115 © The Author(s) 2020 M. K. Barai (ed.), Bangladesh’s Economic and Social Progress, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1683-2_4 CHAPTER 4 Education, Health Care, and Life Expectancy in Bangladesh: Transcending Conventions Anis Pervez and H. M. Jahirul Haque INTRODUCTION Conventional development models are struggling to explain the accom- plishments Bangladesh has achieved in different sectors, of which educa- tion, health care, and life expectancy are vividly distinctive. For example, the average life expectancy of the people of Bangladesh has risen to 72.3 years in 2018, as compared to 72 years in 2017. It used to be only 49 years in the 1980s. This is coupled with the progressive growth of human capi- tal as published by the World Bank Group’s Human Capital Index (HCI) while a constant economic growth has become a mundane reality of Bangladesh since the 1990s. All these are accomplished when the country does not seem to have a proper context for development that the conven- tional development theories, such as modernization and dependency, would set as preconditions. The country has a large population, the 8th A. Pervez (*) Bangladesh on Record, Dhaka, Bangladesh H. M. J. Haque University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), Dhaka, Bangladesh e-mail: jahirul.haque@ulab.edu.bd