The Reaching Out-of-School Children (ROSC) Project phase II, building on ROSC phase I, is one of GOB interventions that has played a key role in providing second chance primary education to out–of-school children in Bangladesh. Project implementation is managed by the ROSC Unit (ROSCU) in the Directorate of Primary Education under the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education. The World Bank provides financial and technical assistance to ROSC II project implementation. Mitra is awarded the project by World Bank.

Project Description: In addition to the main ROSC intervention in rural upazilas, ROSC II project will finance implementation of the following 4 pilot interventions:

1. The urban Slums (US) pilot to support establishment and operation of Learning Centers (LC) to provide “second chance” primary-level schooling to out-of-school children in selected slum areas in Dhaka. 
2. The Child Domestic Workers (CDW) pilot will support targeted 750 child domestic workers from Dhaka city and provide them with educational allowances and tuition support. 
3. The Pre-Vocational Skills Training (PVST) pilot will support ROSCI ex-students who have completed at least grade 3 and are of ages 15 and above. About 5,000 eligible ex-students in predominantly rural areas in a number of upazilas across the country would receive tuition vouchers to participate in skills training programs implemented by government and non-government agencies.  
4. The Early Grade Reading (EGR) pilot will support reading interventions for students from select LCs in rural ROSCII upazilas. 

To generate a knowledge base to inform the policy makers and development partners on potential scale-ups of these pilots, a rigorous impact evaluation is being planned for each pilot. In each pilot intervention, a share of potential beneficiaries will be randomly selected to receive the intervention earlier (early phase-in) and will be termed as “treatment” group and the remaining expected to receive the intervention in a later phase will be termed as the “control” group. Data will be collected on a sub-sample of both the “control” and “treatment” groups before (baseline survey) and after (endline, follow-up) the intervention. So under this Impact Evaluation Surveys under the ROSC Project phase II in Bangladesh there will be one (1) separate baseline survey and one (1) separate endline survey for each pilot, and hence a total of eight (8) surveys. 

Tasks carried out by Mitra and Associates:

Mitra has already conducted three baseline surveys: (i) Urban Slums Baseline Survey, (ii) Child Domestic Workers Baseline Survey and, (iii) Early Grade Reading Baseline Survey with the following responsibilities: 

• Formatting and translation of instruments/questionnaires
• Maintaining regular, timely and effective communications with WB team 
• Seeking timely pre-approval from WB team on all key decisions
• Field testing of questionnaires, and participating in the finalization of questionnaires
• Recruitment and training of field personnel
• Conducting of data collection operation 
• Controlling and monitoring of data collection operation 
• Entry and processing of data, and production of analytical tables (as needed to check the accuracy of the entry)
• Participation in the dissemination of the findings
• Answering  questions regarding the survey’s  data quality,  including its methodology
• Scanning of completed questionnaires and submission of the soft copies to The World Bank

Client reference: The World Bank, 1818 H Street, N. W. Washington, DC 20433, Phone: 202-473-1118, E-mail: gprocurement@worldbank.org, Web: www.worldbank.org. The Authorized Representatives: Mr. Dilip Parajuli, E-mail: dparajuli@worldbank.org and Mr. Uttam Sharma, Email: uttamsharma@gmail.com