Stipend Project of Primary Schools Students

Stipend Project of Primary Schools Students:

Government financed Food for Education Programme was introduced in 1993 to compensate opportunity cost of poor parents for sending their children to school. This helped increase the enrolment, attendance in schools and prevent child labour. About 27% area of the country covering about 2.2 million disadvantaged students were under “Food for Education Programme”. From financial year 2002-2003 a special programme for providing cash support to poor primary school children has been launched by transforming Food for Education Programme into Stipend Programme. Under this programme, parents of 40% poor students of the primary schools in the rural areas are given monthly stipend at the rate of Tk.100 per month for sending one child to school and Tk. 125 for sending more than one child. From July 2002 to June 2006 Government spent about Tk. 14.52 billion (US$ 0.23 billion) from its own resources for giving stipend to the children. The number of benefited children under this intervention is about 6 million. The programme is continuing with an allocation of Tk. 4,433 million (US$ 71 million) for the financial year 2005-2006.