index, DGEN, posting a 92 per cent year-on-year return. However the bubble was short-lived, as the market began to slow from 8 December 2010, beginning a protracted phase of contraction. Education In this decade, the focus of Bangladesh education policy at school level switched from “quantity” to “quality”. Reforms were implemented in school managing committee (SMC), retirement and service benefit of non-government teachers, teacher training, information technology and computer education, secondary curriculum, school-based assessment system (SBA) and English language teaching. In different phases the amount of public sector contribution towards salary subvention to non- government educational institutions at secondary and higher secondary level was increased to 90% in 2001. The coverage of primary education system significantly improved in this decade. As of 2006, number of primary-school-age children outside school came down to approximately 634 thousand. However, number of teachers per 1,000 primary student remained a dismal 2.4. Based on World Bank data, in 2000, there were 10.33 million secondary school students (including higher secondary) in the country, which grew to 10.91 million by the end of the decade. Secondary school enrollment rate ranged between 48.0% to 48.4% during the same period. Over these years ratio of female students in secondary education changed from 49.9% to 51.6%; while, number of teachers for these students grew from 269 to 387 thousand. In this decade the secondary and higher secondary education administration for the country, used to be managed by 7 general education boards, namely Dhaka, Rajshahi, Comilla, Jessore, Chittagong, Barisal and Sylhet; a Technical Education Board and a Madrasah Education Board. The tertiary education used to be managed under University Grants Commission, the apex body of all the affiliated public, private and international universities of Bangladesh, while the colleges providing tertiary education operated under the authority of National University. Number of general purpose public universities increased from six (DU, RU, CU, JU, IU and newly opened KU) in the beginning of the decade to eleven by the end with the addition of JnU, JKKNIU, CoU, BRU and BUP. BUET used to be the only university for Engineering education; but in 2003, four other institutes of technology were upgraded to universities. During the decade, number of agricultural universities in the public sector increased from two to five and one more science and technology university was added to existing three. BSMMU continued to serve as the university overseeing post graduate medical education in the