日本の無償資金協力によるバングラデシュへの小学校供与

In 1999 and 2000 we investigated how Japan's grant aid has influenced the poor people in Bangladesh through the enforcement of "Model Rural Development Project", and reported its results in 2000. And besides we investigated three times (1999,2000 and 2002) the effects and problems in constructing four primary schools with the same project. Since independence of 1971, the government of Bangladesh has received the enormous sum of external aids that have produced a lot of developments. As to bilateral aid, Bangladesh is the largest recipient of Japan's grant aid. However, since the second half of the 1980s, the debt relief has accounted for the maximum weight of Japan's grant aid because the debt of Japan's ODA loan has accumulated. Also, Japan's grant aid for primary educational sector (except grass-roots grant aid) has been provided only one time to Bangladesh and the weight of the sum expended to the social sector is still low now. On the other hand, despite a lot of external aids have provided to Bangladesh, at present more than half of people in Bangladesh are in the condition of absolute poverty and about 80% of these live in rural areas. About 20% of the children from 5 to 14 years old are forced to work to help their families and about 90% of these children cannot enter school. Therefore, it is a big problem how Government makes such children to enter school. We visited and investigated three schools in Daudkandi Thana and one school in Homna Thana, which were constructed through Japan's grant aid. As to the effects of grant aid provided for primary school's construction, in the first place, the number of children entering school shows a tendency of increase, with no difference between girls and boys. However, there are a lot of children who are absent from school because they must help their families farming, particularly in the busy season, or it is impossible for them to go to school because of floods and so on. Also, there are many children who leave school because they cannot buy their stationeries. In any case, most of these children are the members of poor families. Other problems are as follows; (1) Political Favoring in the selection of the place where each primary school should be constructed. (2) The lack of the number of primary schools and classrooms, the condition of the primary school's environment and the quality of the facilities. (3) The lack of funds required for security and maintenance. (4) The quality of the teachers and the methods of education. Apart from the above noted problems, some of the local NGOs actively practice primary education program for the poorest's children in Bangladesh. However, there are a significant number of problems related to the contents of their activities. Despite this, Japan's ODA has been asked for increased continuous support to local NGOs. Also, the policy of Bangladesh government and the external aids continuously ought to give priority to the poorest people in rural areas.

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