The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights unusual charge described as “entertaining government officers” was also levied. These findings have been confirmed by the Campaign for Popular Education- CAMPE (Source: Education Watch 2003/4, CAMPE, Dhaka, February 2005. Campaign for Popular Education in its annual reports on the state of primary education in Bangladesh). School fees are levied for school repairs, purchases of supplies and entertaining visitors, while textbooks which should be distributed free of charge are actually sold. CAMPE has explained the unusual ‘entertainment fees’ as a facet of institutionalized political interference in education, which facilitates “shoddy work, waste and corruption”. That school children ought to pay the cost of decorating schools and providing refreshments for visiting dignitaries is perhaps the most striking example of reverse subsidies, where poor families subsidize the government which does not provide free public services in breach of the law of the land. This expression of enforced gratitude for possible increases of public funding for schools may cost the families more than such public funds are worth. As per the statistics of UNESCO (UIS Database 2011) 18,35000 ??school age children who should be at school are not, hence there is a long way to go to universalize education in Bangladesh. There is uncertainty as to how many children are at school now, and such statistical discrepancies which hamper the education services, have not yet been eliminated. LITERACY RATE IN BANGLADESH Sl. Literacy rate by age group Both gender (%) Male (%) Female (%) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 05-09 10-14 15-19 20-24 15-24 25+ 15+ 15-24 16.43 67.38 82.17 75.09 78.63 52.75 59.82 78.58 15.78 64.51 80.57 76.77 78.67 58.47 63.89 78.81 17.10 70.57 83.98 73.73 78.86 46.84 55.71 78.36 Source: Report on the Bangladesh Literacy Survey 2010, Industry and labor wing, BBS, Statistics Division, Ministry of Planning, June 2011 Following the guidance provided by the MDGs, the government has focused its funding on primary schools. Secondary education, starting 66 when children are 10 years old, is provided mostly by religious communities, private schools or NGOs and it is mostly ‘for-fee’. Although the precise ratio of governmental, non-governmental and religious schools (madrasas) is not known, a rough estimate is that even in primary education about half of schools are governmental with the other half divided between NGO-run schools and madrasas. The World Bank in “Attaining the Sania belongs to a poor family consisting of five members in galachipa upazila of Patuakhali district. Millennium Development Goals in Mr Fakhrul Islam, Sania’s father, is a fisherman but the off season, he works as a day labour and Bangladesh: How Likely and What in her mother, Ms. Rashida Begum, works in the brick Will It Take To Reduce Poverty, Child breaking field. Sania was a student of class II in Galachipa Model Primary School during 2007. Even Mortality and Malnutrition, Gender though the family was in a poor condition, Sania’s Disparities, and to Increase School parents had never stopped her schooling. Since 2007 after the massive destruction caused Enrolment and Completion?” by cyclone Sidr and Aila, the whole community scarcity of food, resources and (Washington D.C., February 2005, experienced employment. Sania’s family was also not an exception p. 53) noted that “the problem of of this devastation. On one hand, they lost their house and other resources; on the other hand they children not attending school is lost their source of income. The extreme vulnerability the family could not help them afford their daily largely a problem of the poor” but of needs. Consequently, Sania had to discontinue her added that “as in other developing school, instead she engaged herself to take care of her siblings whie her parents were craving to find out countries, the direct costs of a means for livelihood. attending primary school are Sania states, “what my parents earn now, is not sufficient to run the family, how would they be able typically quite low in Bangladesh”. to afford my educational expenses”? “I wish to go to school to continue my education when my This may well be true when the back family finds a means of earning” she added. charges levied in primary school Mr. Abul Kashem, the Head Teacher of Galachipa Model Primary School shared, “one of the main are compared with the salaries of reasons of her drop out from school was, because had to take care of her family since her parents World Bank officials, but they are she were struggling hard to earn a square meal for the a huge obstacle for the third of family. Besides, it often goes beyond the capacity of a family like hers to afford the educational costs Bangladeshi school children both like pen, paper, notebook, uniform, exam fees etc, he of whose parents had no education. added”. Although it has been promised in the national education policy (2010) and Primary Education Act Thus they have minuscule incomes. 1990 that primary education will be compulsory and of coasts but its implementation in the ground Moreover, children who are the free is still not happening and a right quality public first in their family to go to school education for all is still far beyond reach. Source: Right to Education Team, ActionAid obviously have no support at Bangladesh home to facilitate their learning. Schools should – but do not – offer compensatory programmes for such children. CAMPE, as part of its commitment to effective implementation of EFA, works as a national coalition of NGOs working towards the 67