Peaceful Coexistence? The Role of Religious Schools and NGOs in the Growth of Female Secondary Schooling in Bangladesh

Abstract

BRAC, a non-governmental organization (NGO), 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 enrollment. On the other hand, registered non-government secondary madrasas (or Islamic schools) today enroll one girl against every boy student. In this paper, we document a positive spillover effect of BRAC schools on female secondary enrollment in registered madrasas. Drawing upon school enrollment data aggregated at the region level, we first show that regions that had more registered madrasas experienced greater secondary female enrollment growth during 1999-2003, holding the number of secular secondary schools constant. In this context we test the impact of BRAC-run primary schools on female enrollment in registered madrasas. We deal with the potential endogeneity of placement of BRAC schools using instrumental variable approach. Controlling for factors such as local-level poverty, road access and distance from major cities, we show that regions with a greater presence of BRAC schools have higher female enrollment growth in secondary madrasas. The effect is much bigger when compared to that on secondary schools.