Q
Asked by Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South)
Asked on: 17 January 2017
Department for International Development
60457
“To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to improve school attendance in countries receiving assistance from cash transfer schemes from the UK.”
A
Answered by: Rory Stewart
Answered on: 25 January 2017
The UK is committed to ensuring all children are able to complete a full cycle of quality education. The UK’s approach combines strengthening education systems to ensure better delivery of education; improving accountability for results, within systems and between citizens and service providers; and improving what happens in classrooms.
Over the last five years, UK Aid has supported over 11 million girls and boys into primary and lower secondary schools. DFID has pledged to help another 11 million children gain a decent education between 2015 and 2020.
DFID directly supported cash transfer programmes in 19 countries between 2011 and 2015. Of these 11 countries had cash transfer programmes with education targets, which aim to enable poor and vulnerable children to go to school. The education benefits from cash transfers are either direct if the transfer is made conditional on attendance, or indirect if recipient families choose to spend the transfer on the costs of education. For example in Ethiopia the cash transfer programme did not have an education target but transfers have helped improve school attendance and learning.