Girls outclass boys in secondary education

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Stipend programmes at the secondary level need to be reformed immediately as the spectacular growth in secondary female education has put boys at a distinct disadvantage, making the national goal to achieve gender equality a far cry, reports UNB.
A World Bank report, 'Whispers to Voices: Gender and Social Transformation in Bangladesh', revealed the findings.
The report, released in the city Thursday, said the government needs to be cognizant of this new challenge without any further delay and scholarship programmes at the secondary level should to be redesigned to make it more equitable.
It found that boys' enrollment at all levels was lower than that of girls except when they get to Grade-11 and the incentives of the Female Secondary School Stipend Programme (FSSSP), which provides cash support to girls from grades 6-10, no longer applies.
The WB report described the newly-emerged problem as 'one of major issues confronting policymakers and practitioners in Bangladesh.
It said some recent studies have addressed this issue and hypothesised that the causes for this lie in the direct and indirect effects of the FSSSP.
'Adolescent boys are less likely to remain in school and more likely to do wage work following the introduction of the stipend scheme.
'Thus parents may have decided to send adolescent girls to school and adolescent boys to work in response to the financial incentives created by the stipend programme,' the report said.
It also said the relative fall in enrolment of boys in coeducational schools suggest that the FSSSP aided the process of closing gender gap not solely by raising female enrolment, but also in an unintended way by cutting back on the participation of boys in secondary schools.
Quoting some other studies, the WB report said discrimination against women in the labour market may also play a part. Thus if a daughter's job prospects are lower than son's and the FSSSP is providing a monetary incentive to families to keeep girls in school, familieswould choose to keep the daughter in school and send the son to work.