May 23, 2015 - Seoul, Republic of Korea - Today the Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education approved a US$100 million grant for Bangladesh, contributing to the country’s education sector program. The program is in the process of building an efficient, inclusive and equitable primary education system delivering child-friendly learning to all Bangladeshi children from pre-primary through grade 5.

“Bangladesh is the latest developing country to join the Global Partnership for Education and with one of the largest out-of-school populations in the world, this grant will provide an extra boost for the government to provide millions of children access to a quality education” said Alice Albright, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Partnership for Education.

Bangladesh joined the Global Partnership for Education in January 2015.  The US$100 million grant will directly support the Third Primary Education Development Program 2011-2017, which caters to the nation’s 19.6 million children. Bangladesh has about half a million teachers in 106,000 primary schools, kindergartens and non-formal schools.

“The approval of the US$100 million grant by the GPE Board of Directors for the development of our primary education sector gives me an immense pleasure. It is my expectation that this grant will underpin our effort to march forward to the pinnacle of quality primary education in Bangladesh” said Mr. Md. Mustafizur Rahman, MP, Honorable Minister, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education of Bangladesh.

The grant will be pooled with the government’s budget and funding from nine other development partners. The program seeks to improve the quality of teaching and learning for all Bangladeshi children, increase children’s participation in pre-primary and primary education, strengthen school effectiveness through decentralization, and improve management and governance across the sector. The World Bank, a GPE partner, will supervise the implementation of the grant.

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The Global Partnership for Education mobilizes global and national efforts to achieve quality education for all children, prioritizing the poorest and most vulnerable, through inclusive partnership, financing and a focus on effective education systems. The Global Partnership is an independently governed multi-stakeholder partnership with 60 developing country governments, as well as donors, civil society/non-governmental organizations, teacher organizations, international organizations, the private sector and foundations. Over the past decade, the Global Partnership has allocated US$4.3 billion to support education in developing countries.