WUNRN
Women News Network
Bangladesh
- Flexible Learning for Girls' Education
AASHA MEHREEN AMIN in
In partnership with Panos
London Illuminated Voices
New innovative flexible learning centres
are helping girls stay in school
Dhaka: In Bangladesh, family poverty and poor quality state education forces millions of children out of primary school. Girls in particular lose out as they are often the first to be called on to get a job or help their parents at home. But a new project of flexible learning centres is hoping to change this as Aasha Mehreen Amin found when she visited two centres run by the Dhaka Ahsania Mission.
A maths class is in full swing inside a
Child Learning Centre (CLC) in a slum area of Sheorapara,
Jannatul Akter works twice as hard as many
children and had to fight to come to school. Every morning, after setting up a
fruit stall on the main road of Sheorapara, she comes on here to read and write
in Bangla and English, study maths and take part in reciting poetry and singing
and dancing.
Jannatul in class at the Child Learning
Centre in Sheorapara,
“I like everything about school,” she says,
“the dancing, poetry, singing. Madam [the tutor] also teaches us how to stay
clean and comb our hair.”
Jannatul is one of the lucky ones. Every
few steps along the alleyways near the learning centre, there are clusters of
little children playing in the dust. Many of the older ones say they don’t go
to school.
Jannatul’s tutor first saw her working on
the fruit stall when she was ten and asked her mother to send her back to
primary school. Initially her mother, Tajmohal Begum, was reluctant, fearing
her daughter would lose her job. “Then Madam (the school’s teacher) came and
convinced me,” she says. With her husband dead, and six children, Tajmohal’s
daily concerns are getting a decent meal for the family and how to provide for
the future. “I have to save, and I have to give dowry for their marriages,” she
says. “We have no choice.”
Jannatul at her fruit stall where she works
before and after school. Image: G. M. B. Akash/Panos
Jannatul gets up in the early hours and
works before going to school at nine, returning to the stall after school and
finishing around 9pm. Dark circles under her eyes betray the long days she puts
in carrying the heavy crates of fruit, which she must sort, unpack and sell.
For all her hours, she takes home only 20 Taka a day, [less than 20 pence].
One day, Jannatul hopes to land a highly
prized office job but she must stay at the fruit stall for as long as her
family expects it. She smiles as she remembers the moment she was allowed to go
to school, “Before the stall owner did not let me go to school – but then madam
came and talked to him and even Ma told him, you cannot stop her from going.”
Part-time attendance at the centres gives
children a fighting chance of staying in school. Professor Rezina Sultana,
former principal of a teacher training college in
Outside the Child Learning Centre in
Sheorapara. Image: G. M. B. Akash/Panos
The centre in Sheorapara runs from 9 to 12,
while another in nearby Ibrahimpur runs from 11 to 2pm where Helena, a teacher
with the project works. “Sometimes the students have to leave in the middle of
the class, but we always finish the lesson the same day, so they don’t have to
study at home. I can give personal attention to each student as the class size
is small. In government primary schools it is impossible to do that as there
are 40 to 70 students in each class. There are also some costs such as
admission test fees and school uniforms that these parents cannot afford.”
Ibrahimpur’s learning centre is in a small
rented room within a cluster of one-roomed houses;
“It is a multi-grade system”, explains G.
F. Hamim, the coordinator of this project (called UNIQUE) run by Dhaka Ahsania
Mission. “It allows each child to be assessed and taught according to his or
her proficiency,” he says. “If, say, a child has reached Class 3 competence in
mathematics, but has Class 1 proficiency in Bangla then the teacher will teach
her accordingly, until her Bangla reaches Class 3 level.” The set books are all
National Textbook Board texts taught in the formal system and the project, aims
to help these children to continue their education by enrolling them into
regular primary schools after they complete the CLC course.
Sharnomoni and Sheema dancing at
Ibrahimpur. Image: G. M. B. Akash/Panos
At Ibrahimpur Centre, it is Thursday and
‘cultural day’. Two sisters take the lead in a number of song and dance
numbers. They go on to perform a song, “We are the future citizens, we will
lighten the darkness, we will carry the torch of knowledge,” they sing. For the
children at these centres there is a good chance they will.
FACTS
AND STATISTICS
§
In many urban slums and rural villages where
non-formal learning centres operate, there are no other schools at all. They
often provide the only opportunity for poor children to complete primary
education.
§
The small classes, female role models and
creative approach of the non-formal learning centres make the schools
attractive to girls and are ideal for children with learning difficulties. The
fact that they are closely monitored means they are less likely to drop
out. An estimated 90 per cent of these children go on to secondary
school.
Bangladesh
§
There are approx. 19 million primary
school-aged children in
§
Around three million children miss out on
primary education as a result of poverty. About 1.5 million of these are girls.
(Source: UNGEI)
§
Only an estimated 9.4 per cent of slum areas
have primary schools within their reach. (Source: Report on Primary Education
in
§
A lack of female teachers; inadequate school
materials; classroom environments not conducive to girls; families living far
from schools; the social perception of girls being of less value and parents
having limited ambitions for them are seen act as main barriers to girls’
education. (Source: UN Girls’ Education Initiative)
The EC is working in
Video - Click to Website Link: http://womennewsnetwork.net/2010/05/12/bangladeshgirls893/
____________________________________________
Flexible and innovative approaches to
educational learning has been helping girls attend school in
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to:
wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com. Thank you.