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136. The publications from the departments managing the EMIS are generally
published annually and they are presented in the form of a statistical yearbook
(Educational Statistics Yearbook). The annual school census yearbooks produced by
the statistics unit of DPE and BANBEIS are core statistical publications presenting the
situation of the Bangladesh education system.

137. The Directorate of Primary Education published primary education statistics
for the year 2001 but has not published anything since 2002. The report includes data
from national to district levels. It is voluminous, however contains only basic summary
information. Little information and indicators available compare to data requested in the
annual school questionnaires. The various indicators that highlight the progress toward
Education for All (EFA) and MDG goals are not being produced. Also the quality and
consistency of the data are of concern among the users. The information about pre-
primary education also exists in the MIS unit of DPE but have yet to be published for
external users. BANBEIS collected some basic information on primary education for the
year 2002 from DPE and then incorporated it in its reports.

138. With the exception of a bulky and little-distributed statistical yearbook, the
statistical data of pre-primary and primary education in Bangladesh are not very
accessible. It used to produce 2,000 copies of the yearbook depending on financial
assistance from other sources. They were distributed to the educational authorities at
the local, regional and central levels, as well as to other concerned ministries,
institutions and agencies. However, in the last two years, the unit was unable to
produce the report due to lack of approval from the MOPME and lack of funding. Even
for the previous years, the number of yearbooks available was apparently not adequate
at the decentralised levels. Although the UIS study did not cover the whole of the
regions and districts, it seems there is little use of the publications at the decentralised
levels and that, consequently, the statistical publications are limited. Most of the
officials, especially at the district level, did not seem to use or were not aware of the
existence of this publication that should normally be referred to.

139. At the secondary and tertiary level, the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational
Information and Statistics (BANBEIS) publishes the Annual Statistical Report which
provides the information in a time series format on a number of institutions, number of
teachers and enrolment by grade, sex, location (urban-rural) for each level and type of
institution. This report also presents the status at the national level. Upon request, from
its EMIS database, BANBEIS generates and provides the indicators required by the
national and international agencies and organizations. However, due to a lack of
resources, the organization is not able to update data regularly each year. In this
regards, BANBEIS conducts a sample survey to validate the data for old institutions as
well as to update new institutions in the database.

140. Approximately 2,000 copies of the statistical yearbook are published by
BANBEIS and are distributed to various users at the central as well as local level in the
region and district. There is a regular budget for publishing and printing annual reports.
In addition to the annual statistical yearbook, when funds are available, BANBEIS also

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