Series No. 57
Going to School in Purdah: Female Schooling, Mobility Norms and Madrasas in Bangladesh |
| Mohammad Niaz Asadullah, Zaki Wahhaj |
| February - 2013 |
| This paper looks at the determinants of secondary school attendance in Bangladesh with a focus on the interaction between community gender norms and relative supplyof madrasas (i.e. Islamic schools). We present a theoretical framework where the probability of children’s school participation varies with respect to a non-economic factor how the community observes social norms regarding female mobility –conditional upon the types of available schools. Household data from the Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey (BDHS) is combined with community information on the availability of non-religious secondary schools and madrasas to test our theoretical predictions. |
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Series No. 56
Peaceful Coexistence? The Role of Religious Schools and NGOs in the Growth of Female Secondary Schooling in Bangladesh |
| Mohammad Niaz Asadullah, Nazmul Chaudhury |
| February - 2013 |
| BRAC, one of the largest development organizations in the world runs a large number of non-formal primary schools in Bangladesh which target out-of-school children from poor families. These schools are well-known for their effectiveness in closing gender gap in primary school enrolment. On the other hand, registered nongovernment secondary madrasas (or Islamic schools) today enrol one girl against every boy student. In this paper, we document a positive spillover effect of BRAC schools on female secondary enrolment in registered madrasas. Drawing upon school enrolment data aggregated at the region level, we first show that regions that had more registered madrasas experienced greater secondary female enrolment growth during 1999-2003, holding the number of secular secondary schools constant. |
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Series No. 55
Rural Organizations and Active Citizenship in Bangladesh: Evaluation of BRAC�s Polli Shomaj |
| Nayma Qayum, Ashrafuzzaman Khan, Rehnuma Rahman |
| December - 2012 |
| Can rural civil society organizations (CSOs) generate active citizenship in developing societies? This report studies Polli Shomaj (PS), a ward-based civil society initiative of BRAC`s Community Empowerment and Strengthening Local Institutions (CESLI) programme. It examines PS achievements as a group, active citizenship among its members, and geographical diffusion of the organization`s influence...... |
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Series No. 52
Changing Expectations of Gender Roles in Bangladesh: The Case of Female Field Staff of BRAC |
| Rumana Ali |
| September - 2012 |
This study aimed to analyze the situation of female staff of BRAC working at field
level. Here, the study tried to find out how women were negotiating between their
traditional gender roles and the new roles offered by that organization, as well as the
gap between gender policy of the organization and the reality women were
experiencing. The study took theoretical reference of different forms of patriarchy,
gender division of labour, the public-private dichotomy, national imaginary of ideal
woman of Bangladesh, as well as the literature about the endeavor of BRAC to bring
out women from their traditional image. |
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Series No. 54
An Assessment of BRAC�s Organizational Culture and Values Training |
| Md. Abdul Alim, Jesmin Akter and, Mohammad Rafi |
| August - 2012 |
BRAC initiated Organizational Culture and Values (OCV) training to promote values among its staff which would help achieve organization`s objectives. Since 2009, BRAC`s Learning Division has offered training to 10,908 staff and plans to train the rest. Such a training project involving huge cost and time demanded early assessment of its effectiveness. This study aimed to measure the retained knowledge of the trainees on training content, evaluate their attitudes towards the content, and evaluate the implementation of training by branch office staff. Altogether 235 staff from 28 branch offices who received training was compared with 208 staff from same number of offices but without training. The impact of training was distinct in the intervention group.
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Series No. 53
Pilot Intervention of Improved Cook Stoves in Rural Areas: Assessment of Effects on Fuel Use, Smoke Emission and Health |
| Nepal C Dey, ARM Mehrab Ali , Anik Ashraf, Tahmid Arif, Mushfiq Mobarak, and Grant MillerNepal C Dey, ARM Mehrab Ali , Anik Ashraf, Tahmid Arif, Mushfiq Mobarak, and Grant Miller |
| July - 2012 |
This study aims to explore the impact of improved cook stoves (ICS) on fuel
expenditure (consumption), smoke emission, and health of women (cook) in rural households of Bangladesh. In the follow-up survey (January-March 2010), 1,569 households, constituting of both who received ICS immediately after baseline survey (July-September 2008) and who had refused to use any ICS, were selected for interview using a pre-tested structured questionnaire........ |
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Series No.51
Competencies Achievement of BRAC School Students: Trends, Comparisons and Predictors |
| Samir Ranjan Nath |
| April - 2012 |
| The National Curriculum and Textbook Board in Bangladesh specified 50 terminal competencies which are supposed to be achieved by the students throughout the cycle of primary education. The competency-based test instrument which was developed for Education Watch 2000 was administered on a sample of BRAC school graduates of each year during 2000-2010. This monograph is an outcome of analyses of all these test results. Although the rural BRAC non-formal schools were common in each year, samples from BRAC`s non-formal urban, formal and community schools and the schools for ethnic minorities were taken in some years. Sometimes, the government primary schools were also included. .... |
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Series No.50
Occupational Pulmonary Tuberculosis among BRAC Community Health Workers of Trishal, Bangladesh |
| Fazlul Karim; Jalaluddin Ahmed, Qazi Shafayetul Islam and Md. Akramul Islam |
| October - 2011 |
| Different studies reported 2-14 times higher risk of TB for the healthcare workers than the general populations. This poses a serious challenge to the healthcare workers involved in TB control worldwide. BRAC has been using services of thousands of community-based health workers (CHW) known as shasthya shebikas for TB control all over the country. Their continuous exposure to infectious pulmonary TB (PTB) patients might have increased the risk of disease transmission........ |
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Series No.49
Sustaining Health: The Role of BRAC�s Community Health Volunteers in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Uganda |
| Laura Reichenbach and Shafiun Nahin Shimul |
| October - 2011 |
This study fills an important gap in current understanding about a critical aspect of BRAC`s health programmes the financial sustainability of the community health volunteers (commonly referred to as Shasthya Shebikas in Bangladesh) that are the cornerstone of BRAC`s health programmes. Shasthya Shebikas (SS) are a cadre offemale volunteers that are recruited and trained by BRAC to provide a range of essential healthcare services to their communities....
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Series No.48
Economic and Social Analysis of Primary Education in Bangladesh: A Study of BRAC Interventions and Mainstream Schools |
| Alia Ahmad and Iftekharul Haque |
| August - 2011 |
Bangladesh has achieved significant progress in enrolment in primary schools including gender parity. Currently, two major problems are dropout before completing primary education and poor quality of education with low attainment of basic competencies. These problems are especially acute among children of poor families....
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