CRC/C/BGD/CO/4 page 18 7. Education, leisure and cultural activities (arts. 28, 29 and 31 of the Convention) Education, including vocational training and guidance 73. While noting the progress made in increasing primary school enrolment, reducing the gender gap and expanding programmes supporting the access of marginalized groups of children living in poverty to school, the Committee remains concerned over the length of compulsory education covering five years only; the differences among parallel educational systems, and among them the Madrassah schools; the absence of early childhood development programmes; the hidden costs of education; the lack of materials and equipment; the marked disparities in access to education among the regions and the poor quality of education provided in many schools. 74. In addition, the Committee is concerned at the reported mistreatment of children by their teachers and the frequent cases of bullying and sexual harassment, particularly of girls, at school and on the way to school; the lack of separate sanitation facilities for girls and boys; the extremely low rate of primary school completion, and the very low enrolment in secondary school; the inadequate facilities for vocational education and training, including for children who dropped out of school before completion; the lack of coordination and equivalencies between the formal and non-formal educational programmes, and the still low budgetary allocation for education in the budget of the State party. 75. The Committee recommends that the State party: (a) Consider extending the length of compulsory school in the country; (b) Raise the budget allocation for the expansion of the educational system and the improvement of the quality of education; (c) Address early childhood development holistically, including the introduction of public pre-school education as part of the compulsory primary education to improve learning achievements; (d) Strengthen efforts to further increase the enrolment in primary school and effectively prevent dropout from school; (e) Consider making multilingual education available in remote areas for minority and indigenous children; (f) Increase the transition rate to secondary school and support girls to continue education at the secondary level; (g) Provide more vocational education and training, including for drop-out children, and establish formal and non-formal facilities for combining work and education; (h) Effectively level out the access and quality disparities of the educational system across the regions of the country, with special attention to the less developed regions; (i) Better equip schools with educational materials and adequate sanitation facilities for girls and boys;