20 June 2008, Dhaka. “The future of Bangladesh is very bright if everybody is getting the education [BRAC school students] are getting!”

UK Minister for International Development, Shahid Malik, visited a BRAC primary school located in the Korail slum area of Dhaka city on Thursday, as part of a three-day tour to Bangladesh. The minister spent time talking and interacting with the students and also enjoyed a lively song and dance performance by them.

Following the visit, the minister expressed his appreciation of BRAC’s education programme. “The future of Bangladesh is very bright if everybody is getting the education that these children are getting,” he said. “And the good thing is that over 93% of children who go to BRAC schools end up going into the state sector, so it’s a really positive initiative,” he also added. The Minister expressed his strong belief that if the Government of Bangladesh continues to work closely with civil society organizations such as BRAC in the education sector, Bangladesh would be able to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in education.

During his visit to the school, the Minister was accompanied by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) South Asian Division Director Jim Drummond and senior officials from DFID Bangladesh. BRAC Deputy Executive Director Aminul Alam and Education Programme Director Safiqul Islam were also present.

The Korail North primary school which the Minister visited is one of 11 BRAC primary schools in Korail, providing BRAC’s groundbreaking non-formal primary education services to nearly 400 underprivileged children living in the slum. In addition to primary schools, BRAC Education’s Adolescent Development Programme also runs an adolescent centre in Korail. Over 37,500 non-formal primary and 24,000 pre-primary BRAC schools provide education to nearly 2 million children across the country.

Shahid Malik is the UK Member of Parliament for Dewsbury, West Yorkshire and was elected in May 2005. Within a year, he was appointed to the influential Home Affairs Select Committee and served as a PPS to Schools Minister Jim Knight. In 2007 he was appointed Minister for International Development in Gordon Brown's first government.