0001
0.0004
Within Boards
0.0336
0.0177
0.0095
0.0067
0.0039
0.0024
0.0076
Rural
Total
0.0472
0.0183
0.0117
0.0081
0.0064
0.0037
0.0115
Between Boards
0.0018
0.0008
0.0004
0.0003
0.0004
0.0001
0.0006
Within Boards
0.0454
0.0175
0.0113
0.0078
0.0060
0.0036
0.0109
From the analysis, it was found that inequality was decreased from 2009 to 2014 and increased in 2015 in
urban areas. Meanwhile between group and within group inequality was also decreased over the years in urban
areas. Between groups inequality is very low in respect of within group inequality in urban areas. Inequality was
decreased from 2009 to 2014 and increased in 2015 in rural areas. Between groups inequality is very low in
respect of within group inequality in rural areas. Within group and between group both inequality was decreased
for rural areas over the years.
Figure 3: Inequality in SSC examination by urban-rural areas
From the figure 3, it can be seen that inequality was decreased from 2009 to 2014 and increased in 2015 for
both urban and rural areas. Figure 4 shows that inequality gap between urban-rural areas is decreased from 2009
Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org
ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online)
Vol.9, No.31, 2018
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to 2010, but during 2010 to 2014 inequality gap is being increased between urban-rural areas again in 2015
inequality gap begins to rise.
Figure 4: Inequality gap between urban-rural areas in SSC examination
From the analysis it is found that urban area has higher pass rate than rural area. On the other hand, GPA-5
rate also about 5 times higher in urban area than rural area. But, for both areas pass rate was increased from 2009
to 2012 and decreased in 2013 and 2015, as shown in table 9, increase in pass rate is a good sign for the
education.
Table 9: Percentage of college students in urban-rural areas of HSC examination
Urban
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Excellent 43.12 46.35 48.24 55.03
48.30
56.21 41.62
Good 54.42 52.49 50.26 43.84
49.82
42.11 50.66
Poor 2.46 1.16 1.50 1.13 1.88 1.68 7.72
Total(%) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Variance 3.74 2.96 3.17 2.51 3.40 3.05 5.62
Pass(%) 71.47 73.12 73.73 77.77
72.22
77.76 68.17
GPA 5(%) 9.83 11.74
10.65
11.20 8.34
Rural
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Excellent 37.38 42.35 44.97 48.55
40.86
47.26 38.89
Good 58.58 55.63 51.43 49.72
55.95
49.41 50.81
Poor 4.03 2.02 3.60 1.73 3.19 3.33 10.30
Total(%) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Variance 4.21 3.17 3.88 2.83 3.64 3.58 6.2
Pass(%) 68.23 69.29 69.49 73.65
68.80
72.40 62.02
GPA 5(%) 2.95 3.64 3.18 2.94 1.55
From the analysis it was found that there is many ups and downs in inequality in urban area. From 2009 to
2010 inequality was decreased and from 2010 to 2011, inequality was almost same for urban area, as shown in
table 10. But in 2015 inequality was increased very highly.
Table 10: Inequality decomposition by boards in urban-rural areas of HSC examination
Theil Index
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Urban
Total
0.0334
0.0247
0.0263
0.0201
0.0293
0.0252
0.0576
Between Boards
0.0026
0.0003
0.0017
0.0014
0.0016
0.0030
0.0080
Within Boards
0.0308
0.0244
0.0246
0.0187
0.0277
0.0222
0.0496
Rural
Total
0.0411
0.0281
0.0357
0.0242
0.0343
0.0330
0.0685
Between Boards
0.0037
0.0005
0.0007
0.0009
0.0010
0.0034
0.0095
Within Boards
0.0374
0.0276
0.0350
0.0233
0.0333
0.0304
0.0590
Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org
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Figure 5: Inequality in HSC examination by urban-rural areas
From the Figure 5, it can be seen that from 2009 to 2012 inequality was decreased for both urban and rural
areas and from 2012 to 2015 inequality was increased and highly increased in 2015 as pass rate was in-creased in
2009 to 2012 and decreased in 2013 and highly decreased in 2015 both areas urban and rural.
Figure 6: Inequality Gap between Urban-Rural in HSC Examination
From the Figure 6, it can be seen that pass rate gap between Urban-Rural was increased from 2009 to 2011
and decreased from 2011 to 2013 and again increased highly from 2013 to 2015. While, there is ups and downs
in inequality gaps between urban-rural from 2009 to 2012 and from 2012 to 2015, inequality gap increased was
increased very highly, which is not a good sign.
Conclusion
The study in Bangladesh from 2009 to 2015 shows that education inequality in SSC examination in decreasing
over the years and increased in 2015 while pass rate increased in 2009 to 2014 and decreased in 2015, but in
HSC examination inequality was increased from 2009 to 2015 and pass rate decreased. In SSC examination
decreasing inequality is a good sign but in HSC examination increasing inequality is matter of concern for the
country. Among the different boards Rajshahi board achieved a good achievement in decreasing education
inequality over the year for both SSC and HSC examination. But, in HSC examination, Jessore board had a bad
record as over the inequality in colleges increased over the years very highly. So, for Jessore education board it
is a matter of great concern. So, action might be taken on Jessore board to decrease the inequality.
The study also shows that, education inequality in rural areas is always higher than in urban areas for both
schools and colleges. This indicates that the higher the proportion of rural schools or colleges in area, the higher
its education inequality tends to be. Although, for both areas, in SSC examination education inequality decreased
over the time, but the gap between urban and rural areas schools are increasing over years. Again, in HSC
examination, for both areas education inequality is increasing and the gap between them also increasing. Again,
urban areas have almost 5 times higher percentage of GPA-5 than rural areas in both SSC and HSC examination.
So, actions should be taken to narrow or close the gap of further disparity between students from urban and rural
areas. So, policy makers may peep into the issues of inequality to improve the quality of education in
Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org
ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online)
Vol.9, No.31, 2018
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Bangladesh, especially in rural areas. The study is done on the basis of percentage of pass of schools and
colleges, but individual students result can give a better result for the education inequality. Again, if the data are
available, the study between boys and girls may also give a better result of education inequality by gender.
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