Bangladesh: Education: Primary Schools

Over the past twenty years the number of BRAC primary schools has grown rapidly. We started work at this level in 1985 with the opening of 22 one-room schools providing three years of schooling up to Grade III. The aim was to develop a school model for poor rural children, especially girls, to equip them in 2003, the programme had expanded to more than 30,000 primary schools providing the full primary education in four years. The one teacher school is operated by the same teacher for the same cohort of children for the entire period of four years and delivers lessons in all subjects. The school timings are flexible and are fixed according to needs. Children do not have to pay any fees and there are no long holidays or homework. The teacher is prepared through induction and in-service refresher training. Special courses are organised at the beginning of each grade on core subjects such as Maths, English, Bangla, Science and Social Studies. Following the national curriculum, BRAC develops textbooks and other materials for up to Grade III and government textbooks are being used in Grades IV and V.

As of December, 32,000 primary schools with 32,937 teachers were in operation to cater to the needs of 984,440 children where 65% were girls. Among these, 5,500 schools with 164,835 students (72% girls) were operated by other NGOs with our support. Additionally, 1,415 BRAC primary schools were operated in urban areas with 47,539 students and 2,250 ethnic schools with 57,645 learners were operated in remote areas.

BRAC has also been operating 36 clusters schools principally in Dhaka on an experimental basis to accommodate children from the slums and those who are working.

A high level graduation and transfer rate has been maintained in BRAC primary schools.

To date 3.80 million children have graduated from our primary schools with a course completion rate of 93%.Of these, 3.54 million children (66% girls) made the transition to formal schools.