Public Education Expenditure and Gender Parity in Secondary Schooling in Bangladesh (1995–2022): An ARDL Analysis

Achieving gender equality in education, particularly in secondary school enrollment, is widely recognized as essential for driving sustainable economic development. The study aims to investigate the impact of public education expenditure on promoting female secondary school enrollment rates in Bangladesh, incorporating literacy rate and remittances as control variables. Using annual data from 1995 to 2022, the study employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to examine the short- and long-run dynamics between the variables. Results indicate that a 1% increase in public education expenditure leads to a rise in female secondary school enrollment in both the long and short terms, by 0.1048% and 0.067%, respectively. The study recommends increasing public education spending, particularly in rural and underserved areas, to reduce gender gaps in access to and retention from education. Policies should also prioritize gender-sensitive infrastructure, female teacher recruitment, and conditional cash transfers to strengthen girls’ continued participation in secondary education.