Chapter 4 Realization of RTE: Bangladesh Perspective “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” Margaret Mead Every State that realizes the necessity of right to education has their own approach to ensure its implementation for its people. In Bangladesh the necessity of education has been widely appreciated by almost all the governments. To ensure that, a number of strategies have been adopted which increases people’s access to education. To that end increasing and patronizing institutional diversity can be considered as one of the core strategies. On the face of it, the diverse streams in education cannot be called a negative factor in Bangladesh. Strength in diversity is well known, and indeed often diversity is a much sought after notion for creating the forte into a body. The diversity in Bangladeshi education could have been the source of a great strength that would take the nation forward towards realization if human development, yet unfortunately, this diversity has turned into one of the weakest links in our entire system, and that also for mainly one reason: lack of synchronization and coordination. In fact, the idiosyncrasy of the diversity in our system has fragmented the nation: creating popular mindset against particular students, particular fields, developed a superficial definition and hierarchy of valuable education, and last but not the least, created a superficial educated society, making the realization of RTE a far-situated goal. This chapter shall analyse the innate consequences of the diverse streams, the resultant fragmentation and their ultimate consequence and finally how this whole thing results into human rights deprivation with only partial attainment of RTE. 4.1 Diversity: Quantity Prioritized over Quality Quality When questioning the credibility of the diverse streams running in the education system, what appears to be the main problem is not the diversity itself, rather the diversity of standards attached therewith. Resolving the innate problems would primarily require focusing upon one issue in Page | 36