Socio-economic Baseline Survey of Chittagong Hill Tracts - chtdf

HDRCSocio-economic Baseline Survey of Chittagong Hill Tracts118Table15.1: Children’s access to govt primary schoolAccess Status All Indigenous BangaleeNo school in the para or surrounding community 25.3 24.8 25.8Children are not welcome in school 19.2 17.8 20.8Children do not understand medium of instruction 2.6 4.3 .6Go to a nearby school 39.1 38.3 40.1Go to a far away school 20.8 18.7 23.4Study in a residential school 1.6 2.6 .5No response 11 12.1 9.7N 2381 1285 1096The average travel time for going to a nearbyschool in IP and Bangalee are almost same,27 and 26 minutes respectively. But theaverage travel time of a far away school ishigh: 80 minutes for Bangalee children 80and 70 minutes for Indigenous children.Figure 15.1: Agerage time to go to a near by and faraway school in CHT75.3 79.9 80.426.5 26.7 26.415.4 Financial Affordability ofPrimary EducationAll CHT IP BanglaleeAverage time for going to a near by schoolAverage time for going to far away schoolPrimary education in Bangladesh is theoretically free, and therefore, should be accessible toall regardless of economic status. However, the average GOB spending for primary schoolingper child per year is Tk 730 (MoPME 2002) and average parent spending is about Tk 1,000per year (CAMPE 2001).Table 15.2 shows the affordability-status of CHT households in sending their children toschool. About 64 % parents have reported that they have financial ability for sending theirchildren to school and about 12% have reported that they can’t send their children into schoolat any time (about 15 % of Indigenous and 10% of Bangalee reports the same). About 3%have reported that they can’t send their children in harvesting time while 0.5% has reportedthat they can’t send their female child to school for the same reason. Around 71% Bawmparents report that they can afford their children education. About 47% Khumi parents reportthat they cannot afford to send any children at any time to school.Table 15.2: Distribution of self-reported affordability status of sending their children to govtprimary schoolAffordability Status All Indigenous BangaleeCannot afford any children at any time 12.4 14.8 9.7Cannot afford during harvesting time 2.6 3.9 1.0Cannot afford daughter during harvesting time 0.5 0.7 0.3Cannot afford some of their children irrespective of sex 10.8 10.8 10.8Can not afford some of their children throughout the year 6.7 6.0 7.6Cannot afford daughter(s) 2.5 3.0 1.9Can afford all 64.4 60.7 68.7N 2109 1125 984