Directorate of Inspection and Audit

Prior to the independence of Bangladesh there was only one educational directorate headed by the erstwhile Director of Public Instruction, whose main function was to implement the educational policies of the government in general and supervise the existing few government education institutions. There was no proper education administrative unit of the government to supervise the vast number of non-

government education institutions and these were then run by local management. As a result, these education institutions only followed the curriculum and syllabi of the government while all other administrative functions were left to the respective managing committees/governing bodies. Some of these used to get a negligible amount of monetary grants from the government and spent these in their own way. There was practically no arrangement that could enable the government to verify the appropriate expenditure of these grants and as such, the government undertook no responsibility for the income/expenditure of the institutions. Further, there was no uniform pay scale in these non- government institutions. With the exception of a few, pay scales of all private institutions were considerably lower compared to those of the government institutions. This affected the overall performance and academic standard of non-government institutions. This situation worsened after the emergence of Bangladesh when a lot of new schools/colleges/madrashas were established due to over enthusiasm of the public without proper consideration as to their sustainability. Very soon most of the founders lost their interests and the institutions were left on their own. Being deprived of financial help the teachers and other staff of the institutions somehow managed to run the institutions from students' tuition fees and other means. However, at one point, most of the non-government institutions accounting for approximately 95% education of the country were about to cease function from financial crises.It was in this backdrop, that the government constituted a high powered committee in 1979 headed by Mr. Kazi Anwarul Huq, the then minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism in order to improve the standard of education, administration and to give financial help to the teachers and other employees of the non government institutions. In order to avert discrimination between government and non-government institutions this committee recommended a pay scale of non-government institutions which is similar to the pay scale of the government institutions (in December 1979). On the basis of the recommendation the government decided to give similar pay scales for teachers and employees of non-government institutions from the 1st January 1980. This entailed a huge increase in government expenditure on education. Since there was no separate administrative unit under the Ministry of Education to supervise/monitor whether this huge government aid or grant received by the institutions were properly spent or not, the necessity of a separate administrative organization was felt in order to ensure transparency, accountability, abiding of the government rules and regulations, proper utilization of government fund and improvement of the quality of education.Considering these facts in view, the Anwarul Huq Committee proposed to establish a separate Directorate entitled "Directorate of Inspection and Control" for the non- government institutions. Shortly, a little change was brought in its title and it was named "Directorate of Inspection and Audit" under the direct control of the Ministry of Education with effect from 1st October 1980 following the model of "Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education of England" (Ministry of Education Memo No.