Masum Billah
The children of hard to reach area exclusively the ‘ haor’ areas witness a special way of having education by virtue of the innovative idea of BRAC that has recently gained an award from HundrED, a Finland-based organization. It’s an honour for the nation indeed! The Boat School Project of BRAC offers primary education to the children excluded from traditional schooling due to seasonal flooding or other water-based barriers. The global community should learn the experience the BRAC Boat School Project has gained so far as the Creative Director of HundrED has expressed. The BRAC Boat School project is named as one of the 100 innovative projects across the world by global education non-profit organization HundrED.This Finland-based organization aims to share inspiring innovations across the globe to help improve the future of education. They have investigated 700 projects based on their originality, impact and scalability. The Boat School project was chosen because of its innovative approach to provide primary education to the children mostly from underprivileged families.The children come to the world with the birthright to receive education from the state in which they are born but the secluded community get deprived of this child right because of disaster and inequality caused by man and state and the inconvenient geographical location also plays a part of it. But the organizations working for the promotion of child rights and to satisfy the basic educational needs of the neglected community come up with some newer ways and means that sometimes draw the attention of some global organizations, though not national ones. The award to Boat School Project by hundred tells such a kind of real story. The project now covers more than 14500 children in Bangladesh and Philippines through 507 Boat Schools. A local female teacher guides the same cohort of students through the full primary education cycle. Really unconventional idea to give education to the hard to reach community children! When the vast area of this geographical location gets submerged by water children embrace education opportunity and in the dry season, the project anchors the boat schools at locations that are convenient for all the students.
The greater span of six months the picture of ‘haor’ areas reminds us the similar picture created by S.T Coleridge in his poem ‘ The Ancient Mariner’.The significantly familiar lines ‘Water ,water everywhere, but there is not a drop to drink” similarities the rainy season picture of haor areas thus’ water, water everywhere, no land in sight or water, water everywhere, no school in sight.’Sylhet is called the land of haors or permanent marshland covering 30.2 percent of its land.
Despite the adverse conditions and isolation, people have managed to live in the haors of Sylhet for hundreds of years. Their struggle with nature has given them the courage to adjust with the roughness of natural phenomena which have become part of their lives. It’s true that the world has seen significant changes in the ways of living, earning, having the education but the people of this area hardly have any share with these phenomena. Of course, the poets or lovers of nature can soothe their eyes by visiting these areas just going for a retreat or sojourn. The light of education and modernity hardly touch them. We the plain land people, the fortunate people and the state definitely have some responsibilities towards them. Generally and traditionally in rural Bangladesh boys are the first ones to be sent to school and girls can go to school only if the schooling facility is not too far from home. Often, the nearest school is miles away and for girls, this can represent an insurmountable challenge to their schooling. The picture of schooling in haor areas prove further miserable for girls. Standing beside the education deprived populace has come under the thought of BRAC Education as it promises to extend education facilities to those who have no option for the schooling of special importance to girls.
Traditionally the natural location of Sunamgonj haor area convinces people not to send their children to school. They don’t even think of sending them to school in this age of computer and internet whereas we have promised a lot to the nation. They deserve the light of education and it is our duty to reach it to the haor children with a special arrangement that BRAC Education tries to respond. From BRAC’s commitment to the outreach population, it started a campaign and searched for every possible means and ways and talked to the local boat making people and made them know that BRAC was going to make arrangements for primary education for the haor children. People from all walks of life started welcoming this initiative. To make the dream of giving education to the deprived children of haor areas into reality BRAC Education Program launched a boat schooling program at Sunamgjon district. On 26th September 2011, a new chapter was opened in the history of education of the haor people. BRAC Education Program started schools on boats in two villages namely Dhorerpar and Rahamatpur on that day. Each boat picks teachers and 30 registered students from nearer ‘ hati’. After finishing class they will are dropped in their respective homes. BRAC works to support the government efforts for education and other human development areas that get reflected in such kind of works.
According to research statistics, 42 percent of the villages in Sylhet have no primary schools. In terms of literacy rate also it lags far behind the national average. The literacy rate for 7 plus populations is 40.7 percent and for the adult population, it is 44.4 percent but national rates are 48.5 percent and 52.1 percent respectively.
This project shows an example for others to extend hands to bring the deprived children of the haor people under schooling program. Frequent flooding goes as a common natural phenomenon in several parts of Bangladesh when such kind of effort is necessary for schooling as usual schooling opportunity gets hampered in these areas but no tangible effort has yet been made.
That means we squeeze the opportunity of education for the children of natural calamity affected areas. It deserves relevance to mention here that in BRAC primary schools 1.2 million students are currently enrolled. It is more encouraging that most of them are female students who usually get the second priority from their parents to go to school. The presence of BRAC primary schools in their vicinity has changed this notion of the parents proving their old and superstitious ideas. So far almost 5 million children have graduated and received basic education from these BRAC Primary Schools, while nearly 95 percent continue to secondary education and they show far better performance in terms of presence in the class, cultural aspects, participation in educational activities and academic results. Introducing boat schooling has opened new vistas for BRAC Education Program and it cherishes to borrow all-out cooperation from all concerned to make it a successful, sustainable and replicable project.
(The writer works for BRAC Education Program and formerly worked in cadet colleges and Rajuk College)
