BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR KIDS Quality education of RNGPSs in Bangladesh

Linghui Zhu Liz78@pitt.edu

Project Proposal

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Table of Contents Project Description ........................................................................................................... 1

1. Background ............................................................................................................... 2

2. Country Context ........................................................................................................ 2

3. Justification ............................................................................................................... 5

4. Objectives ................................................................................................................. 7

Project Design .................................................................................................................. 7

5. Project Implementation ............................................................................................ 7

6. Outputs ..................................................................................................................... 9

7. Stakeholders ........................................................................................................... 10

8. Risk Factors ............................................................................................................. 10

9. Budget and Timeline ............................................................................................... 11

10. Impact Evaluation ................................................................................................... 12

Annexes .......................................................................................................................... 16

11. Annex 1. Result Chain ............................................................................................. 16

12. Annex 2. Log frame ................................................................................................. 17

13. Annex 3. Posters ..................................................................................................... 18

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PROJECT DESCRIPTION

1. Project Background:

Education is fundamental to development and growth.1 Cobb-Douglas production function in very early

years has showed a slight hint on the critical role of human capital in economic growth. In recent years,

economic theories, such as the human capital theory, have further demonstrated the positive connection

between economic development and education. Human capital development makes health advances,

industrial transformation and technical innovation possible. Therefore especially for developing countries,

in order to reap the benefits, they need to fully utilize the tool of education.

Consequently, The World Bank Education Sector Strategy 2020 sets out “Learning for All” as the World

Bank’s agenda for the next decade. Rather than building schools, the overarching goal is learning. Recent

studies show that a country’s economic development depends on the quality of education system, more

than the number of people who received education, or the number of years they sit in a classroom

(Hanushek and Woessmann 2008, 2011). Therefore, for developing countries, in order to catch up with

the needs of further development under current global economic context, the quality of education should

be seriously considered.

2. Country context

As a globally recognized rapid developing country, Bangladesh has averaged a steady economic growth

rate of more than 5 percent annually over the last 10 years. Poverty level in Bangladesh significantly

decreased from 40 percent in 2005 to 31.5 percent in 2010. It is identified as one of the Next Eleven

emerging economies in the world. Moreover, Bangla has a large and relatively young population—there

1 “Learning for All Investing in People’s Knowledge and Skills to Promote Development”, World Bank Group, Education Strategy 2020, page 1

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were 155 million people in 2012, and 31 percent were below the age of 15. Rapid urbanization is

happening through a few cities. For example, Dhaka being one of the eight most populated cities in the

world—which affects the educational access and completion of children, especially those living in urban

slums.

In education, Bangladesh has done remarkably well in enhancing access and equity in education. Notable

achievements has been completed in the universal access to primary education, attaining gender equity at

the primary and secondary education levels, and remarkable reduction in repetition and dropout rates and

so on.2

However, similar to other developing countries, Bangladesh is facing numerous typical challenges in

education. Firstly, the Bangladesh education system is large. The graph below shows the systematic

structure.

Table 1: Educational Structure in Bangladesh

2 “Seeding Fertile Ground: Education That Works for Bangladesh,” Bangladesh Education Sector Review, World Bank Group, September 28, 2013, Page xvi.

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Sources: Education in Bangladesh3

The whole complex system covers over 30 million students, involving many stakeholders. For example,

there are 13 types of providers in primary education; 10 examination boards at the secondary level; and

about 98 percent of secondary institutions are private, mostly supported through public subsidies.

Moreover, the education quality remains very low. For example, there is a large performance difference

across different type of schools, social-economic status of household, and regions. Moreover, based on

the recent assessment, literacy and numeracy in G5 indicates that only 25 percent students master Bangla,

and only 33 percent master Mathematics competencies. Similarly at the level of G8, competencies in

Bangla, English and Mathematics are respectively 44, 44 and 35 percent. Consequently, to improve the

quality of education in Bangladesh is in urgent need. 4

Fig 1. Overall level of learning

3 "Bangladesh Education Stats". Central Database. NationMaster. 2007-03-21. Retrieved 2007-03-21. 4 Analysis results based on NSA (National Student Assessment) in 2013.

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Source: Made by the author based on National Students Assessment 2013

Therefore, a study of Bangladesh should provide possible suggestion to other countries, and further to

follow the general World Bank’s agenda.

3. Project Justification:

“The Bank’s new 10-year strategy seeks to achieve the goal “Learning for all” objective by promoting

country-level reforms of education system and building a global knowledge base powerful enough to

guide those reforms.”5 Consequently, as a response to the World Bank slogan, reform education systems

at the country level of Bangladesh becomes my focus.

Firstly, primary education needs more attention. Bangladesh is characterized of its huge education

system (Table 1). The structure of overall education system contains 5 years’ (G1-5) primary education,

4 years’ (G6-10) secondary education, 2 years’ (G11-12) higher secondary education, and special Madrasa

(religious) education (G1-12). Statistics show that primary education, in which there are around 79,000

primary schools and over 17 million students, plays a critical role in the whole system. Furthermore, for

a child’s long-term development stages, the sequence from primary to secondary education requires more

attention and emphasis on primary education. Therefore, the primary education level should be prioritized

for reformation.

In Bangladesh, there are 2 different ministries, which are in charge of 10 types of primary schools in

various subsectors. Among non-religious schools, there are several particular types of schools, which are

governmental schools, registered non-governmental schools, and community schools. After the end of

Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, the primary education system was nationalized, with all primary

5 “Learning for All Investing in People’s Knowledge and Skills to Promote Development”, World Bank Group, Education Strategy 2020, page 1

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schools and their employees taken over by the new government. The schools that existed at the time of

nationalization in 1974 were concentrated primarily in urban areas and municipalities. On the other hand,

RNGPSs (Registered non-government primary school) and community schools in the rural areas were still

in lack of governmental support. RNGPS are schools that were established privately or by communities

and have since received government recognition and registration, and as a result, oversight and funding.

In order to receive government registration, schools must meet certain criteria (including having a

minimum number of enrolled students) and go through a seemingly opaque and arbitrary administrative

process. However, where the RNGPS require a functioning school before receiving government

registration, the community schools require only a land donation and minimal financial contribution

before receiving government support.6 In 2002, primary education was delivered through 78,363 schools

in which 48 percent were governmental primary schools, while the remaining schools were RNGPS.7 In

2013, the number has increased into 85,000 government and non-government primary schools in the

country.8

However, the inequality of education in RNGPS requires us to do more effort on poor sides. As

shown in the Fig 2, findings show that students in GPSs perform better than students in RNGPSs. The

performance difference starting at G3 but becomes more severe at the G5, especially in Barisal and Sylhet

divisions. While most of the students in RNGPSs are under high poverty level. As a result, the project

focuses on the RNGPSs, and tries to find out a suggestion to the unequal situation.

6 Primary education in rural Bangladesh: Degrees of access, choice, and participation of the poorest, Christine Sommers, 2011 7 “Political Islam and Governance in Bangladesh edited” by Ali Riaz, Assistant Professor of Security Studies C Christine Fair, C. Christine Fair, edited by Ali Riaz, Assistant Professor of Security Studies C Christine Fair, C. Christine Fair 8 “Government to take over all primary schools in Bangladesh,” OneWorld South Asia, Jan 09, 2013

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Fig 2. Inequality between GPS and RNGPS

Source: Made by the author based on National Students Assessment 2013

4. Objectives:

The project’s general objective is to improve the quality of primary education in RNGPSs in

Bangladesh.

To achieve this objective, this project aims to specifically:

1. Increase the students’ attendance rate through relieving the financial burden, as well as increasing

their incentives of learning

2. Increase the quality of teacher through increasing teachers’ incentives of teaching

PROJECT DESIGN

5. Implementation plan:

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Based on the education production function theory, the factors of students, teachers are very crucial to the

accomplishment of the project. Accordingly, the project will be consistent with each of them.

1. To improve attendance rate of students. Regression analysis shows a significant positive

correlation between the number of days of student absence and their performance. Even though

the study does not prove causation, the result indicates the importance of improving their

attendance rate. For this purpose, it is supposed to

1.1 Extended current stipend program to a broader coverage. As widely accepted, household

poverty is always a universal reason for the absenteeism at school. For example, for a

household with heavy financial burden, children also have to help with family works. As a

consequence, low time investment on course load lead to the low quality of study. Supporting

study of Primary Education Stipend Program (PESP) in 2010 found that in areas where the

poverty rate is high, the attendance rate of non-stipend beneficiaries was only 61 percent

among boys and 65 percent among girls. On the other hand, stipend recipients are recorded as

89 percent among boys and 91 percent among girls. Thus this extended stipend program is

suggested.

1.2 Skills and technical workshops. Curriculums design are high correlated with students’

motivation. Because of the current extensive and frequent examinations, students are required

to reply on heavy memory recall works from textbook content. Diverse courses would lead to

incentive of students’ creativity and motivation of learning. Moreover, developed skills and

technical workshops would signal a potential link with future need of labor market. Frequent

exposition of technical knowledge could lead to a better performance in future learning stage

such as TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training), and better adaption of skill-

based competition.

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2. To increase quality of teachers. As always shown in education production function, good

teachers are the backbone of the education. An effective teacher is high responsible for better

learning. While the current system provide little incentive to keep teachers motivated and effective.

Therefore, the project aims to increase the motivation of teachers.

2.1 Skill/technique-aimed young teacher training program. This program is in according with

the modified curriculums described above. Training the young teachers to be skilled with

technologies will create incentive for them to learn new things. For example, evidences show

that teachers, particularly in rural areas, may lack technical support even when they are

provided with resources such as information and communication technology (ICT) facilities

(World Bank, 2013).

But, the project is aimed to train them with skills and technical knowledge, but NOT general

teaching methodologies. Because evidences such as NSA 2011 and LASI 2012 indicate that

additional years of experience are not correlated with higher student learning. On the contrary,

beyond 20 years, experience appears to be negatively correlated with student performance.

This is also a reason of choosing young teachers. Besides, they comparatively have high

learning ability and adaptability to new things.

There are also several other important factors including the role of government, social-economic

status of households. Yet, there are limited accessibility to these stakeholders, and thus this project

is taking their accountability into consideration.

6. Outputs

The project will produce a number of outputs through the design above, including extension of stipend

program, technical workshops and teachers’ training workshops. The following tables shows in details.

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Table 2: Outputs and outcome

Work Program Activity Output

1.

Stipend program

Outcome 1: Students’ absenteeism rate down

Budget allocation to particular

families

Decrease financial burden of households

2.

Technical workshops Outcome 2: Students’ absenteeism rate down

Learning new knowledge Learning motivation up

Outcome 3: Teaching quality up

Learning how to teach new

knowledge

Teaching motivation up

7. Stakeholders

A. Students: RNGPSs students, especially who come from very low social-economic status are

one of the primary stakeholders. They will become the most direct active receiver of both the

stipend program and the technical workshops.

B. Teachers: Most of the young teachers in RNGPSs would be impacted due to the training

program. There would also be a balance between old teachers who are concentrated on subject

training, and young teachers who are going to adopt new teaching methods.

C. School: Due to the newly built workshop, there would be some adjustment of the current

curriculum. Moreover, for the purpose of extension of current stipend program, the reallocation

of budget would financially impact the schools as well.

D. Families: The stipend program will somehow relieve the financial burden of poor households,

therefore parents or other relatives are also the benefits receiver.

8. Risk factors

There are several assumptions when the design is built.

1.) The general assumption is the results of previous researches respectively hold true under the

context of RNGPSs in Bangladesh.

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2.) Schools and governmental agencies are negotiable with the supportive payroll system and stipends

program.

3.) The designed curriculum regarding the exams and workshops are acceptable with school/local

policies.

4.) For the implementation of the training program, the number of young teacher are more than

experienced teachers (over 15 years) in each school.

5.) Available skilled technical teams to conduct the young teacher training program.

Several detailed assumptions are list in the log-frame (See Annex 2). The risk factors, in other words,

would occur if any one of these assumptions could not hold true. Some of these risk factors could be

avoided if program is well designed and logistically conducted.

9. Budget and Timeline

Timeline: The project is designed to follow up students from G3 to G5 in several sampled RNGPSs,

therefore the life of the project would be 2 years. During these 2 years, the teacher-training program will

be held twice a year, and each will last for only one month at summer breaks. The workshops for students

will be held at least once a week. Consequently, the curriculum of subject classes will be accordingly

modified.

Budget: The whole program budget will be divided into three parts including equipment, stipend program

and staffing. The total budget plan is $230,000. Detailed information are described below.

9.1 Equipment

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Total cost of equipment will be around $500,000, of which are divided into 12 different schools in each

divisions of Bangladesh. Each school will be supported to purchase 20 units of equipment including

computers, laptops, projectors as well as other machines.

9.2 Stipend project

The project aims to cover the other more 10% of poor students in targeted schools with full tuition

remission. Funding would partially come from local NGOs and government. The remained part would be

costly as $ 600,000.

9.3 Staffing and Teacher-Training

Staffs will be required to assist with purchasing, teacher-training as well as management. Finding

appropriate teams to train teachers to be equipped with technical knowledge would cost $10,000 for two

years. Team managers and other related staffs requires another $10,000 for the total two years. Last but

not least, in order to complete the monitoring evaluation as well as impact evaluation, the staffing for

distributing surveys, collecting data and later stage will cost around $100,000 in total.

10. Impact Evaluation

10.1 Indicators

Indicators are the measurement of the points that we are interested in, and the basic information that is

available for conducting the evaluation. In this program for those different outputs, we will choose the

following indicators:

I. For students’ s attitudes and behaviors, indicators include attendance rate completion rate /

retention rate, GPA, scaled test scores etc..

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II. For teachers’ attitude and behaviors, indicator is the scaled scores of feedback from students by

survey.

III. For schools’ actions, indicator includes the number of machines purchased, coverage of

stipend program.

10.2 Data collection and stakeholder communication

In order to collect valid information and useful data for our evaluation, there are several data resources

that we will rely on, including survey data, interview data and open sources data such as National Students

Assignments 2013 Data of Bangladesh.

Open Data

Due to the periodical test conducted throughout the nation and the test results will be collected in official

ways, therefore for the students’ performance, the indicators such as test scores, enrollment rate/

completion rate are reachable in public offical records. The other indicators such as stduents background

will be collected through surveys.

Survey

Because the great number (over 10,000) of RNGPS in the country, the program will be only lunched in a

few sampled schools in our first wave, which is a 2 years period. The sampling methods should be random.

Our expectation is to collect data from both participate and non-participate schools, from all races groups,

from both girls and boys, from students in the program and not. In order to achieve a valid evaluation

results, the targeted schools and the comparative schools should be selected with serveral criterias

including the similarity of the locations, number of students, student-teacher ratio, gender equality etc.

The survey/questionaries will be distributed both in experimental and comparative schools. The target of

the survey will be two groups, one is the students, and the other one is their teachers. The survey should

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be designed to cover information about their family background, attitude towards the program, problems

in study as well as academic performance such as GPA etc. Similarly, the samplized teachers are also

expected to help with the second part of the survey, which is to provide their basic background (both

family and occupational), ideas about the programs, difficulties in managing the class and attitude towards

the workshops etc.

10.3 Analytical Approach

Because our program will be conducting in a whole 2 years, therefore we will have at least 2 years’ data.

After the data described above are available, there will be several aspects of the evaluation.

1. First, we will conduct a time series analysis to understand the enrollment rate/ compliment rate,

coverage of stipend program before and after the program. We hope to find out a clear increase

trend, or an obvious division from the original line after the intervention as an initial observation.

2. Using first hand data, which are divided into two groups (in the program or not), we will conduct

the difference in difference analysis. DID is one of the most proper evaluation tool in this program

because of its generalizability in educational area. Moreover, it provides a good way to rule out

some selection bias in a statistical approach. The theory behind it is taking the difference of the

timeline to de-trend the noise, and then look at the difference of mean in the two groups. The

theory is graphically shown in the appendix.

Several regression models will be applied to find out the coefficient as well as the p-value. The

schools in the program are with “treatment” represented by Di =1, while the others are controlled

group showed as Di =0. T = 0 is the data before the program is lunched, while T = 1 is the data

after the program completed.

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Treated Di = 0 Di = 1

T = 0 0 0

T = 1 0 1

We will find out the mean of difference with statistical way.

0 1 2 (D T) X'i i i itE D T

Where ,i tE means the student performance in group i at time point t . X’ is the vector of other controlled

variables such as SES of the school, students and teachers’ background information etc. We can calculate

the coefficient and its confidential interval to interpret the effectiveness of the program.

10.4 Difference in Difference

Fig 3. Difference in Difference

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Annex 1. Result Chain

Input Activities Outputs Outcome Goal

1. Budget

2. Staffing

1. Funding allocation

2. Purchasing

3. Training

4. Studies

1. Cash transferred

2. Machine Purchased

3. Training completed

4. Attendance rate up

5. Teacher performance up

Students performance up Education quality up

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Annex 2. Logical Frame Matrix

Project Structure Indicators of performance Means of verification Risks and Assumptions

Goal

Learning for All

World Bank Human

Capital development

Indicator

Stability of global economic

Trends

National decision aligns with

World Bank Agenda

Purpose

Improve the quality of

primary education in

RNGPSs in Bangladesh

Learning Assessment

Results

Learning Assessment

Report

First-hand data available

Outputs

1) increased attendance

rate of students

2) improved quality of

teachers

Attendance rate/ GPA

increase for overall RNGPSs

students

Teachers participating the

program receive better

feedback from students

Records statistics

Survey

Attendance lead to

concentration on study

Good survey approach result in

valid result

Activities

FOR OUTPUT 1:

1.1) Extend current stipend

program to a broader coverage

1.2) Open various skills and

technical workshops for

students

FOR OUTPUT 2:

In according to students’

workshops, train young teacher

to be skilled at technologies.

FOR OUTPUT 3:

3.1) Update school facilities

3.2) Lessen exam times and

build flexible curricula for all

workshops

100% experimental group

students are under the program

Workshops are at least 2 hours

per week

All young teacher passed the

training programs periodical test

3.1.1) At least 20 new machines

(not only computers) are

purchased

3.2.1) decrease to at most three

times of exam per year

3.2.2) Besides skill-aimed

workshop, at least 1 hour per

week for other activities

Records statistics

Assigned

Records statistics

Invoice

Assigned

Assigned

Stipend amount is enough for

each student’s need

Workshops are students-

centered

Periodical test is not in the

form of only requiring memory

recall

Machines are up-to-date and

will not be obsoleted soon

Consistent with governmental

policies

Activities are student-centered

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Annex 3. Posters