Meeting Millennium Development Goals
Aisha goes to school and wants to be a lawyer when she grows up
As part of a series assessing whether Bangladesh is on track to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, the BBC’s Alastair Lawson visits a slum in the capital, Dhaka, to find out why the country has made such remarkable progress on getting children into primary education.
Aisha, nine, is part of the Bangladesh success story when it comes to primary education.
She is a resident of the Mogh Bazaar slum in central Dhaka – and in contrast to other children in this series – she is one of the country’s 16.4 million primary school children aged between six and 10.
So why is she at school – learning English, history, Bengali and maths – when an estimated 3.3 million of her contemporaries across the country work full or part time?
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 Poor people rely on small children as breadwinners so they literally cannot afford to send them to school  Shumata Begum, teacher
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“I come here because my parents say it is important for me to get an education if I am to do well in life,” she says.
“I want to be a lawyer when I grow up because I have seen so many people go to prison unjustly and I would like to help free them.
“I enjoy it here and have many friends. I want to be able to read and write when I am older. My mother says it will help me to get a better job.”
‘Food incentives’
Aisha’s teacher, Shumata, says that in poorer parts of urban Bangladesh it is a constant battle to persuade parents to send their children to school.
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Like my friends, I want to work hard and do well in life Aisha
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“It is a conflict between short-term gains versus long-term benefits,” she explains. “The advantages of an education will not be seen straight away whereas money provided by a son or daughter who are working is immediate.
“Parents need to be convinced that educating their children is a worthwhile option. In some cases they need cash or food incentives to drop their children off at school. That is especially the case with poorer and less well educated children.”
The government and the UN say that the country’s success in getting children into primary schools – there is a 90% enrolment rate – is a significant achievement and puts the country well on target towards meeting its MDG target of universal primary education.
There are 365,925 primary schools in the country and more than 88,000 secondary schools.
“The number of of enrolled students increased from 12 million in 1990 to over 16 million in 2008,” says UNDP spokesman Sakil Faizullah.
“Similarly the net enrolment rate was boosted from 60% in 1990 to 90.8% today.
“Furthermore the level of gender equality has also improved, with the number of girl pupils and female teachers steadily increasing in recent years.”
‘Particularly vulnerable’
But despite the progress, key challenges remain.
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THE EIGHT MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
 Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
Achieve universal primary education
Promote gender equality and empower women
Reduce child mortality
Improve maternal health
Combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases
Ensure environmental sustainability
Develop a global partnership for development
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These include improving the quality of education and making education more inclusive, especially in remote rural areas of the country.
“Disadvantaged children – such as children with disabilities or from ethnic minorities – are particularly vulnerable to exclusion from educational opportunities,” a recently published UN report says.
“There are many children who are not going to school but who could attend if schools were more inclusive and child friendly.”
Experts say that the quality of teachers needs to be improved.
Approximately 25% of teachers in government primary schools are untrained and memorising facts still remains the dominant way of teaching in many schools.
“Furthermore there is little emphasis on developing analytical, practical skills,” said Mr Faizullah.
“This results in several issues such as low achievement rates, high drop-out and high repetition rates. Currently it takes an average of 8.6 years for a child to complete the five-year primary school cycle.”
Other problems cited by education officials include poor contact hours between pupils and teachers. These average half the international standard of 900-1,000 hours a year.
Ninety per cent of schools in the country are double shift, meaning that students in grades one and two attend in the morning and students from grades three to five in the afternoon.
Improving sanitary conditions has also been cited by the government and the UN as a priority for primary schools.
While the number of toilets has increased, an acute shortage remains. In 2008, 5% of schools reported having no toilet at all, while 14.7% said that they had only one. On average, primary schools have 150 pupils for every toilet.
“Similarly, poor functioning tube wells and access to water, including water free from naturally occurring arsenic, continue to challenge schools and impact on the retention and drop-out rates of children,” the UN report says.
Reference Link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8587387.stm
Courtesy
BBC News
Meeting Millennium Development Goals
2015 deadline
Are developing countries on track to meet the 2015 deadline for implementing the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? The BBC’s Alastair Lawson travelled to Bangladesh to assess how much progress is being made in improving the lives of the most vulnerable children and women.
Forty per cent of Bangladesh’s population of more than 150 million live on less than $1 a day – in many respects the country is a microcosm of the challenges the UN faces as it struggles to achieve the MDG targets.
Its population of children aged between five and 17 is estimated by the UN to be about 42 million.
The country is home to 14 UN agencies and most of the world’s leading aid organisations. As Bangladesh is a functioning democracy, those agencies can for the most part operate free of political interference.
‘Remarkable progress’
If the country is to meet the MDG targets, the UN says it faces a daunting financial challenge – a recent report estimates the cost to be in the region of $104.18bn between now and 2015.
There are 16.4 million Bangladeshi children aged between six and 10
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The UN report said Bangladesh needed to spend $66 per head in 2005 rising to $102 per head in 2015.
The World Bank in Dhaka says that will be difficult to achieve and will require significant improvements in the country’s tax collection system.
But there is plenty of positive and negative data when assessing Bangladesh’s progress towards the MDGs.
On the positive side, it has achieved almost universal gender parity in primary education. The country’s primary education system is regarded as one of the best among developing countries in the world.
Similarly, the UN says that Bangladesh has made “remarkable progress” in reducing the under-five mortality rate over the last two decades.
The infant mortality rate – defined as mortality between zero to one year old – has also “decreased impressively”.
But on the negative side it says that a “significant number” of children are still severely malnourished.
Bad news
On maternal health, progress has also been made.
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THE EIGHT MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
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The maternal mortality ratio has been reduced from 574 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1991 to 320 per 100,000 live births in 2001.
In 2006 it was estimated to be 290 per 100,000 live births, but that figure may rise because of recent floods and cyclones.
“The country is more or less on track to meet the MDG target of 143 per 100,000 live births by 2015,” a UN report says.
Yet even here, there is bad news buried within the good.
Approximately 85% of deliveries take place in the home, the UN report says, many without medically trained providers.
It was exactly these kind of depressing statistics that prompted more than 100 presidents, prime ministers and leaders of the world’s nations in September 2000 unanimously to agree upon the MDGs.
These goals focused predominantly on providing nutrition, energy, water, education, health care and environmental protection for one half of the world’s one billion poorest citizens by 2015.
Most of the eight MDGs directly or indirectly affect children. Goal two is to achieve universal primary education and goal three is to reduce child mortality.
The aim of this series is to find out whether the plethora of aid agencies in Bangladesh – nearly all of whom have signed up to the MDGs – are making any difference to the lives of the poorest people in the capital, Dhaka.
It consists of four case studies from the city’s slums:
- A 10-year-old girl who works in a sweatshop
- A nine-year-old boy who hawks cigarettes on the streets of Dhaka
- A nine-year-old girl who is receiving an education
- A mother about to give birth
The overall picture that emerges is of a country where “remarkable progress” has indeed been made. But it also shows a country where much still needs to be done.
“Child mortality has come down over the years so good progress has been made. But the challenges are enormous,” says UN Bangladesh head Renata Lok Dessallien.
“This is a country of over 150 million people, 40% of whom are still below the poverty line.
“It will cost a lot to bring them up to a decent standard of living. The government has done a lot, but there is a lot more that still needs to be done.”
Reference Link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8587387.stm
Courtesy
BBC News
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