Bdbusinessdaily.com – When State Minister for Primary and Mass Education Bobby Hajjaj took the stage in Dhaka on 8 September to mark International Literacy Day 2026, his message was blunt: the 2% of GDP allocated to education will fund classrooms, curricula, and children — not concrete and steel. Speaking at a ceremony organized by the Bureau of Non-Formal Education, Hajjaj framed the government’s fiscal pledge as a re-enrollment and pedagogy programme, explicitly rejecting the notion that the money should flow into new school buildings.

Bangladesh’s primary-education system has long been weighed down by dropout rates that spike in rural upazilas, where families keep girls and younger children at home because the nearest school lacks meals, uniforms, or even a functioning classroom. The minister’s intervention reframes the budget line item: rather than a generic spending increase, the allocation is now tied to measurable outcomes — re-enrollment numbers, literacy gains, and retention…