MKT470, Section 1

Research
Proposal
Prepared for:
The
determinants of religious private school
Dr.
Tamgid
Ahmed
choice
in Dhaka
city
Chowdhury
Prepared by:

ID:

Syed Maruf Ahmed

Tamzid Alam Khan
Shakawat Hossain
Mosammat Rafiana Tuni

121
123
123
123

0765
0046
0074
1275

030
030
030
030

Introduction
Bangladesh which is home to approximately 148.6 million Muslims makes the fourth largest
Muslim population in the world. Dhaka, being the capital city contains numerous types of private

schools and Religious private schools is one of the branches of the education system. Religious
School is a broad term and can be further classified into two broad categories- Madrasas and
Islamic schools. Madrasas focus on the study of Islamic theology, alongside with minimal
general education and on the other hand we have Islamic schools that focuses on both general
education and Islamic knowledge and strictly follows Islamic laws and principles in conducting
behavior and maintaining the overall environment i.e. segregation, Islamic uniform etc. It can be
assumed that the demand of private religious schools in Dhaka city is increasing due to the recent
emergence of a number of Islamic schools i.e. Peace Intl School and Life School. In the rural
setting, quality of non-religious schools may not be sufficiently higher than the quality of
madrasas but in urban areas such as Dhaka city, Islamic schools try to focus on both quality
general education and Islamic knowledge. This is giving existing general private schools
increased competition in acquiring new students. There are obscure and complex reasons behind
the parental choice of Islamic schools over other schools. The main objectives of this very
research is mentioned below.
1. To find out the determinants and factors of the choice of religious private schools
over the non-religious ones.
2. To forecast the actual demand of religious schools in Dhaka city.
3. To identify the reasons behind the emergence of a lot of Islamic private schools.
This research paper will help to forecast the growth of religious schools in Dhaka city and can
later aid in decision making of existing general schools to decide whether or not to convert to a
religious school or figure out other ways to appeal to the public to survive in the increasing
competition.

Literature review
In his study Badawi (2006) carried out a case study research on a single school in North America
enrolling about 300 students. The views of the parents could be narrowed down into three
significant patterns. The parents wanted the kids to experience and to be brought up in an

Islamic environment which would enhance the childrens Islamic morals or practices and lead
them to become good Muslims. It is hoped children would have a Religious education if they
are enrolled in the Islamic schools rather than a public school, this would help the children learn
the basic teachings of Islam prayers, faith, life and history of their prophet or the Quran thus
helping them to learn to live Islam
Asadullah, Chakrabarti and Chaudhury (2012) where they have pointed out that religious schools
appeal to relatively poorer households as they present cheaper but lower quality alternatives to
non-religious schools, and because non-religious schools in rural areas are not of sufficiently
high quality they are unable to attenuate the overall demand for madrasas.
Rahman (2015) stated, one of the most enduring factors that lead parents to select madrasa
(Islamic school) over a public or private school is students are taught the basic teachings of
Islam they are taught what it means to be a Muslim and a how to lead a life like a proper Muslim.
Nancy (2013) in one of her online articles mentioned the following reasons for the choice of
religious schools:

Some seek a spiritual grounding alongside the academic for their children.

Others want academics to be informed by the religious or spiritual beliefs of a school.

Parents who want a more affordable private education for their child weigh cost factors

tuition at faith-based schools can be 25 50 percent less than at other comparable

independent schools.

Still others seek a community of families that share their faith, coming together for

celebrations, rituals and ceremonies.

Research design and methodology

We will use both secondary and primary data for our research. At first, we will use secondary
data from online journals, articles, newspapers and (if any) previous research on religious
schools for our literature review. For acquiring qualitative data we will be taking in depth

interviews from parents who send or are willing to send their children to religious schools. This
data will be used to create our hypotheses and will be later tested through our descriptive
research.
Next, for our descriptive research we plan to conduct a questionnaire survey. Our questionnaire
survey will be carried out using a pre-planned questionnaire which will be multimodal, meaning
it will include deco Tomas questions, scale based question, multiple choice questions and a few
open ended questions as well. This will test the hypotheses initially created.
Our survey sample will consist of at least 100 parents who are sending or plan to send their
children to religious schools and they will be chosen based on simple random sampling process.
We plan to carry out an ethical survey and not reveal any of our participants identities. After
that, we will test a hypothesis using SPSS for our data analysis.
Lastly our field work will be conducted by 4 data collectors who will collect data for 2 weeks
and also be responsible for the data entry later on.

References