The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

The government is going to undertake a project titled 'Secondary Education Quality, Access Enhancement Project' (SEQAEP), involving US $ 140 million, from July 2008 with financial assistance from the World Bank.

Of the total amount, the World Bank will provide $ 130 while the rest $ 10 million will come from the Bangladesh government, sources in the Education Ministry said.

Sources said the proposed SEQAEP project will be implemented as supplementary one of the Female Secondary School Assistance Project (FSSAP) scheduled to be completed in June 2008. The objectives of the proposed project are to improve the quality of schooling, strengthen capacity to systemically assess and monitor learning outcomes and improve equitable access to project upazilas, the sources said.

They said the project will act following some indicators, including completion rates in secondary school cycle, pass rates in SSC examination, institutional capacity to monitor learning levels, boys-girls ratio in secondary school enrollment, poor-non-poor ratio in secondary school enrolment.

The project will also offer some incentive awards to teachers and students for improving education quality and capacity to monitor learning levels. Under the incentive plan, eight students per school will be awarded for each grade based on achievement after annual exams. Besides, eligible teachers will be enlisted under the project for additional support of the students out of school hours for those students who are weak in mathematics and English.