Keeping girls in schools to reduce child marriage in rural Bangladesh—Research Brief and Baseline Highlights

Bangladesh has made considerable progress in improving access to education at all levels for the last two decades. Despite these impressive gains, Bangladesh continues to face challenges of student dropout at the secondary level. Girls drop out of school earlier than boys because of child marriage. Targeted policies and interventions designed to improve mainstream educational attainment and decrease child marriage may be the effective and sustainable way to address both issues. The Population Council implemented the project “Keeping Girls in Schools to Reduce Child Marriage in Rural Bangladesh.” An intervention research study, the project tests a life-skills and tutoring support model to reduce school drop-out among secondary-school girls and to build aspirations for livelihood skills among unmarried girls who have dropped out of school—with the goal of delaying marriage. This brief provides an overview and summary of the project followed by highlights: research design and baseline characteristics, education, marriage and reproductive health, gender and rights, girls’ social lives, and livelihood