By Thompson ABISOLA
The Bangladeshi Government on Monday signed a 510 million dollars financing agreement with the World Bank to enhance the quality and effectiveness of secondary education system in the country.
This will benefit 13 million students studying in Grades 6-12, said the Washington-based lender.
The Transforming Secondary Education for Results (TSER) programme will support the government’s Secondary Education Development Programme (SEDP).
It will focus on improving education quality and access, and that students especially girls and children from low-income households complete secondary education and the programme will support stipends and school grants.
“Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in advancing access to education, and has achieved gender parity in secondary education,” said Rajashree Paralkar, acting World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal.
“Continuing to invest in quality education is critical for Bangladesh to achieve its vision of becoming a middle-income country.
“For this, the programme will support modernisation of curriculum and ensure professional development, management, and accountability of teachers.”
The programme will provide training to 500,000 school teachers and school principals to enhance quality of secondary education.
It will also support learning assessments of students in grade 6, 8 and 10 to identify learning gap and suggest policy actions.
The Global Financing Facility (GFF) will provide a 10 million dollars grant, which is aimed at improving adolescent health and school retention.
The programme will construct separate toilets for girls. In addition, the programme will also support incorporating topics on general health and hygiene in the curriculum
