Skill based education for girls reduces child marriage

Skill based education that equips girls to earn a livelihood in future can encourage parents not to marry off their daughters early, rather allow them to continue their study, said speakers yesterday.

"Teach girls vocational skills and create job opportunities to convince parents to send their daughters to school," said Farzana Islam, vice-chancellor of Jahangirnagar University.

Steps should be taken so that girls are not considered as a burden, she said at an event where Room to Read, a non-profit US-based organisation, shared their research findings about early marriage in Bangladesh.

The findings, published in a report titled "Combating Early Marriage: Experience of Room to Read's Girls' Education Program" showed that regular meetings with parents, providing  girls with education support materials and teaching them to protest and prevent their own marriages and engaging their schools and local communities can help reduce early marriage.

Room to Read worked with girls of eight schools in Sirajganj under Rajshahi division which according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics' Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2006 had the highest rate of child marriage at 81 percent.

Mohammad Sarwar Basher, senior research officer who presented the report findings, told The Daily Star that the NGO through their Girl's Education Program (GEP) supported and tracked 181 girls, who got admitted in class-VI in 2011 in four secondary schools, all the way through 2015.

Under the programme girls were taught different life skills including awareness about sexual harassment, negative impact of early marriage, helping to negotiate with parents about taking key decisions of their lives, prospect of completing education and having professional career, explained Sarwar.

It was found that that only six percent of the girls got married during the five years and 36 percent of those who got married continued education, he said.

On the other hand, 39 percent of 227 girls, who got admitted in class-VI in 2011 in four other secondary schools, with no GEP support, got married by the end of 2015. Among them, only six percent continued their study, Sarwar said.

Ruksana Sultana, senior programme manager of GEP said that girls who do not receive government's secondary school stipend were supported with examination and other school fees, tuition by peer groups and simplified manuals on English and Mathematics and transportation to and from school.

The study findings also recommended creating pressure on parents by the school authorities for not to marry off their daughters.

Rakhi Sarkar, country director of Room to Read, urged other organisations to work together for combating child marriage through education to produce bigger results.

Farhana Jesmine Hasan from Terre des Homes, a Netherlands-based NGO, and Mushfiqua Zaman Satiar from the Embassy of Netherlands also spoke at the event.

According to The State of the World's Children, Unicef report-2015, 65 percent of girls in Bangladesh are married off before the age of 18.