07 March 2013, Dhaka. Celebrating one year of operation in Philippines, BRAC is making progress towards reaching its goal of bringing the light of education in the troubled region of Muslim Mindanao. A year ago at the launching programme, BRAC’s founder and chairperson Sir Fazle Hasan Abed said, “What BRAC brings to the Philippines is not just an education delivery system but a vision of a just and fair society which is based on educating our children. It’s through this partnership of vision and action that can take the people forward. With the support of the Philippines Government and development partners, we are hopeful to make great progress with this challenging task at hand."
Public education in the ARMM faces a shortage of teachers. The drop-out rates for basic education are high, while the completion rate is low. These problems are particularly acute in the conflict-affected areas of Mindanao, where there are as many school-age children and youth who have dropped out of school as those who are still in school.
BRAC’s schools in ARMM are delivering education using a curriculum and instructional materials which were developed based on the Philippine’s standard proficiencies for pre- primary and elementary education, enhanced in the local cultural context. Complementing the work of the Department of Education in ARMM, BRAC is implementing its successful alternative schooling model which spread from Bangladesh to six other countries.
Inspired by the critical pedagogy of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, BRAC schools offer a second chance to children to think for themselves at the primary and pre-primary level rather than relying on outdated systems of rote memorization. The schools are run with the active support and advice of the communities they serve, with schoolteachers chosen from among local women. With 1.1 million students enrolled as of 2012, BRAC is the world’s largest private, secular education provider.
