ew in bangladesh would deny that their country has had remarkable success at getting kids into classrooms. Four decades ago less than a third of children finished primary school. Today, 80% do. Before the pandemic, more Bangladeshi girls than boys attended high school. In India and Pakistan, the reverse is true.
Improving the quality of education has proved trickier. More than half of Bangladeshi ten-year-olds in school are not proficient in reading, according to the World Bank, and more than a quarter of those aged between 15 to 24 are not in education, employment or training. A year and a half of pandemic-related school closures have made matters worse.
In some respects, unimpressive outcomes have not held back Bangladesh. The economy has been growing at an annual rate of 6% for the past decade, reaching 8% before the pandemic. The two main drivers of growth, the garment industry and remittances from overseas Bangladeshi workers, have boomed. But that is because labour is plentiful and cheap, not because it is skilled. Bangladeshi labourers in the Gulf often earn less than their Indian brethren. Garment workers in Dhaka, the capital, toil for lower wages than rivals in China.