Girls outnumber boys in secondary schools

The enrolment was spurred by social mobilisation and incentives, such as stipends and tuition waivers for rural girls, it said.

"Enrolment of girls has surged a

head of boys by 11 percentage points at 50.6 per cent compared to 39.6 per cent boys on a net basis," said the Education Watch Report 2005.

This has been a broad-based progress across geographical areas and socio-economic strata, the study conducted on 'The State of Secondary Education: Progress and Challenges' also said.

It however said boys are ahead of girls in completing the cycle and

passing secondary examinations in all types of secondary institutions.

"In contrast to advances in initial enrolment, girls lagged behind boys by 6 percentage points in reaching class X, by 17 percentage points in passing the class X test and by 11 percentage points in passing the public examination on average between 2001 and 2004."

The report suggested that advances in girls' enrolment are

meaningful to the extent that this can be sustained until the end of the cycle and they realised the full benefits of education.

The report said on an average, Tk 8,874 per male child and Tk 7,411 per girl child are spent annually by households for children's secondary education.

And 54 percent of the girls enrolled in sample secondary schools and Dakhil madrasa are recipients of stipends across the country.

It also said targeted efforts are needed, especially at the school level, to identify and remove the obstacle that hold girls back, and improve the quality of teaching and learning practices for both girls and boys.

The report finds out that stipends have boosted girls' enrolment.

But, it also said, at least two critical questions appear regarding the stipend programme.

Mentioning the overall quality problems in secondary education and low per student expenditure, the report questioned whether the stipends starve out important inputs necessary for quality improvement - such as, laboratories, libraries, teachers training and stronger supervision.

It also asked whether the conditions attached to this transfer payment, which the disadvantages sections of the population (very poor, first generation learners and girls who have to work to help their families) have difficulty to meet, further aggravating disparity or not.

Campe drew the data of the study from two sources, which are household survey and secondary level institution survey.

A total of 23,971 households from 1,088 villages/mahallahs and 598 schools were covered under the both survey methods.