Farah Zahir
Managing Editor, The Oniket Bulletin
Education is a merit good. A society wants every child to receive it, regardless of what the family can pay, and expects schools to serve that aim even when they charge fees. Private schools in Bangladesh, from celebrated English medium institutions in Dhaka to small kindergartens in district towns, now educate a large and growing share of the country’s children.
The question is whether they have earned their place by serving the nation or have become profit maximisers in a market that parents feel compelled to enter. The answer bears directly on Bangladesh’s commitment under Sustainable Development Goal 4, which calls for inclusive and equitable quality education for all.
What Private Schools Have Contributed
The fair starting point is that private schools have filled real gaps. Where public classrooms are overcrowded and quality is uneven, many parents have turned to private options, and several institutions have delivered strong results and disciplined teaching. Debating clubs, science fairs and relief drives, often organised by students, build civic habits that examinations alone cannot, and some schools offer stipends or fee waivers to talented students from modest backgrounds.
The documented record of systematic social responsibility by private schools themselves, however, is thin. The most visible education related corporate social responsibility comes from banks and corporate foundations, which fund scholarships, many directed at rural and female students. Schools tend to engage informally, through individual teachers and alumni, rather than through published programmes with budgets and measurable outcomes. This absence of transparency makes it difficult to argue that the sector acts out of mission rather than commerce, and it is the first of several gaps that policy should address.
The Case Against: Education as a Commodity
Reports describe monthly tuition at many English medium schools ranging from Tk 8,000 to Tk 30,000, plus session and miscellaneous charges, and guardians say no umbrella body exists to which they can take grievances. Many students also depend on private coaching, which suggests that high fees do not always buy proportionate classroom learning, and watchdogs warn that some institutions treat education as a commodity.
The Ministry of Education has set fee ceilings in admission policies, and the 2026 to 2027 policy for Class XI and Alim programmes capped admission and session charges, required all expenses to be published on noticeboards and websites, and urged waivers for students with special needs. In February 2026 the High Court banned re-admission fees and the ministry issued transparency guidelines. The petitioner observed, however, that a similar prohibition already existed in ministry policy and was openly violated by thousands of institutions. The weakness lies in enforcement, and this is the second gap: a framework that sets limits but provides no reliable mechanism to monitor compliance or punish breaches.
Policy Alignment and Contradiction
The National Education Policy of 2010 envisaged common core learning, with Bangla, Mathematics, Science and Bangladesh Studies taught across all streams and an independent body monitoring English medium school. These measures were never fully implemented, largely because the country has not passed a comprehensive Education Act to give them legal force. Many private schools therefore meet registration conditions while remaining lightly supervised, and a shared national foundation sits uneasily with a system in which wealthier families can buy a separate curriculum. This is the third and most structural gap, since a policy without statutory backing depends on goodwill. Passing the long-pending Education Act would bring English medium institutions under a single regulatory framework and give the ministry and courts clear grounds to act on breaches.
Urban and Rural Moral Effects
This assessment rests on policy observation, not survey evidence. In cities, elite private schooling can foster confidence, global exposure and ambition, but it can also deepen social distance, as children who rarely meet peers from other backgrounds may see education as a private asset to be defended. In rural areas, low fee kindergartens and community supported schools bring children into learning where public provision is distant, but quality is uneven and families who stretch their savings may be buying results that are hard to verify. The risk is a widening divide between urban and rural youth, contrary to SDG 10 on reducing inequality and Target 4.5 on ending disparities in education by income and location.
Applying Policy and the Sustainable Development Goals
The fee ceilings and publication requirements in the admission policy should be extended from Class XI and Alim programmes to all levels of private schooling, and the 2026 transparency and accountability guidelines made binding through the Education Act, with annual financial disclosure to the ministry. A public register could link corporate and bank funded scholarships to schools so that support reaches the rural and female students it is meant for.
SDG 4 supplies the central benchmark of equitable access and quality learning, SDG 10 the equity test of whether education narrows the distance between the urban rich and the rural poor, and SDG 16, through Target 16.6, the standard of accountable and transparent institutions that regulators and schools alike must meet. SDG 17 on partnerships supports a joint arrangement among the ministry, school owners, corporate donors and guardians.
Conclusion
A comprehensive Education Act, an independent regulator and annual reporting of scholarships and community programmes would turn goodwill into accountable practice. Private schools are not simply profit maximisers, but a sector that educates millions of children carries a public duty it has not formalised. The test is whether its surplus is visibly reinvested for the purpose of education, for every child, in every district.
