On 30th April, 2019, Integgra researchers Niaz Asadullah and Zaki Wahhaj participated in a round table discussion on the 2017 Child Marriage Restraint Act at the Daily Star Conference Hall in Dhaka, jointly hosted by Population Council and BLAST (Bangladesh Legal Aid Services Trust) in collaboration with the University of Kent, UK and the University of Malaya, Malaysia.
The SHOKHI Consortium together with Population Council jointly convened an expert consultation on the topic ‘Evidence Based Strategies for Ending Child Marriage: Why Empowerment Matters’ at BRAC Centre Inn, Dhaka on 10 November.
Integgra researchers Niaz Asadullah and Zaki Wahhaj, together with Dr Amrit Amirapu at the University of Kent, have received a research grant from the Economic Development and Institutions Research Programme to study the potential effects of the new child marriage law in Bangladesh (Child Marriage Registration Act 2017) on social attitudes towards child marriage practices.
Developing country governments routinely use administrative data to estimate two key indicators, Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) and Net Enrolment Rate (NER), to measure changes in school participation and attainment of children. In Bangladesh, the Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) uses Annual School Census (ASC) data for policy planning purpose as well as calculating the GER and NER. Every year, DPE publishes the Annual Sector Performance Report (ASPR) which compiles data on GER and NER and many other indicators by gender. Based on such estimates, Bangladesh has done exceptionally well in bringing children to primary schools compared to other countries (Asadullah et al. 2014). A notable aspect of Bangladesh’s educational progress has been the reversal of the gender gap in school enrolment rates (Asadullah and Chaudhury 2009). However, a recent edition of the ASPR also acknowledges an important limitation of administrative data, namely, inability to directly identify children who are out of school.
