The Bangladesh Journal - Bangladesh achieves good success in female education: World Bank

Girls' enrolment in secondary school in Bangladesh jumped to 3.9 million in 2005, from 1.1 million in 1991, including an increasing number of girls from disadvantaged or remote areas.

"This has enabled Bangladesh to achieve one of its Millennium Development Goals ahead of time - gender parity in education," said a World Bank (WB) press release.

The Bangladesh Female Secondary School Assistance Programme, financed by International Development Association (IDA), supported a government programme to improve access to secondary education for girls by providing tuition stipends.

Appreciating Bangladesh's success, the WB said female enrolment, as a percentage of total enrolment, increased from 33 per cent in 1991 to 48 per cent in 1997 and about 56 per cent in 2005.

Secondary School Certificate pass rates for girls in the project area increased from 39 per cent in 2001 to 58 per cent in 2006, it added.

Some 66,000 members of school management committees have been trained in school management accountability, with a focus on education quality and a conducive learning school environment.

A total of 6,666 schools - many more than originally targeted - are currently participating in the programme, through a cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Education.

"Indirect benefits of the project included delays in the age of marriage and reduced fertility rates, better nutrition, and more females employed with higher incomes," the WB said.

IDA helped build and strengthen a programme management unit within the Ministry of Education, Bangladesh that now manages and oversees the stipend programme.

A key innovation was the direct funding mechanism featuring the transfer of stipends directly from banks to individual girls' bank accounts.

The programme has proven ground-breaking in addressing girls' access to education, and is recognised worldwide as a pioneering undertaking. As a result, the government of Bangladesh decided to expand the programme nationwide.

A number of other countries, learning from Bangladesh experience, have implemented similar stipend or conditional cash transfer programmes with IDA support. Having achieved gender parity at the country level, the government is now focusing more on how to reach economically and geographically disadvantaged girls - as well as poor boys.

Along with the stipend programme, the Ministry of Education is undertaking reforms aimed at improving education quality through better governance and accountability. IDA is supporting this through a series of education sector development credits.