Public spending on education
Thursday, 25 October 2007
It is an unwelcome development that the primary school drop-out rate has not really declined over the years. The number of poor female students at secondary level has also not risen to the expected level. Such developments raise questions about the costs and benefits of the school stipend programme. The programme is otherwise well-purported but it has to be properly targeted to deliver the intended results. The media have been carrying a good number of reports about incidents of stipend receivers not getting the money the government earmarks for them regularly through the education budget. Primary schooling in government schools has been made practically free of costs and generous stipends are there for children who do not drop out and continue their studies in the secondary level.
The free schooling and the stipends should have created enough incentives to expand enrolment and reduce the drop-out rate to a very low level. But such positive developments are not noted matchingly because the resources for primary and secondary education are not properly benefiting those for which they are intended.
In many government-run schools, specially the ones located in rural areas, school children or their guardians have not been receiving the full amount of stipends in time. They lack the confidence to demand the same in the face of powerful groups. In many cases, the students are asked instead to pay regularly or irregularly sums of money to keep their names in registers and for them to be allowed to sit for examinations.
Clearly, the reaching of targets at the primary and secondary level of education calls for hard actions in order to ensure that the poor families particularly in the rural areas get the due benefits out of the same.
Syeda Masuma Khan
Rayerbazar
Dhaka
The free schooling and the stipends should have created enough incentives to expand enrolment and reduce the drop-out rate to a very low level. But such positive developments are not noted matchingly because the resources for primary and secondary education are not properly benefiting those for which they are intended.
In many government-run schools, specially the ones located in rural areas, school children or their guardians have not been receiving the full amount of stipends in time. They lack the confidence to demand the same in the face of powerful groups. In many cases, the students are asked instead to pay regularly or irregularly sums of money to keep their names in registers and for them to be allowed to sit for examinations.
Clearly, the reaching of targets at the primary and secondary level of education calls for hard actions in order to ensure that the poor families particularly in the rural areas get the due benefits out of the same.
Syeda Masuma Khan
Rayerbazar
Dhaka