RAISING >2 BILLION HUMANS INTELLIGENCES BY 25 YEARS. After helping with recovery 1970 cyclone killing half a million of his compatriots, Fazle Abed was nearly assassinated by his employer Royal Dutch Shell and the Pakistani army. Fortunately he spent his remaining 50 years celebrating intelligence development of the poorest 2 billion parents notably growth of 1billiongirls. For over quarter of a century all networking was done by word of mouth and sight of book because in Asia 20th c village life still meant no access to electricity grids or telephone lines. Fortunately both Computing Whizs Jobs & Gates were both partly dis-satisfied with western apps of pc networks which they had begun in 1984. Around 2001 they both hosted silicon valley 65th birthday wish parties for Abed as global village tech envoy. Partners in life critical challenges had begun to bring abed's village mothers solar and mobile to co-create with. Abed changed the way Jobs saw tech futures of education (see ) and how Gates saw global health fund foundations and overall the valley's university stanford started to see as far as intelligence of Women and Youth goes the most life critical knowhow for 2 billion humans wasnt directly measurable in 90 day monetary flows; it was measurable in increased life expectancy by over 25 years during Abed's community servant leadership. Probably the greatest lift in intelligence until celebrations of what Fei-Fei Li opened the worlds eyes to in 2012, and Melinda Gates and Nvidia's Jensen Huang were first to helped AIforall lift since 2014.

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

5.5 brac worlds largest ngo adaptability collaboration - state as at madrid cop end 2019

 Liakath Ali, Director of the Climate Change Programme in BRAC [image by: Joydeep Gupta]

Going by the number of people involved as members or partners, BRAC is the world’s largest NGO. At the December 2-13 UN climate summit in Madrid, it announced that it will now tailor all its development programmes to minimise climate risk in Bangladesh. thethirdpole.net spoke to Liakath Ali, Director of the Climate Change Programme in BRAC, about the new plans of the organisation.

Excerpts:

Incorporating or mainstreaming climate change in development is the responsibility of governments; Why is BRAC taking on this responsibility?

The magnitude of the challenges posed by climate change needs action from all parties – both government and non-government – to solve the crisis and continue existence on the only planet we have got.  To make resilience mainstream is the key.

Since its inception BRAC has been working with the government of Bangladesh. The organisation has a reach of over 120 million people in Bangladesh and 11 other countries. We think mainstreaming climate resilience not the responsibility of governments only. It is our collective responsibility to face the biggest threat in human history.

What are the expected impacts of your new approach?

Conventional and business-as-usual approach in the development sector is not effective in overcoming the climate challenges. A comprehensive drive is a must. To do this in quick time and to cover more vulnerable people, mainstreaming is necessary. The concept of resilience talks about not only adaptation. It covers adaptive capacity, anticipatory capacity, adsorptive capacity and transformation. Through its various programmes, BRAC can do it faster than others.

For example, if we think of providing livelihood support without considering future climate change impacts, the support may not attain its objectives. If the climate change impacts are considered from the very beginning then the support could be more effective.

How are you mainstreaming climate resilience in your projects?

The most important initial action in mainstreaming is to assess organisational readiness, followed by proper capacity building, appropriate activity designing and allocating resources. BRAC has done an in-depth assessment of its readiness in mainstreaming climate change, formulated related policies such as BRAC climate change strategy, environmental and social safeguards, and an environmental policy. It also tries to align with governments’ policies, strategies and plans to deal with climate change.

The organisation has been doing capacity building of its staff. Right at the project design stage, we screen programmes through a climate lens. All programmes are made climate smart so that they are sustainable.

How many people have you reached? What is your target?

In 2018 alone, we reached 1.7 million people in around 336,000 households through integrated climate-resilient solutions. In 2020, the figure will reach 2.65 million.

Can you explain the services through which you are reaching people?

We support people with adaptive and climate resilient water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services, low cost resilient housing in urban and rural contexts, adaptive agricultural technologies, and livelihood options. We also provide climate information in our education curriculum, plant trees and provide solar home systems. We connect people to access finance, build capacity of our staff and create awareness. We are building capacity among the communities we work. We focus on working with the youth, our future leaders who will have to tackle climate change.

What are the challenges you face?

We are working in a dynamic situation. Sea level rise, salinity, frequency and magnitude of the climate-related disasters like floods and cyclones are increasing. Finding appropriate technology in every context is a big challenge. Another big challenge is to find money for climate-resilient projects. Yet another is the absence of long-term climate impact projections at a local scale. Due to this, it becomes more difficult to plan climate-resilient projects. For example, the Haor (wetland) areas in [north-eastern] Bangladesh usually experience flash flood in mid-May. But in 2017, the region had flash floods three weeks earlier, when around a million farmers were waiting to harvest their only crop. Two million tons of foodgrains were damaged. If we had known about this possibility, we may have advised farmers to sow crops that mature faster.

Friday, December 20, 2019

3 pbs

 

Fazle Hasan Abed

Founder and Chairperson
BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee)

Fazle Hasan Abed claims he is no miracle worker, but most of his colleagues would dispute that. Almost single-handedly, he has helped one of the world's poorest countries — Bangladesh — provide better health care for all its citizens. As founder and chairperson of BRAC (formerly known as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), Abed has garnered international attention for creating what many experts deem the most effective non-governmental organization [NGO] in the world.

Abed began his pioneering work in 1972, following Bangladesh's war of independence from Pakistan. "We were determined to bring about changes in the lives of poor people," he says. "We felt that whatever we do, we should try and replicate it throughout the nation if we can." Since then, BRAC has fought against poverty, disease, child mortality, and illiteracy by empowering poor rural women through bringing health care and education to their communities.

Scientists working in Bangladesh in the early 1970s had learned that a measured combination of sugar, salt, and water could prevent deaths from dehydration. Since our bodies are 70 percent water, it is dehydration that makes diarrhea the cause of 18 percent of child deaths worldwide. Abed's first major goal for BRAC was to teach mothers to make the lifesaving oral-rehydration solutions. "That involved going to every household in rural Bangladesh — 13 million households," Abed recalls. "And it took 10 years to do it." As a result, BRAC's oral-rehydration program reduced infant and child mortality from 258 deaths per 1,000 to 75 deaths per 1,000.

The majority of Bangladeshis are Muslim, and Abed realized that within each community, women would be most effective in teaching other women, many of whom were not permitted to leave their courtyards. But first, he realized, he had to win over their husbands and the male village chiefs, who would have to give their consent for any such community-wide activity. Achieving good health meant enlisting the political will of those in power. In the two decades since, women have made some gains in gender power in Bangladesh, and BRAC has helped to educate many men on the need for women to be educated and involved in health care and economic activities.

Today, BRAC is active in more than 68,000 villages and has 4.8 million group members. Abed introduced programs and initiatives that have enabled 3.8 million women, who are still the backbone of BRAC's organization, to establish village microfinance organizations that have to this point disbursed more than $1 billion in loans. These loans have allowed women to create small businesses poultry farming, cow rearing, and dairy farming; in addition the production of iodized salt, which helps prevent goiter, is now also possible. Such BRAC enterprises provide 80 percent of the organization's operating costs, with the rest coming from external donors. BRAC also works to control tuberculosis, with a major grant from the Global Fund for Tuberculosis, Malaria and AIDS. Over the years, one of BRAC's most critical contributions has been keeping poor rural children in school, and the organization now runs 31,000 one-room, one-teacher schools.

Abed's adept and tireless leadership of BRAC has brought him international renown and numerous awards. In 2004, he was honored with the Gates Award for Global Health and the United National Development Program's Mahbub ul Huq Award for Outstanding Contribution in Human Development. As evidence of his success, there are now BRAC branches in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. Abed's strategy has always been ambitious: "We thought nationally, worked locally, and looked for inspiration globally."

Return to Global Health Champions

3.1 1.2 abed obituary lancet

 Founder of BRAC. He was born in Baniachong village, in what is now Bangladesh, on April 27, 1936, and died of complications from glioblastoma in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Dec 20, 2019, aged 83 years. In the early years after the non-governmental organisation (NGO) BRAC was established in 1972, its Founder and Executive Director Sir Fazle Hasan Abed would travel for days to visit BRAC projects, spending hours speaking to people the agency was trying to assist. “He thought that was his responsibility and the responsibility of the organisation, that it should be working for the poor people and also women and disadvantaged groups”, said Mushtaque Chowdhury, who joined BRAC in 1977 and rose to be its Vice Chairperson before recently retiring. Abed would maintain that focus on the least advantaged, even as BRAC developed into one of the largest NGOs in the world, with programmes spanning public health, economic development, education, agriculture, and disaster relief. There is also a Dhaka-based BRAC University. “He has received many recognitions, but he never thought he should be remembered. He always felt that the work or the need of the people, that’s the legacy that he left for all of us to do”, said Kaosar Afsana, who began working with BRAC in 1992 and is now Professor at BRAC University’s James P Grant School of Public Health. Abed began on a very different career trajectory, studying naval architecture at the University of Glasgow in the UK before transferring to the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in London. He joined Shell Pakistan after returning home in 1968, and soon became head of the finance division. In November, 1970, a cyclone hit East Pakistan, as the country was then known, killing an estimated 300000 people. Abed mounted a humanitarian response, using his house as a headquarters for meetings and for organising supplies. He was still coordinating relief efforts in March, 1971, when West Pakistan’s military launched attacks in East Pakistan, sparking a war that eventually led to Bangladesh’s independence. After the fighting ended in December, 1971, he returned to a country ravaged by the conflict. Abed, who had moved to London during the conflict, sold a flat he owned there and used the money to provide food and build houses for people as they returned. “I didn’t have much of a vision at that time”, he said in a 2014 interview. “It was just a survival question. How does Bangladesh survive in a country which is devastated, ruined by bombing?” Those early relief efforts guided Abed’s founding of BRAC. Lincoln Chen was working at the Cholera Research Laboratory, now the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), when the cyclone struck and joined Abed with his relief work. “You always knew what he was doing was important and that what he was doing had innovative characteristics, but there was nothing that at any one time suggested its ultimate success. It was persistence and dedication”, said Chen, who is now President of the China Medical Board. Abed “redefined the role of NGOs”, Chowdhury said, with his focus on innovation and evidence gathering. “He would constantly monitor and improve the programmes.” Chen pointed to an early BRAC project to teach Bangladeshi women how to mix oral rehydration fluid and administer it to children with diarrhoea. The effort initially met with limited success, until Abed decided to pay the trainers based on whether mothers remembered how to mix the solution. “He had unprecedented ambitions and encouraged innovations”, Chen said. “I think that’s really how he reached a lot of success.” Known for saying “Small is beautiful, but big is necessary”, Abed oversaw BRAC’s growth, introducing and expanding programmes, including one of the world’s earliest microfinance initiatives, which now serves 7·1 million clients. “One of the things that BRAC has done because of his philosophy is show that you have to work at scale if you really want to change the plight of the people”, said Chowdhury, who is also Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, New York, USA. Abed oversaw BRAC’s geographical expansion, from operating solely in Bangladesh to running projects in four other Asian countries and in six in sub-Saharan Africa. As BRAC grew, Abed recognised that he could not depend on donors for support. He introduced social enterprises, such as milk processing and fish farming, that now cover a substantial proportion of BRAC’s operating costs. “That reflects his vision, that he would think BRAC will eventually need these resources and to be starting these small industries”, said Shams El Arifeen, the Senior Director of the Maternal and Child Health Division at icddr,b. “I cannot imagine what this country would have been without BRAC.” Abed leaves his wife, Sarwat Abed, daughter, Tamara, son, Shameran, and three grandchildren. Andrew Green

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

2

 ifpri s washington's  sdg 2 global hunger institute - hosted 6 2020 food conferences 1995 dc  , 2001 germany , 2004 uganda, 2007 beijing, 2011 delhi, 2014 addis ababa eyhiopia - sir fazle was on the advisory committee of the final 2014 conference along with experts footnoted

abed also contributed to book: the poorest and the hungry published 2009

  • Chapter 27 - Microfinance Interventions to Enable the Poorest to Improve Their Asset Base
    Fazle Hasan Abed


International Advisory Committee

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, Founder & Chairperson, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee

(BRAC), Bangladesh

Mr. Aly Abou‐Sabaa, Sector Operations Vice President, Governance, Agriculture and Human

Development, African Development Bank, Côte d’Ivoire

Hon. Dr. Akin Adesina, Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Ministry of Agriculture

and Natural Resources, Nigeria

Ms. Lystra Antoine, Director for Agriculture Development, DuPont Pioneer, USA

Mr. Tom Arnold, Concern Worldwide’s Special Representative for Hunger and Director

General, Institute of International and European Affairs, Ireland

Dr. Christopher Barrett, Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor of Applied Economics and

Management, Cornell University, USA

Ms. Catherine Bertini, Co‐chair, The Chicago Council Initiative on Global Agricultural

Development, USA

Ms. Paula Chalinder, Head of Profession, Livelihoods, Department for International

Development (DFID), United Kingdom

Dr. Shenggen Fan, Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), USA

H.E. Ato Newai Gebre‐ab, Chief Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister and Executive

Director of the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI), Ethiopia

Dr. Marion Guillou, Chair of the Governing Board, Agreenium, France

Mr. Michael Hailu, Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA),

The Netherlands

Dr. Franz Heidhues, Professor Emeritus, Center for Tropical Agriculture, University of

Hohenheim, Germany

Mr. Jeff Hill, Director for Policy, United States Agency for International Development

(USAID) Bureau for Food Security, USA

Hon. Dr. Agnes Kalibata, Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Rwanda

Mr. Henock Kifle, Senior Adviser to the President, International Fund for Agricultural

Development (IFAD), Italy

Dr. Sergey Kiselev, Director, Eurasian Center for Food Security, Lomonosov Moscow State

University, Russian Federation

H.E. John Agyekum Kufuor, Former President, Republic of Ghana, Ghana

Mr. David Malone, Rector, United Nations University, Japan

Ms. Bonnie McClafferty, Director, Agriculture and Nutrition, Global Alliance for Improved

Nutrition (GAIN), USA

‐ 53 ‐

Mr. Peter McPherson, President, Association of Public and Land‐grant Universities (APLU)

and Founding Co‐Chair, Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, USA

Dr. Steven Were Omamo, Director, Policy Program, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa

(AGRA), Kenya

Dr. Martin Piñeiro, Director, Grupo Consultores en Economia y Organizacion, Argentina

Dr. Prabhu Pingali, Professor and Founding Director, Tata‐Cornell Agriculture and Nutrition

Initiative, Cornell University, USA

Dr. Per Pinstrup‐Andersen, H.E. Babcock Professor of Food and Nutrition Policy, Cornell

University, USA

Dr. Hans‐Joachim Preuss, Managing Director, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale

Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Germany

Mr. Jaidev Shroff, Chief Executive Officer, UPL Limited, India

Ms. Kathy Spahn, President and Chief Executive Officer, Helen Keller International, USA

Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, Emeritus Chairman and Chief Mentor, M. S. Swaminathan Research

Foundation, India

Mr. Stephan Tanda, Executive Managing Board Director, Royal DSM N.V., The Netherlands

Dr. Greg Traxler, Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USA

Prof. Joachim von Braun, Director, Department of Economic and Technological Change,

Center for Development Research (ZEF), Germany

Dr. Emorn Udomkesmalee (Wasantwisut), Senior Advisor, Institute of Nutrition, Mahidol

University, Thailand

Sunday, December 1, 2019

2.6 continuing abed advancement goal s asia

 

with economistfood.com

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

CONFERENCE HASHTAG: #D4N2021

COVID-19 has disrupted health systems, nutrition services, and food systems around the world, including South Asia.  Research-based evidence and programmatic experiences are essential to support stakeholders to restore services and re-orient programs and policies to support better nutrition outcomes.

We, a consortium of co-hosts from around South Asia, are pleased to announce a virtual conference on ‘Delivering for Nutrition (D4N) in South Asia: Implementation Research in the Context of COVID-19’ on December 1-2, 2021. D4N 2021 aims to bring together evidence that can inform and support policy and program initiatives in South Asia to prioritize and improve maternal and child nutrition during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

With this overarching purpose, the key objectives are to:

  • Share evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on maternal and child nutrition
  • Highlight adaptations to support implementation of health and nutrition interventions and social safety net programs
  • Identify lessons learned from implementing programs to support maternal and child nutrition during the pandemic

We are inviting abstracts on research studies and implementation experiences, explicitly focused on COVID-19, and related to:

  • Implementation, coverage, and quality of maternal and child health and nutrition interventions/programs
  • Implementation, coverage and quality of social safety net programs
  • Impacts on infant and young child feeding practices, diet quality, food security, nutritional status or other outcomes
  • Other relevant implementation or research on nutrition and COVID-19

Thematic sessions will be based on selected oral and poster presentations. The Call for Abstracts is now closed. For any questions, please contact IFPRI-D4N-Conf@cgiar.org.

CO-HOSTS

List of co-hosts:

  • Aga Khan University (Pakistan)
  • Alive & Thrive (India)
  • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) (India)
  • Helen Keller International (HKI) (Nepal)
  • IDinsight (South Asia)
  • Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) (Sri Lanka)
  • International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) (Bangladesh)
  • International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) (South Asia)
  • National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) (India)
  • NITI Aayog (India)
  • SickKids Centre for Global Child Health (South Asia)
  • Standing Together for Nutrition (STfN) (Global)
  • Society for Implementation Science in Nutrition (SISN) (Global)
  • UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA) (Regional)
  • World Health Organization South-East Asian Regional Office (WHO-SEARO) (Regional)
  • World Bank South Asia (Regional)

 DELIVERING4NUTRITION 2020

Saturday, November 30, 2019

4.2 worlds happiest primary also most developmentally advancing

begun 1n 1984/5, brac's exponential acceleration of primary had built 30000 informal primary schools by 1995 -making brac the largest non-gov schools service - unlike gov schools which may have 5 teachers and classrooms, brac is one room one teacher (format partly resembling village montessori). this is a description from a 1998 paper:

BRAC : in 1995 there were 30,000 schools covering 900,000 students nationwide. BRAC schools are one-room classes of 30 students that give preferential enrollment to girls and to children from poor families. The teacher is usually a woman from the village with at least an eighth grade education who has completed an intensive teacher training course run by BRAC. The program’s policy is to maintain a 70–30 ratio of girls to boys among those enrolled. BRAC schools make an effort to enroll dropouts from the regular school system, and the curriculum developed by BRAC is intended to provide gender-sensitive, functional education

overall reference 4.2

in oct 2012 fazle abed made these contribution to a tweet Q&A hosted by UN- they reveal the sort of design brac primary schools serve

Tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. EST (10 a.m. GMT), BRAC will participate in a Tweetchathosted by the UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report to support the launch of its 2012 edition.

The hashtag for the Tweetchat (and the theme of the 2012 report), #YouthSkillsWork, refers to the growing recognition that education systems around the world need to do a better job equipping the growing percentage of young people who will be entering the workforce in the next decade – the so-called “youth bulge.”
Vocational skills are important. But empathy is also increasingly seen as a skill that is crucial to a wider and wider array of jobs, including many that don’t exist yet. That’s why, for example, Ashoka Changemakers ran a competition this summer on best models for teaching empathy in schools, and Harvard Business Review Blogger James Allworth argued that empathy is the most valuable thing they teach at Harvard Business School.
The subject of empathy came up right away when we asked BRAC founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed to name one educator that inspired him.
Here’s what Sir Fazle said:

“I would say my mother was my greatest teacher. She taught me the importance of even the poorest among us. More than anything, she taught me the value of empathy.”

“Mothers are always the best teachers. Any teacher has to teach with affection, to be affectionate like a mother. A child should feel like she’s been loved, and then the child learns because it’s coming from a loving person.”

Some of Sir Fazle’s comments may be surprising for some, coming from a man built the world’s largest development organization with a lifetime of hard work:

“My whole life, I did not have a disciplinarian. Neither my mother nor my father. Even my father, at 9pm, would say, ‘Go to bed, you don’t have to study anymore. You’ll do fine on the exam.’ I was actually taught not to work too hard!”

We asked if it’s better to be a tough teacher or a “soft” teacher. Sir Fazle replied:

“Being tough is not necessarily always good. Softer skills get the better out of children. Softer skills for me are always the more interesting approach, though I suppose there is always a role for a disciplinarian. Not too tough – but a disciplined teacher, because children do need to learn discipline.”

“Children should have their childhood – not just discipline, discipline, discipline, and study, study, study. My parents were all for me getting an enjoyable childhood.”

In these comments, you can start to see the origins of BRAC’s approach to education.BRAC started its primary education programmes in 1985, and from the beginning it adopted a different approach toward educating young minds. Rote learning was discouraged. Teachers were trained to teach in a more engaging and encouraging way, because school should be a place where children learn to think in their own.

Using this approach, we’ve already seen 10 million children pass though BRAC’s nonformal primary and pre-primary schools, the vast majority of them transitioning into government schools – where they perform better, on average, than their peers.

BRAC, of course, isn’t just about quality primary schooling, although it is the world’s largest private, secular education provider, with over 1 million students currently enrolled.Education continues into adolescence – and beyond the classroom.
For instance, our global network of adolescent girls’ clubs now has well over 270,000 members, with livelihood skills training combined with social empowerment – including life skills, conflict resolution and reproductive health for girls.
Skills training for adolescents is an important part of the puzzle, but the pathway out of poverty should start early. Primary schools in the developing world need to teach creative thinking, for those with an enterprising mindset, as Sir Fazle writes, are “more likely to spot and seize the opportunities their parents never had, giving them a chance to navigate their way out of the clutches of systemic poverty.”
We hope to hear from you tomorrow on Twitter at #YouthSkillsWork to discuss further.
For more, check out these links:

==============================

the 1998 paper offers context on how sustained efforts for women empowerment need to be when history has started from a completely opposite culture- noteworthy extracts

Changes in education policy such as the ones that have occurred in Bangladesh provide a unique opportunity to study factors that affect investments in children. They represent exogenous influences on a household’s decisionmaking about children’s schooling. Justification for the programs was based on the assessment that certain structural and familial factors act as barriers to schooling of children. The costs of schooling to families include direct costs for fees and books, as well as the more indirect costs of higher standards of nourishment and clothing that are perceived to be a necessary condition of attendance. Second, there are opportunity costs since children engage in various productive activities from an early age, and schooling 4 either translates into very long workdays for children or foregone income for the family (Amin 1996a). Under-investment in education may also be related to low expected returns from schooling: where school quality is poor, levels of learning are low and the prospects for improved earnings as a result of schooling are limited


The schooling of adolescent girls involves additional parental concerns. When schooling delays marriage, it may reduce the desirability of girls in the marriage market: while education is a valued attribute, so is young age at marriage for girls. Perceived risks are also associated with sexual safety. A girl whose sexual virtue has been compromised, in addition to suffering the psychological costs, also faces diminished prospects for marriage. Safety issues related to traveling to schools that are sometimes several kilometers away from the village is reported to be a significant factor in the decision not to send girls to secondary school. These costs generally outweigh the benefits of schooling, namely higher status, better opportunities for work in the formal sector, and better marriage prospects. Thus, in Bangladesh as in many other impoverished agrarian societies, the level of investment in children is the outcome of a complex decisionmaking process where parents’ ability and desire to invest in children are related to costs of education, opportunity cost of children’s time in school for the household, and expectations regarding returns to education. The social setting within the community and the macroeconomic environment also have a significant impact on the level of investment in and demand for schooling. In particular, the aggregate level of schooling in the community is likely to affect perceptions of costs of and returns to schooling. The presence of educated individuals offers direct evidence of what education can and can- 5 not buy in terms of opportunities and lifestyle. In most of rural Bangladesh, access to new employment opportunities, such as working for rural extension projects in agriculture, health, or credit, depends critically upon levels of education.


Female secondary school scholarship scheme. The government also initiated a scholarship scheme in 1994 for all girls enrolled in grades 6 and 9. This scheme was extended to girls in grades 7 and 8 starting in 1996. Entitlement to scholarships requires 65 percent school attendance and maintenance of a certain grade average in the previous year, but there are no criteria for economic exclusion. Schools receive a subsidy for each girl enrolled under this program, and the girls receive a monthly stipend deposited in their bank accounts. The stipend ranges from $1–2 depending on grade, and is of considerably lesser value than the wheat rations that children receive in primary school, which have a market value of $2–4. Parents of scholarship recipients are required to sign a bond guaranteeing that the girls will not be married before reaching 18 years of age. This program has been introduced throughout Bangladesh and thus it affects children of secondary school age in both study villages.

=============sept 2021 reprise

http://blog.brac.net/one-mans-journey-to-get-education-to-every-child-in-bangladesh-dr-safiqul-islam/

Bangladesh has seen a paradigm shift in the education sector. The year-wise dropout rate decreased from 47% to 19% between 2005-2017, and there are now more girls than boys in school. Dr Islam is one of the people who led these changes, and his legacy continues to inspire new generations of education leaders.

When BRAC began its journey in the newly-liberated Bangladesh, the food/population nexus was the most worrying issue in the country. Education took a back seat. There were several fundamental problems, with inadequate geographical reach of the formal education system being key amongst them. Many villages did not have a primary school near them, and parents did not feel safe letting their children travel for hours to and from a distant school.

Leaving no one behind 

BRAC supported the government’s efforts in education by bringing schools to every village, through over 40,000 informal ‘one-teacher one-room’ primary schools. The effort started, after meticulous research and piloting, with 22 schools in Bangladesh in 1985.

No one was left behind, through the schools, and a wide variety of other initiatives implemented to complement them. Mother-tongue based multilingual education opened opportunities for children in Indigenous communities to learn in their own languages. Adolescent development centres were safe spaces that provided access to leadership and life-skill based training, sports as well as performing arts. In secondary schools, teachers were trained, gifted students were turned into mentors for others and education was delivered through interactive digital content. Multi-purpose community learning centres, boat schools and mobile libraries increased access to learning and encouraged reading habits in the remotest regions.

BRAC University was established in 2001 as a crucial extension of BRAC’s work in education, where scholarships are offered in several categories, including academic merit, economic constraints, and students with disabilities.

Throughout all of these initiatives, a few threads were common – learning was joyful, lifelong learning was encouraged and all learning was value-driven, with the ultimate goal to build active citizens. 

Thirty years on, over 1,200 NGOs in Bangladesh have adopted the one-room school model, the Government of Bangladesh has adopted BRAC’s second chance at education model and BRAC schools have crossed geographical borders. Almost 15 million students have graduated from BRAC schools in Bangladesh, Africa and Asia.

BRAC already had the makings of a comprehensive education system when Dr Islam joined, but it was under his leadership that it expanded significantly. Once accessible only by the privileged, basic education became accessible for children from families with low incomes and families living in extreme poverty; as well as for children living in hard-to-reach and marginalised communities.

Read more: Educating a generation: Bangladesh’s barefoot teachers

Dr Islam received his PhD in Economics from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1985. He held a variety of positions at BRAC, including senior research economist. He joined the education programme in 1995, and became its director in 2004, a position he held until 2021



Dr Islam visiting a BRAC school in Bangladesh. © BRAC

Dr Islam always strived to make education an exciting experience for children. In his words, “Working for BRAC feels like you are connected to millions of children. A million children who have a dream to realise, and a million children who are enjoying their classrooms because they are full of fun”.

BRAC schools became a place where children were not compelled to study, but a place where they wanted to study. They became safe havens for children to leave the harsh realities of their struggles behind and just be children, where they could sing, dance, and paint.

Read more: Primary schools in Bangladesh to go digital, reaching 20 million students

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, BRAC’s Founder, set the bar high

“Our generation’s biggest luck was to have gotten the chance to work with and learn from someone like Sir Fazle. To watch, observe, and feel for something from close proximity – is what we learnt from him.” – Dr Safiqul Islam


Dr Safiqul Islam and Sir Fazle Hasan Abed looking at the artwork of students at BRAC schools in Bangladesh. © BRAC

Dr Islam was deeply connected with Sir Fazle and worked to achieve his vision of a world where everyone has opportunities throughout their career. He learnt from Sir Fazle and transferred the knowledge to each generation of leadership.



In 2009, when BRAC had more than 1.8 million children in over 64,000 primary and pre-primary schools, Sir Fazle asked a question: “Okay, Safiq bhai, tell me what percentage of our students are children of BRAC staff?” I understood then was that the quality of education in our schools needs to be so good that our staff would enrol their children in them. ” said Dr Islam.

From new graduates to staff members who spent years working at BRAC, Dr Islam listened intently to everyone and valued their input. “The BRAC team is two very distinct generations. The young people are here, fresh out of university. And then there is the generation of people who have been with BRAC for quite a long time. So, it is an interesting space to exchange experiences and understand how the young generation think about the future of BRAC, how they really want to lead the country, and to learn from what has been learnt so far”, Dr Islam said.


Dr Islam participating in a class in a BRAC school in the Rohingya camps, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. © BRAC

Read more: Back to school again: Assessing what students missed during school closings for COVID-19

In March 2021, Safiq retired as the director of BRAC’s education programme. His legacy will continue to inspire BRAC to think differently, to show compassion to all and to dream big. BRAC is grateful for more than three decades of relentless service from Dr Islam.

Read Dr Safiqul Islam’s blog pieces on The Good Feed.

 

Fahad Bin Touhid is the Communications Portfolio Lead for BRAC Education Programme, and Miftahul Jannat Chowdhury is a Content Specialist at BRAC Communications.

BRAC started working in education in 1985. Its high quality, affordable, scalable schooling model has made it the world’s largest provider of private secular education. Its holistic approach to lifelong learning, addressing educational needs from early childhood to higher academic levels supported over 15 million students across five countries to graduate to date.


4.2

 

As Bangladesh struggled to recover from war in the 1970s, businessman Fazle Hasan Abed knew he had to help. He sold his flat in London, returned home, and founded the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, or BRAC.
 
One of the most important issues they tackled was girls’ education. The war had left many families relying on their children—especially girls—to work the family farms. As a result, less than 2 percent of Bangladeshi girls were in school.
 
So BRAC started an education program. In every one of their schools, at least 70% of the students had to be girls. The teachers had to be local women, books and materials were free, and schedules worked around the growing season.
 
Since then, BRAC has enrolled millions of girls in thousands of classrooms around the world.
 
As #BRACTurns50, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
couldn’t be prouder to partner with this remarkable organization.