Does Scholarship Scheme Contribute to Gender Parity in Female Education? The Case of Secondary Education in Bangladesh EST-CE QUE LE PROGRAMME DE BOURSES CONTRIBUE À LA PARITÉ DES SEXES DANS L'ÉDUCATION DES FILLES? LE CAS DE L'ENSEIGNEMENT SECONDAIRE AU BANGLADESH (2010)

Abstract: Gender parity in education plays an important role in socio-economic development of a country where the government policies and procedures are paramount factors for its sustainability. Although Bangladesh has been working to improve the female students enrolment at secondary education since its independence; the achievement is considered insignificant. Recently the country has introduced female secondary education enhancement policy to increase and ensure female students' enrolment. The paper has analysed the impact of this policy regarding the female secondary education in Bangladesh. Using secondary data, the paper analysed the policy-impacts through changes in the pattern and trend of female secondary student enrolment, the indices of gross enrolment ratio (GER), net enrolment ratio (NER) and net attendance rate (NAR). It also analysed gender disparity index (GDI) and gender parity index (GPI) in secondaiy education. The paper found that the undertaken policy has positively impacted on female secondary education in Bangladesh but the rate of drop-out and failed students is much higher for female than those for male which raises a question of the effectiveness of the policy. The government should formulate a complementary education policy to achieve desired quantity and quality female secondary education. The findings of the paper might be of interest for researchers, development practitioners and policy makers. Key words: Gender; female; secondaiy education; education policy; Bangladesh Resume: La parite des sexes dans l'education joue un role important dans le developpement socio-economique d'un pays ou les politiques et procedures gouvernementales sont des facteurs primordiaux pour sa durabilite. Bien que le Bangladesh a travaille a ameliorer la scolarisation et l'enseignement secondaire des filles depuis son independance, les resultats ne sont pas tres signifiants. Recemment, le pays a introduit une politique de l'amelioration de l'enseignement secondaire pour accroitre et assurer la scolarisation des eleves de sexe feminin. Le document a analyse l'impact de cette politique concernant l'enseignement secondaire feminine au Bangladesh. En utilisant des donnees secondaires, l'article a analyse les impacts des politiques via des changements dans la structure, l'evolution de la scolarisation des eleves feminins dans l'enseignement secondaire, les indices de taux brut de scolarisation (TBS), le taux net de scolarisation (TNS) et le taux net de frequentation (TNF). Il a egalement analyse l'indice des disparites des sexes (IDS) et l'indice de parite des sexes (IPS) dans l'enseignement secondaire. Le document a constate que la politique menee a un impact positif sur l'enseignement secondaire des eleves feminins au Bangladesh, mais le taux de l'abandon et de l'echec scolaire est beaucoup plus eleve pour les filles que les garcons, ce qui souleve une question de l'efficacite de la politique. Le gouvernement devrait elaborer une politique de formation complementaire pour obtenir la quantite et la qualite desiree de l'enseignement secondaire des eleves feminins. Les conclusions de l'etude pourrait etre interessantes pour les chercheurs, les praticiens du developpement et des decideurs de politique. Mots-cles: sexe; femmes; enseignement secondaire; politique de l'education; Bangladesh 1. INTRODUCTION Gender parity in education has been identified as an important aspect of development policy in recent years. Bangladesh, like many developing countries, has been striving to archive gender parity in education since its independence in 1971 but the achievement is considered insignificant. This non-achievement is due to some socio-economic factors such as poor families prefer their children's to work instead of schooling; sons are preferred than daughters in terms of alternative options for education; etc. Bangladesh is a poor country. Nearly 50 percent of the population lives in poverty of which 40 percent lives under the absolute poverty level (BSS 2007: 58). …