Last Updated on February 4, 2026 9:04 pm by INDIAN AWAAZ
Zakir Hossain from Dhaka
Bangladesh has approved a Tk 203.87 crore (USD 18.45 million). proposal to provide pre-primary and primary education to Rohingya children living in camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bandarban and Bhasan Char, through Unicef. The approval was granted at a meeting of the Advisers Council Committee on Government Purchase held at the Secretariat on February 3, following a proposal placed by the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education.
Under the plan, education services will be procured through Unicef under the SD-4 package of the project titled “ISO Component-One: Pre-Primary and Primary Education Improvement Project in Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban Districts and Bhasan Char of Noakhali.”
The project, approved earlier by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) on May 28, 2024, will be implemented from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2027. Funding will come from the Bangladesh government and a World Bank grant.
According to meeting sources, the initiative aims to engage forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals in productive activities and help them acquire basic skills through structured education in their mother tongue. Unicef was invited under a single-source procurement method in line with conditions attached to the World Bank’s grant and loan agreements, despite the Development Project Proforma initially предусматри implementation through open tendering.
The Directorate of Primary Education and the World Bank’s education team jointly reviewed, evaluated and negotiated the proposal before seeking final approval. The committee approved the package at a cost of $18.45 million, equivalent to Tk 203.87 crore, calculated at the DPP exchange rate of Tk 110.502 per US dollar.
Under the agreement, the World Bank will directly disburse the full amount to Unicef in US dollars. The programme will support education for 256,490 Rohingya students in the Myanmar language. To deliver the services, 4,106 volunteer teachers will be recruited in the first 12 months, followed by another 3,700 volunteers over the next six months. The teachers will receive honorariums as per the project framework.