DHAKA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) — The Bangladeshi government’s primary education stipend project has paid off in improving children’s enrollment rate in the country.
Abdul Kader, director of the Primary Education Stipend Project-II that started in 2008 and will finish in 2013, told Xinhua that children’s enrollment rate in Bangladesh increased from 78 percent to 97 percent in 2002-2008, a period when the first phase of the project was implemented.
Abdul said the government would allocate 22.4 billion taka (about 320 million U.S. dollars) for the second phase of the project which covers 62,000 primary schools in 481 sub-districts.
“About 40 percent of the total 12.8 million students who are in rural primary schools will benefit from the project. The beneficiaries must be from very poor families,” he said.
The sub-district governments are responsible for choosing the qualified students who can get the stipend, Abdul said.
“The monthly rate of stipend per family is 100 taka (around 1.4dollars) for sending one child to school and 125 taka (around 1.8 dollars) for sending more than one child,” he said.
“The beneficiaries must have 85 percent class attendance per month and must get at least 40 marks in the annual examination. Otherwise their beneficiary status will be cancelled,” he added.
In Ramer Kanda Primary School of Keraniganj sub-district, about20 km south of the capital city of Dhaka, 370 out of the total 925students are beneficiaries of the Primary Education Stipend Project-II.
The project was very effective with the dropout rate in the school being reduced from 7 percent in 2008 to 3 percent in 2009, the headmaster of the primary school told Xinhua.
Many parents showed great appreciation of the government’s work in helping their children study in school.
Rani’s daughter is studying in the first grade in Kamer Kanda Primary School. Her husband is a shoe-polisher who supports the family of nine.
“If the government would not give us the stipend, I could not continue my daughter’s study,” Rani said.
Nisu is a ten-year-old girl who is studying in the fifth grade and a beneficiary of the project.
“I can buy many things with the stipend for my study. My father wanted me to work before. But now I have the stipend, he cannot force me to work,” she said.
Nabil, another student of the fifth grade, is also a beneficiary of the project.
“I want to study hard because the government gives me the opportunity to study,” he said. “I want to be a teacher when I grow up and do something for my country.”
Abdul said the Bangladeshi government was very much concerned with education.
“If the people’s education level is low, the country cannot be developed,” he said.
The government plans to achieve 100 percent primary school enrollment and to eliminate illiteracy in the country by 2014, Abdul said.
(Source: xinhuanet.com)