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Nature of deprivation

Key findings

SAMIR R NATH
= A survey of households and selected government, registered non-governmnet, and non-formal primary schools and Ebtedayee madrasas in 10 upazilas provided insights into the nature of deprivation of children from primary education. Key findings are listed below.
= The good news is that a broad-based gender parity has been observed across the board among catchment areas, upazilas, school types, and socio-economic groups. This accomplishment needs to be deepened to improve learning outcome for both girls and boys, and extended to include all who still remain left out.
= However large- scale deprivation persits.
- One out of five children does not enrol in primary school.
- One out of three of those enrolled drops out before completing primary education.
- One out of three who complete five years of primary schooling still remains non-literate or semi-literate.
- Therefore, the large majority of children, two out of three, mostly poor and disadvantaged in other ways, grow up without basic skills and preparation for life.
= The most pronounced differences were among socio economic categories in respect of enrolment, repetition, dropout, and participation in primary education, which delineated the magnitude and nature of the problem of deprivation in primary education. Self-rated food security status of households was taken as the proxy for socio-economic grouping.
= Studies of the category labelled as ultra poor, which consists of 20 percent to one-third of the population depending on criteria, showed net enrolment of 65 percent compared to around 80 percent nationally.
= In the surveyed upazilas, a child from an " always in deficit" family had a 30 percent less chance of being enrolled in a school and five times more chance of dropping out from school compared to a child from a "surplus" family.
= A quarter of the non-enrolled children cited poverty as the reason for non-enrolment. Over forty percent who dropped out indicated poverty as the reason for dropping out.
= Children not "liking school" was an important cause for not enrolling and the most important reason for dropping out. This indicates problems about how the school functions.
= It was not one or another cause that could be identified and fixed, but a syndrome of poverty and disadvantage including child labour, first generation learner, inability to afford private tutors, and causes related to children's absenteeism that need to be addressed.
= In the 6-14 age group of the poorest economic category, one-third of the children were non students and at work or unemployed, and 30 percent
were students and working at the same time.
= Forty-seven percent of the mothers and 43 percent of the fathers of primary school children in the upazilas were without any schooling. Both parents were without education for a quarter of the children. Over forty percent of the children can be regarded as "first generation learners" if the criterion regarding both parents' education is applied.
= Private tutors for primary school children have become a norm. Forty three percent of the children had private tutors; they paid an average of Tk 152 per month for eight months in a year. Children who needed extra help with their studies most, first generation learners, could afford it the least.
= Low average school attendance, about 60 percent, was linked with factors related to both the operation of the school and the family situation of the child. Causes identified were children's need to help at home either regularly or for seasonal farm work, ill health or sickness of child or a parent, acute family economic problems, and falling behind in lessons with no help to catch up from teacher or at home. Any interruption in schooling, set in motion for the poor a vicious spiral of further lag, more absences, and eventually dropping out.
= Children with special needs, especially those with disabilities, and children of ethnic minorities whose mother tongue is not Bangla, are special dimensions in the picture of deprivation in primary education.
= Stipend recipients (who should be the identified poor) were roughly evenly divided between four socio-economic categories (based on food security criteria used in this study). Over two-thirds of the children from the poorest category were not selected to be recipients of stipend; but 27 percent of children from affluent households received the stipend.
= Household survey revealed that forty percent of the recipients were paid Tk 200 or less instead of Tk 300 as a quarterly payment. Students from "rich" households received on average Tk 260 and those from "poor" households were paid Tk 225.
= Targeting the poor, the principal rationale of the stipend program, does not appear to be working, at least in the upazilas under study. There are also major problems in the management and administration of the program, one manifestation of which is "cuts" taken from stipend. A basic dilemma of the programme is: Are there ways of spending scarce money to help the disadvantaged children perform better in school and attend school regularly rather than subject them to criteria which they find difficult to meet. Non-formal education programmes run by NGOs have attracted and held poor children in school and helped them to perform well without stipend as an inducement.