While officials engage in corruption, skimming off well-intentioned projects to enhance school attendance, the incumbents do not appear to be active enough. Thus students across the country, particularly those in remote areas, are deprived of their rightful dues and as a necessary consequence, the country inches closer to a bleaker
future, writes Sonia Kristy

Things don’t seem to be going well in the education sector, at least as regards containing the dropout rate and attaining gender parity by promoting female education are concerned. According to New Age reports of March 19 and April 19, 48 per cent students scheduled to appear for the Secondary School Certificate examinations have dropped out while in the last three years, 60 per cent of the stipend recipient female students didn’t appear in their Higher Secondary Certificate examinations.
   Be it primary, secondary or higher secondary education, the picture appears grim and beset with problems. Corruption, poor quality of education, incompetence and callousness on the part of the authorities concerned, non-disbursement of stipend money on time, lack of motivation of teachers as well as guardians have all acted as constraints and contributed to the prevailing frustration in the education sector.
   With more than 78,000 government and non-government primary schools employing about 3.20 lakh teachers for more than 1.6 crore children, Bangladesh has one of the largest primary education systems in the world. In 1990, the government passed the compulsory primary education law for children up to the fifth grade. Under the Universal Primary Education and Total Literacy Plan, 5,000 new schools were established and student enrolment was increased as well as efforts taken to contain dropouts. In order to promote further equity and access of underprivileged children to primary education, the government replaced its Food for Education programme with a five-year countrywide Primary Education Stipend Project. Among the other notable steps were appointment of female teachers to attract female students and achieve gender equity; introduction of uniforms, supply of free textbooks, provision of training to primary teachers etc.
   Despite these initiatives, however, some 2.4 million 6-10 year old children are still not enrolled in primary schools, the Bangladesh MDG Progress report reveals, and among those enrolled, a large number do not complete primary education—thus worryingly increasing the dropout rate. According to a New Age report of July 14, 2007, primary school dropouts increased to 48 per cent, rising by 15 per cent compared to 33 per cent in 2005. In other words, only 52 out of every 100 children enrolled at a primary school completed their primary education in 2007. This increasing dropout rate suggests that besides failing to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life for the children, Bangladesh is also unlikely to attain a 100 per cent completion of primary education by the MDG deadline of 2015.
   As regards secondary and higher secondary education, under the Secondary Education Sector Development Project and the Female Secondary Stipend Project (Phase II), the female students of about 19,383 secondary schools and madrassahs in 355 upazilas are given stipends in two instalments every financial year — one from January to June and the other from July to December. The minimum criteria for a girl to become eligible for receiving the stipend are 75 per cent attendance, a minimum of 45 per cent marks in all the examinations and remaining unmarried. A female student of Class VI receives Tk 25 a month and a student of Class X receives Tk 60, in addition to an additional sum to buy books and payment of exam fees. As the recipients do not pay any tuition, the government pays a small sum to the teachers against the number of stipend beneficiaries in the respective institutions.
   According to reports, the government spends more than Tk 180 crore a year on about 24 lakh students in rural areas under three female secondary stipend projects and one higher secondary stipend project (Female Secondary School Assistance Project, Female Secondary Stipend Project, Secondary Education Sector Improvement Project and Female Secondary Education Stipend Project). The stipend rules here require every female HSC student to score a minimum of GPA 2.5 in SSC or equivalent exams, 75 per cent attendance and remaining unmarried till the final exams. However, according to statistics available with the education ministry, in the 2006-07 session, of more than 12.59 lakh students enrolled in Class IX under nine education boards, only 6.52 lakh registered for the secondary examinations of 2008. Of the 6.06 lakh students who dropped out, some 3.43 lakh are female (New Age, March 19 2008).
   The low completion rate at the primary level is a major reason for the relatively low gross enrolment rate for girls at the secondary level. Income constraints also restrict access to secondary schools for girls from poor households since costs are higher than at the primary level. Social norms relating to early marriage and increasing vulnerability as well as lack of security for adolescent girls provide strong incentives for the parents to discourage their daughters from enrolling in secondary schools, or if enrolled, the non-completion of secondary schools.
   However, corruption and irregularities on the part of the authorities concerned in handling the stipend money has appeared to be a major obstacle in achieving the desired goal in the education sector especially female education.
   A New Age investigation (June 17, 2007) found that the much-hyped free primary education was actually not so free in practice and allocated the Tk 3,312 crore stipend money has failed to achieve its basic objectives as most of the students from poor and hence deserving families don’t get the stipend due to nepotism and corruption by members of the School Managing Committees.
   A report of the first-ever monitoring of the project conducted by UNICEF and survey reports of Transparency International, Bangladesh also revealed a picture of extensive graft and irregularities in the handling of stipend money by the SMCs.
   According to the UNICEF report, there have been a series of complaints against the SMC members about bias and prejudice which sometimes become explicit. Sometimes these members superimpose the influential position they hold in society.
   According to the TIB survey report released on June 2, the SMCs under Pirojpur sadar upazila ‘on an average exacted Tk 11.5 lakh under 11 heads in 2005 as bribe from the students... 39 per cent primary students get stipend and of them 25 per cent had to pay bribe to the SMC for putting their names on the stipend list while the rest of the students were excluded from the list’. The study that surveyed 3,510 female students of 181 educational institutions of 24 upazilas showed that 92 per cent of the female students from solvent families and only 8 per cent of poor families receive stipends.
   Corruption and flawed distribution of stipends have rendered an otherwise will-intentioned programme for increasing enrolment and preventing dropout of female students of remote, rural areas ineffective, although the government continues to allocate huge amounts for this purpose. According to a New Age report of June 16 2007, an education ministry document shows that about Tk 9 lakh was misappropriated by Kamrul Hasan, project officer at Nilphamari in the financial year 2005–06. ‘Showing false enrolment in about 30 schools and madrassahs, the project officer with some teachers, misappropriated the fund.’
   Another reason of increasing dropout rate is that a number of female students get admitted in higher secondary courses, just for the sake of stipends and never appear for the final examinations. Then again the authorities of some institutions do not allow students who fail to succeed in the qualifying tests to take the final examinations as the government suspends its contribution to salaries for teachers of non-government schools, colleges and madrassahs for poor results in the board exams.
   A large number of parents send their daughters to schools presuming that they would benefit from the stipend of their daughters and often treat it as an additional income, which is, of course, the basic incentive for girls attending schools. Therefore when these students are denied their stipend money on time, not only does their education get hampered, their family members also get affected. However, a New Age report of January 27 states that 14 lakh female students were yet to receive their July-December 2007 stipend. Similar was the case regarding the January–June 2007 instalments which were finally disbursed in late October last year. According to M Abdur Razzaq, director of the Phase II of the female stipend project, ‘A section of education ministry officials made unusual delays in issuing administrative orders for a quick disposal of the stipend files and hence the logjam was created.’
   While the education ministry and other officials in this sector have been entrusted to facilitate smooth distribution of stipend for thousands of female students, the incumbents, following in the footsteps of their predecessors, have failed to demonstrate adequate enthusiasm and sincerity in dealing with the crises plaguing the education sector. The lack of commitment of successive governments, incompetence of the officials’ concerned, bureaucratic ineptitude and lack of proper monitoring by the concerned ministry have all contributed to making the system inefficient and ineffective.
   There seems to be a serious lack of proper monitoring and review of the system which is of utmost importance to make these projects sustain and contain dropout rates. That gender parity has increased phenomenally over the past decade for a country like Bangladesh is undeniable. But it is also undeniable that there is much more to be done in the public education system in order to equip the future generations with necessary tools to lead meaningful and better lives.