In recent years Bangladesh has recorded notable progress in education, especially at the primary level. But this has not been matched by similar success at the secondary level and tertiary level. In fact, secondary and tertiary level education has remained beset with a number of serious problems, such as poor enrolment rate, high dropout rate and low success rate in tests of academic capabilities. The end result is that, by some estimates, in Bangladesh only 3 out of 100 every 100 boys and girls complete their graduation. The need for policies, plans and programmes in this area are acute and several kinds of efforts of various scales are underway.
Educational equality has been an important and relevant issue in recent years, especially as tuition increases at colleges and universities make it increasingly difficult for low and middle income families to afford education for their children. There are even more issues of educational equality that come into play once a student matriculates at a chosen school. This paper focuses on this area, expanding on existing literature that details family income’s impact on undergraduate behavior. Academic pursuits have been a topic for prior research in this area, but this paper also models extracurricular behavior as a function of family income. Poor households in Bangladesh cannot afford to keep their children until they complete the secondary level because of high costs – both direct costs and opportunity costs. Poverty and poverty related factors were identified as the predominant reasons for dropout. In the case off female students, an additional factor was early marriage. Policies should be directed to both boys and girls from poor households.
by fahad nazim
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