The Boys Left Behind: Where Public Policy has Failed to Prevent Child Labour in Bangladesh

Poor boys have been left behind by public policy efforts to expand school access in Bangladesh – the same policies which have succeeded in attracting girls to school. This article draws on original research to explore the failure to tackle the exclusion of poor boys from school, arguing that paid work has become more attractive in a context in which education is of poor quality and there are no social sanctions against child labour. Recently there has been a shift of policy attention towards poor boys, amidst concerns about security, militancy and Islamic education. Given steady economic growth, poor boys may not necessarily inherit deeper poverty, but in the absence of state or social sanctions against child labour, they are likely to inherit a position at the lower end of the social scale.