With the goal of guaranteeing their enrollment in schools, the Prime Minister’s Education Assistance Trust will pay stipends to about 54 lakh deserving and impoverished secondary school students through Nagad, a top mobile financial service provider in Bangladesh.
Students in classes six through ten will receive one-time support of Taka 5,000 apiece under the stipend payout program. The stipends are anticipated to be disbursed very soon, and the disadvantaged students have already applied online.
This stipend was formerly disbursed through a number of methods, but a number of purported anomalies were noted.
A recent decision by the Education Ministry’s Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education states that the government has chosen to provide this support just through Nagad this time in order to enforce discipline.
The stipends for secondary school students under the PM’s Education Assistance Trust had been paid out through a bank as well as a number of mobile banking providers, including Nagad, according to officials acquainted with the situation.
However, there have been a lot of issues with paying stipends through these various organizations. “We encountered significant challenges in tracking and confirming that the stipends were being received by the intended recipients. We wanted to select a single platform in order to address this problem. “We selected Nagad with ease because it has demonstrated its ability by effectively allocating primary education stipends to 1.5 crore students,” a senior official from the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education stated.
“Previously, various organisations distributed this stipend among underprivileged students in different ways as they use different software, causing difficulties for us to monitor them if disbursements were performed properly. To address this issue, the Secondary and Higher Education Directorate has opted for stipend distribution through Nagad,” he noted.
Furthermore, considering the number of customers, Nagad is currently the largest mobile banking company in the country.
At present, they have over nine crore registered customers. Additionally, with three lakh agent points across the country, it is possible to withdraw money from anywhere at any time.
“Maybe, this is why the government has chosen it solely for disbursing the PM’s education assistance,” said an official of the institution.
“In the past few years, we have taken disbursements of government’s allowance and stipends to a different level. If we talk our success, there is no one closer to us. Therefore, government agencies always prefer Nagad’s services,” said Muhammad Zahidul Islam, vice-president and head of Media and Communication at Nagad Ltd.
Furthermore, he said stipend disbursements under the PM’s Education Assistance Trust are a sensitive project. “There is no other reason why Nagad has been entrusted with the task. Its costs are also much lower. All of these keep Nagad ahead of others,” he added.
Earlier, in the last week of January, the Prime Minister’s Education Assistance Trust issued a notification, stating that the Trust will provide admission assistance to poor and meritorious students enrolled in secondary and equivalent levels in various educational institutions under the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, Directorate of Technical Education, and Technical and Madrasa Education Division in the year 2024.
To get help with admissions, students were advised to visit the assigned website and submit an online application. In order to qualify for this aid, the parents’ yearly income must not exceed Taka two lakh.
Children of workers in government, semi-government, autonomous, and constitutional entities in grades 13 through 20 will also be given consideration for the educational assistance. Students must submit a photo, signature, birth certificate, parent’s national identity card, and recommendations from educational institution heads in the prescribed form in order to be eligible for admission aid.
Previously, in 2013, a fund amounting to Taka 1,000 crore was set up under the PM’s Education Assistance Trust. Since then, every year, underprivileged and meritorious students at the secondary, higher secondary and graduate levels have been provided one-time assistance.
The education aid has been fixed at Taka 5,000 at the secondary level, Taka 6,000 at the higher-secondary level and Taka 10,000 at the graduate and equivalent level, according to the government’s decision.
