Government teachers’ perception and policy provision on SEL – a study in selected government primary schools in Bangladesh

Abstract

Bangladesh a, rising economy if south-east Asia is having a tremendous success in primary school enrollment and at the same experiences difficulties in ensuring quality after graduation from primary schools. COVID-19 has been a detrimental force in the overall educational landscape of the country. It was assumed that the existing system has lack in promoting students Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and teachers are not fully aware of the importance of SEL, whereas remarkable results have been identified in countries where SEL was given a priority. To identify the SEL perspective of incumbent teachers and the existing policy, this study followed qualitative research, where 8 Government Primary School teachers have been interviewed and two major policy documents have been analyzed. Inadequate teachers’ training, insufficient classroom infrastructure and lack of directions from the government are few key reasons for what teachers are being unable to successfully follow SEL framework. Additionally, policies do not clearly reflect about the framework though these have few direct and indirect guidelines on SEL competencies. The research has detail comparison between the data collected from the respondents with the existing documents. Several key recommendations is provided at the end of this study mentioning that substantial work is yet to be done to capitalize the current demographic dividend of Bangladesh.