According to a report published recently in an English daily, one in every four children in Bangladesh is still out of school. The report based on a UNICEF supported study entitled “Child Equity Atlas: Pockets of Social Deprivation” said that the progress in attaining equity is uneven in Bangladesh despite impressive trends observed in reaching general parity in education, school enrolment and youth literacy. Earlier another study carried out by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation revealed that 9 percent of girls in Bangladesh aged between 7 and 16 years of extreme poor families have no access to school. This figure is higher than those in Bhutan and the Maldives but lower than those in India and Pakistan.

We know that the government has launched a project to create equal opportunity in primary education for 7.20 lakh out-of-school children in the 52 districts in the country. The children belonging to underprivileged families and living in the underdeveloped upazilas were targeted for bringing under the primary education to attain equity in primary education, as the government is determined to complete the primary education cycle for the out-of-school children in next five years. The government has also planned to reduce the number of out-of-school children to zero percent in next five years. It would also establish a social safety net through providing monthly education stipends to the children to check dropouts. The government recognises education as a means of reducing poverty and improving the quality of life for children. As a signatory to the convention on the Rights of the Child, the government, with assistance from development partners, has made positive steps towards fulfilling children’s rights to education. As a result, the country has made significant progress towards achieving universal primary education and gender parity in schools. Still the picture seems frustrating.

Currently 77,488 children with special needs of various types are enrolled in primary schools. The enrolment of girls with special needs is significantly lower than that of boys. There are many children who are not going to school but they could if schools were more child-friendly. No special arrangements have also been made to make their education available.

From its start in 2004, the Bangladesh Reaching Out of School Children (ROSC) project has provided “second chance” primary education to over 790,000 out-of-school children in more than 23,000 learning centres. Beneficiary students, more than half of them girls, come from the 90 poorest upazilas of the country. The project, backed by funds and technical assistance from the International Development Association (IDA), blends formal education with non-formal means of delivery to the young learners, providing them with an opportunity to complete grade five and transition to secondary education. 790,000 out-of-school children have been enrolled and 90% attendance rate achieved. In 2004, nearly 1.5 million primary school-aged children were out of school in Bangladesh. The government’s Primary Education Development Program focused on the formal primary sector that supported about 17 million students, but yet could not bring many children back to school. These were the children who had missed out schooling at the right age or had been forced to drop out, mainly because of poverty. The ROSC project provides access to learning opportunity for out-of-school children by providing stipend allowances to students and grants to learning centres.

As an upshot of the good initiatives of the previous and present governments, the poor community’s enrolment in schools has increased drastically. The NGOs are the significant partners to implement the objectives of ROSC project. Communities receive direct funds from the government and use these to pay for the services of NGOs for initial start-up of the learning centres, and teacher training support. At the field level, the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education’s Upazila Education Officers facilitate the establishment and monitoring of learning centres. The first phase of ROSC was a pilot project implemented in just 60 poor upazilas across Bangladesh and with additional financing, it was expanded to another 30. To scale-up the impact of an already tested and proven ROSC approach a follow-on initiative, the Second Reaching out of School Children Project (ROSC II) was approved in October 2012. The $130 million project will bring back to school an additional 720,000 children from poor and disadvantaged families by providing stipends to the students and grants to the Learning Centres. It will cover 148 remote or poor upazilas and help these children complete primary education in the learning centres and move on to formal secondary education. Some individual entities sometimes bring out some pictures of education in the country which make us moved. An exclusive research and monitoring unit/ cell of the government should conduct research and monitor the whole effect of primary, secondary and higher education respectively at a regularly interval to keep the people updated.

The writer is Vice-president: Bangladesh English Language Teachers Association (BELTA).