Madrasa education system is holding back Bangladesh to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030 as nearly 75 percent of the teachers have no kind of training on providing education.

The government’s Department of Madrasa Education (DME) identifies it as one of the bottlenecks to achieve the SDG-4.

The DME, however, says they are working on a proposal to enhance training capacity for Madrasa teachers.

“We are almost finished on finalising a proposal, which includes capacity building of the Bangladesh Madrasa Teachers Training Institute (BMTTI) in Gazipur as well as setting up regional training facilities,” DME Director General Md Billal Hossain told Bangla Tribune.

According to DME sources, 75 percent of the teachers do not have any kind of training while remaining 25 percent have actually attended workshops lasting between one and seven days.

The lone training facility, Gazipur BMTTI is capable of training around 2,500 teachers annually against 66 primary training institutes and 14 teachers training colleges across the country.

DME officials said the lack of training facilities for Madrasa teachers is one of the major reasons Bangladesh will not be able to achieve SDG-4 by 20230.

According to official figures, a total of 9,137 madrasas are covered under the government’s MPO (monthly payment order scheme), which pays salaries for teachers and staff and receive grants from the state coffer.