Bangladesh's urban population is rising fast. In the capital, Dhaka, some 4 million people live in slums. They are lacking in wealth, power and social connections; probably under-counted in national surveys; and under-served by both government and non-government organisations, many of whom still see poverty as a rural issue or see the urban poor…

Bangladesh has made great improvements in the scale and quality of access to education in recent years and gender equality has almost been achieved in primary education (World Bank, 2008). Evidence from CREATE's nationwide community and school survey (ComSS) confirms results from other research (such as Al-Samarrai, 2009) which suggests that…