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The World Bank will give Bangladesh $100 million credit to address governance issues on and reform to education, improve equity of access to secondary education in particular.
   The reform agenda focuses on six main areas — accountability, equity, capacity building, monitoring, evaluation and dissemination, and teachers’ quality, textbook production and curriculum development, according to a press release issued on Tuesday.
   ‘It is designed to alter incentives for financing and provision for secondary education and build greater accountability in the sector,’ said the release adding that the project – Programmatic Education Sector Development Support Credit — was the second in a series of International Development Association credit aiming to sustain reforms to the secondary education.
   The reforms will move Bangladesh towards achieving the twin objectives of quality and access to the secondary level education, it said.
   The country representative of the World Bank in Dhaka, Christine I Wallich, said Bangladesh had attained an impressive success in access to education, but the governance constrains had contributed to the poor quality of education at all levels.
   ‘This project supports reforms that will significantly reduce rent-seeking opportunities and enhance cost effectiveness in the sector. …It will lead to more equitable access to good quality secondary education,’ she added.
   Gross primary enrolment rates are close to 100 per cent, and the secondary enrolment rate has become more than doubled since the country gained independence in 1971, the bank observed. ‘The country has already met the Millennium Development Goal on gender parity in school enrolment at primary and secondary levels.’
   The bank along with other donors supports Bangladesh’s Primary Education Development Program (PEDP II) designed to reduce dropout rate, improve teaching quality and ensure timely delivery of textbooks.
   The bank’s Reaching Out-of-School Children Project is supporting community-managed programmes to educate 5 lakh children currently out-of-school while a post-literacy project finances literacy for illiterate citizens over school-going age.
   The bank said the medium-term benefits of the reforms that the government was undertaking include better trained and more effective teachers, reduced teacher absenteeism, higher enrolment and completion rates, better student performance, reduced time to complete the secondary cycle and lower unit cost per student.
   ‘This will ultimately lead to a more skilled labour force attuned to market needs, raising Bangladesh’s competitiveness in global markets,’ said Amit Dar, the task team leader for the project.
   At the secondary level, under the Second Female Secondary School Assistance Project (FSSAP II), girl student are being given stipends to encourage them in attending the secondary school examination.
   The World Bank supported the Phase I of reforms under the Education Sector Development Support Credit, which was approved on August 29, 2004.
   The reforms yielded positive impact on Bangladesh, the Bank claimed adding that the pass percentage in the Grade 10 standardised examinations had risen to 50 from 37.
   Timely delivery of textbooks, the recently held (first) standardised teacher certification examinations and publication of more textbooks using transparent criteria are also the impact of the reforms, it added.

The left-democratic 11-Party Alliance on Wednesday called upon the government to identify and bring to book those in the administration who had political and financial links with Islamist militant groups.
   The central steering committee of the combine at a press conference at Asad auditorium in the capital said, the arrests of two JMB kingpins, Shaikh Abdur Rahman and Siddiqur Rahman Bangla Bhai would not put an end to militancy in the country.
   The government should take immediate measures with the help of all progressive political forces to crush Islamist groups, the alliance said demanding formation of an independent inquiry commission and actions against the ministers, MPs and officials who had ‘patronised and protected’ the two top JMB leaders. It also demanded that the militant kingpins be charged with sedition.
   ‘The 11-Party Alliance had earlier warned the BNP-Jamaat government of the threat of rising militancy, but they did not pay heed’, it regretted.
   ‘Islamist militancy has spread in the country under the patronage of the government’, the alliance coordinator Dilip Barua said in a written statement at the press conference.
   ‘The top militant leaders, who had been under the protection of the government and the administration, were finally arrested according to the political plan of the ruling alliance’, the leaders of the 11-party alliance alleged.
   The 11-Party alliance called upon the prime minister to offer an apology to the nation for the failure of her government to take timely steps against militancy which had claimed dozens of lives.
   The Workers’ Party politburo member Fazle Hossain Badsha narrated to the press the atrocities and brutalities committed by the so-called Islamic court of Bangla Bhai in the name of Sarbahara cleansing operation in Bagmara of Rajshahi. Some documentary footages showing the brutalities were screened at the press conference.
   The press conference was attended by the Workers Party president Rashed Khan Menon, general secretary Bimal Biswas, the Ganatantri Party president Nurul Islam, the Gana Forum general secretary Saif Uddin Ahmed Manik, the Gana Azadi League president Abdus Samad and the Ganatratrik Majdur Party general secretary Zakir Hossain.

The women leaders of Awami League and other AL sympathisers on Wednesday accused the four-party alliance government of torturing women and called for dethroning the present government.
   ‘The highest number of women was repressed in the country during the regime of Khaleda Zia’s rule. She created a world record on women repression. Until the fall of the present government, the repression would carry on,’ said the party’s presidium member, Matia Chowdhury, while addressing a discussion meeting in the capital.
   The Bangladesh Mahila Awami League, the women front of AL organised the discussion at the Jatiya Press Club, marking the International Women’s Day.
   Chaired by Mahila AL president Ashrafunnesa Mosharraf, the meeting was addressed, among others, by Sultana Shafi, Nazma Rahman, Dr Sadeka Halim, Makhduma Nasrin, Tania Amir and Fazilatunnesa Indira.
   Sultana, the party’s women affairs adviser, alleged that prime minister Khaleda Zia, had failed to protect the rights of the women.
   ‘The women community of the country will have to change their own fate, as they are facing all odds, despite having a woman as their prime minister.
   Nazma, relief and rehabilitation affairs secretary of AL, alleged that not only by policemen, women were also tortured by the ruling alliance activists.
   The discussion concluded with Ashrafunnesa demanding direct elections to the reserved seats for women in parliament.

The paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles recovered two Indian-made revolvers, eight powerful explosives and some bomb-making materials from Katakhal frontier area under Chhatak upazila in Sunamganj early Wednesday.
   A patrol team of the 17 Rifles Battalion, on a tip, raided the border area to hunt down gunrunners at about 5:30 am, sources said.
   As the BDR men approached their hideouts, the miscreants, numbering three or four, fled the scene leaving behind some sacks containing weapons and explosives. The BDR team recovered eight powerful bombs, eight detonators and two revolvers with six bullets after searching the abandoned bags.
   Major Amin, an official of the BDR sector quarters in Sylhet, told New Age the bombs were powerful enough to cause massive destruction.
   The seized arms and explosives were handed over to the Sylhet Kotwali police on Wednesday afternoon and a case was filed in this connection, BDR source said.

Two persons, including a Dhaka University student, were killed and 20 others injured including six critically in a road accident early Wednesday on Dhaka-Aricha highway at Paturia intersection in Manikganj.
   The dead were identified as Mahmud Kaderia, a fourth year student of BBA at Dhaka University and Zakaria Masud Jaku, administrative officer of Khulna University. Seriously injured Alimul Huq, Shefali Begum, Amjad Hossain, Kabirul Alam, Zakir Hossain, and Salimuddin were taken and admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
   The police said the accident occurred when the Dhaka-bound bus fell into a roadside ditch at around 3:30am.

One more worker who was injured in the Chittagong KTS garments fire incident died at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital on Tuesday, raising the death toll to 59.
   The deceased Marzina Akter, 18, died at the burn and plastic surgery unit of the hospital at around 12:30pm, sources said.

The traditional Rajpunnah festival (tax collection) of Mong Circle will be held in Khagrachhari on Saturday.
   The festival is going to be held in the hill district after an interval of 25 years.
   Mong king Paihala Pru Chowdhury will receive taxes from the subjects on the premises of Buddha Bihar in the district.
   The last Rajpunnah festival was held in the district in 1980.

The Left Democratic Front leaders called upon the government to arrest and punish the patrons and protectors of Shaikh Abdur Rahman and Siddiqur Rahman alias Bngla Bhai.
   The leaders in a meeting at the Communist Party of Bangladesh central office in the capital said some ministers, MPs and administrators acted as patron and protectors of the militant leaders.
   The left leaders called upon the government to take more steps against the ultra Islamist militant forces who challenged the constitution and the War of Independent. Chaired by CPB general secretary Mujahidul Islam Selim, the meeting was attended by CPB central leader Morshed Ali, LDF coordinator Ruhin Hossain Price and Workers Party politburo member Nurul Hasan.

Workers of a salt field killed a leopard when it attacked them at the Barabil field of Ilisha under Chokoria upazila in Cox’s Bazaar on Wednesday morning.
   Locals said the 7-foot-long and 3-foot high leopard attacked the workers, injuring three of them while they were working at MML Barabil salt field at about 6:00am.
   Other workers surrounded the leopard and attacked it with sharp weapons and sticks and beat the leopard mercilessly, leaving it dead on the spot.