Bangladesh: Education: Pre-primary Schools

The transition from the familiar environment of a home to the more impersonal space of a school is particularly daunting for children from poorer households where parents are more likely to be uneducated and illiterate. As such, the parents may not have the education necessary to teach them foundational literacy, reading, and mathematical skills, nor have the same kind of enthusiasm for the demands and impersonal routines of formal schooling that is common to better-off, educated parents. 

BRAC’s 20,140 pre-primary schools prepare young children for their transition from home to school based learning. This intervention enables young children to become familiar with the alphabet and numbers. The curriculum teaches three subjects, Bangla, Maths and Science, and runs for one year. It is geared towards children who are unable to begin their schooling before the age of six. Small class sizes of 26-30 children and locally recruited women teachers with whom the children are likely to be familiar eases this critical transition for children and parents.

Teachers are paid a salary through the government, and preference is given for teachers who have at least eight years of schooling and a senior school certificate. BRAC trains these teachers well in the latest and most effective teaching methodolgies in a non-formal, creative manner, encouraging effective development of children's communications, language and social skills, active hands on learning, the use of arts including free-hand drawings and other modes of classwork.

This model of education has proven to  keep children interested in learning and in school. BRAC schools provide a comfortable and fun atmosphere in which students and parents can accustom themselves to the idea of school and have a great first experience in education.

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