Education Programs
With just two years to go until the deadline for the Education for All (EFA) goals to be met, it appears that universal primary education (UPE) will be missed by a large margin. According to Education For All’s 2012 Global Monitoring Report the number of primary school age children out of school has fallen from 108 million to 61 million since 1999, but three-quarters of this reduction was achieved between 1999 and 2004. Between 2008 and 2010 progress stalled altogether. An indicator that is often sited as progress toward Millennium Development Goals is gross enrollment rates or the number of primary school age children enrolled in school. However, too little attention has been placed on whether children start primary school on time (age six) and whether they actually remain in school, and further yet, actually learn. Often government capacity to provide quality education has not been able to keep pace with increased enrollment rates. In Bangladesh for example where I worked with education programs of Save the Children USA, the World Bank claims that one in three children who actually start primary school, leave school before completing their primary education and only 22% of those children who actually complete primary school attain acceptable standards of numeracy and literacy. The education programs I worked with involved both formal and non-formal primary education as well as early childhood development and school health and nutrition components. The following baseline report for one of our non-formal primary education programs, SHIKHON, which means Learning in Bangla, funded by DIFD – the UK’s Department for International Development -- and Dubai Cares, describes the overall primary education situation in Bangladesh. I was the lead writer for this report. Conditions in Bangladesh are not unique as EFA’s Policy Paper 07 testifies. It is my firm belief that if harnessed properly ICT (Information and Communication Technology) can help to improve this situation by enhancing teacher training and enabling children to access the benefits of the world wide web and web 2.0 technologies.
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The SUCCEED project was a highly successful early childhood development (ECD) program of Save the Children in Bangladesh. One of the greatest contributions of SUCCEED was the evidence that it generated around quality preschool provision in Bangladesh, and its impact on children’s success in primary school. Reflective Statement: Select this link to access my reflections, not so much on the SUCCEED project, but on the importance of evidence based programming. This website was designed by a truly virtual and international team as part of our course work for a Developing Multimedia Materials class at The George Washington University. The module was created to reinforce basic Grade 2 mathematics skills in government primary schools of Bangladesh. This mathematics course was designed to supplement and enhance current traditional mathematics courses, as it can be used as either a stand-alone instructional module or instructor led. The interactive module was designed in Adobe Captivate and included video clips for teachers on suggested approaches for presenting the content in the classroom. Reflective Statement: Select this link to access my reflections on ICT in Education and to learn about a pilot initiative I spearheaded for Save the Children in Bangladesh. Additional Links to ICT in Education |