The key features of the above major policy statements focus on the achievement of EFA 2015 goals by ensuring equitable access to quality education for all children in Bangladesh. It requires a different set of interventions on the part of government focussing on target groups who need special support in order to access quality education. The success of such intended initiatives depends, along with others, upon effective monitoring and evaluation of the implementation process.
The government of Bangladesh has launched various equity interventions since the 1980s. In the 80s and 90s, the rate of school enrolment was very low amongst the poorest families. At that time, around 50 percent of the total population lived below the poverty line and most of those families could not send their children to the school due to poverty related reasons. The government of Bangladesh, in collaboration with other development partners (WFP, World Bank, DFID, USAID, etc.) launched different interventions for enrolling more children from disadvantaged families in increasing equity in education. Some of these interventions are presented below:
2.5.1 Food for Education (FFE)
In the late 80s, the government of Bangladesh conducted research on the rural rationing system and found that 70 percent of the subsidized food grains were going to those who were not poor (Ahmed and Ninno, 2002). The government introduced the Food for Education (FFE) programme in July 1993 as an alternative and deemed it a cost-effective means of transferring income benefits to low-income households (Ahmed and Ninno, 2002). The assumption was that poor children’s schooling was affected by their malnutrition, the direct and indirect cost of education, and a lack of parental awareness. The Food for Education (FFE) programme was thus introduced to achieve the twin goals of improving food security and school participation. The FFE programme aimed to feed hungry children, as the hunger itself was seen as a barrier to school participation and learning (Ahmed and Babu, 2007). In contrast, the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme (Ahmed and Ninno, 2002) targeted poor households with school-aged children. These households received food support in exchange for a commitment to send their
children to school. This conditional food transfer programme was a shift from general subsidies to a more sharply targeted programme that aimed to improve human capital formation (UNDP, 2009). Due to food distribution problems, the FFE programme was redesigned and renamed as the Primary Education Stipend Programme (PESP) in 2002.
2.5.2 Female Secondary Stipend Programme (FSP)
The Female Secondary Stipend Programme (FSP) was piloted in six areas of Bangladesh in 1982 to help increase the enrolment and retention of girls in secondary schools. The pilot was deemed successful and subsequently extended in 1994 as a national programme. The specific objectives of the FSP are to increase secondary enrolment and retention rate, delay marriage, control fertility, generate employment, increase empowerment, and improve the quality of education of girls in Bangladesh (Raynor and Wesson 2006). In the 1990s, the focus of the FSP shifted from fertility control to improving girls’ engagement in income-generating activities or taking up formal employment, both of which were linked to poverty alleviation. This scheme provides a monthly stipend to the guardian of the student who maintains a minimum of 75 percent class attendance and remains unmarried until the SSC exams. The stipend starts at enrolment in the sixth grade and continues up to 12-grade, subject to the conditions stipulated in the programme. The rate of the stipend varies from Tk. 300/year (around US$ 4) to Tk. 720/year (around US$ 9.6) based on the class of study. It also covers tuition costs, a yearly book allowance, and public examination fees. Under this programme, cash is transferred to the guardians of the beneficiary. (Morshed, 2009:7). One study reported that FSP has increased girls’ enrolment substantially (Khandker, et al. 2003). In 2005, the Bangladesh government offered free education for the girls up to grades 12 with additional incentives (such as book allowance, SSC examination fees) that in effect boosted girl’s enrolment in secondary schools from 1.1 million in 1991 to 3.9 million in 2005 (UNICEF, 2010).
2.5.3 School Feeding (SF) programme
As a pilot project in 2002, the government of Bangladesh and the World Food Programme (WFP) launched the School Feeding (SF) programme in areas in Bangladesh with chronic food insecurity. The objectives of the SF programme were to contribute to increasing
enrolment, attendance and reduce school leaver rates in government and NGO schools particularly, among children from food insecure areas. The school feeding programme provided a mid-morning snack to all children in the intervention schools containing a packet of eight biscuits weighing 75 grams and providing 300 kilocalories and meeting 75 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals (Ahmed, 2004). Based on the pilot project, the government launched the national School Feeding Programme in poverty prone areas in 2011. This donor (Australia, Japan, Spain, and USDA) supported programme gets capacity building assistance from the World Food Programme and now serves 1.3 million children in 6,763 pre-primary and primary school children (WFP, 2012). This programme has increased enrolment by 16 percent and decreased iron deficiency (anaemia) in students by 12 percent when compared to students in non-assisted schools (WFP, 2012).
2.5.4 NGO initiatives for equity
It is useful to evaluate some of the equity interventions implemented by the NGOs to address the low achievement of poor children. A large number of poor children secure physical access to school, but many of them are unable to benefit from learning. The children’s low performance is always seen as an outcome of poverty and the cause of continued poverty (Colclough, et al., 2000). Non-enrolment and school leavers from the early grades of primary school are often seen as demand side problems, as most of the children who are not in school, belong to the poorest families. As such, the high direct and opportunity costs of education act as a barrier (UNICEF, 2014). The 'opportunity' costs include, the ‘income forgone’ for the families as a result of sending their children to the school instead of sending them out to work and the real charges resulting from the operation of education system which do not include actual expenditures (Hallak, 1969). The NGO initiatives are founded on a set of assumptions that effective demand is a function of the effective and responsive supply of education. They, therefore, develop programmes considering both the demand and supply side constraints facing poor children. The primary education programme of BRAC is such an initiative where poor children enrol in the system but relinquish their PESP money (Sommers, 2013).
The Amader School (Our School) is a research project of Concern Worldwide dedicated to improving the learning achievement of the poorest and underachieving children at 150 government primary schools. The local NGOs are involved in the process of capacity building of the School Management Committee of the relevant schools with Concern Worldwide. The Shikhon Club (Learning Club) programme of Save the Children is also designed to support 16,000 low performing students through its 800 Shikhon Club. The Shikhon Club operates out of the normal school hours and helps children to achieve grade wise learning competency in Bengali, Mathematics, and English (Save the Children, 2011).
All these NGO initiatives also have contributed towards keeping school participation and performance relatively high amongst less well-off children.