CARE Bangladesh Education Program
School Effectiveness Through Union Parishad (SETUP)
A brief description of project
Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in enrollment of children in school since the Jomitien Declaration on Education for All, but the country has not been very successful in addressing and achieving equity, quality, and efficiency of the delivery of primary education across the nation. The wastage in education is very high due to internal inefficiencies such as high dropout, grade repetition, poor quality of learning -- at school level. These are serious concerns for all those who are involved in education sector. In 2003 CARE Bangladesh initiated a pilot project – ‘School Effectiveness Through Union Parishad’ that is designed to bring about effective primary schools through the involvement of Local Government (Union Parishad), Community Stakeholder groups, parents specially mothers and the District level education administrative system in four Unions of two District namely Gaibandha and Rangpur.
The SETUP project is formulated on the experience of BUILD/IFSP project to develop capacity of the Union Parishads (UPs) and community to address the issue of accountability of primary education sub-sector investment by exercising their democratic rights to bring about a change process to have effective schools. The project directly relates with Rights Based Approach (RBA) and Governance initiatives and is a important step towards reorientation of CARE Bangladesh education programs along the Rights Based Approach.
The project aims to Enhance the Efficacy of Public Primary School system to ensure quality of education to children through four specific objectives:
1. Ensure the elected Local Government body - the Union Parishad, achieves the necessary operational capacity to carry out their expected role and function through the ‘Standing Committees for Education’. 2. Build capacities in community groups -- Stakeholders, Parents and Mothers to actively participate in School Management Committee and school related activities and consciously support their children’s education; 3. Improve primary school teacher’s quality to improve quality of instruction and gender sensitivity in classroom instruction to improve students’ learning achievement and narrower the gender disparity in learning achievement. 4. Increase flow of public resources to schools through Union Parishad, the local government elected body.
The SETUP pilot is implemented in four Upazilas: Gongachara, Mithapukur, Gobindogonj and Saghata, with four government schools and more than 1200 children. Community members, parents, teachers, local public representatives as well as Government official of Primary Education Department are all geared to play important role in the project. 1 Key Inputs: Training to the Union Parishad members and Education Standing Committees; Meetings with Education Standing Committees and Government Education Officers; Training to School Management Committees, Mothers Groups and Community stakeholders; Teachers Training; Having Change Agents from the community to coordinate between the several groups; Parents conference; Student Parliament; Classroom/School observations and Feedback to school and different committees; Monitoring and Follow-up
Major Achievement of the project: The SMC is more active, transparent and accountable; The Standing Committee Members and the Chairman of Union Parishads are in contacts with the schools in their locality; Parents are more conscious about sending their children to school resulting to significant increase in attendance and decrease in drop-out rates; Strong and active mothers’ groups able to challenge SMC and teachers for irregularities or child abuse in the schools. Teachers making a shift from the traditional lecture method to a more participatory activity-based and interactive learning method; Increased opportunities for creative skills in the classroom; Contribution from Union Parishad, SMC, Teachers and Parents in improving school, such as, organizing a library, putting up fences, improving the latrine, installing tube-wells, ceiling fans, etc.
Shortcomings and Constraints Lack of resources for major improvement in school premises; Difficulties in resource mobilization from Upazila level; Very small fund in Union Parishad for education purpose; Lack of proper monitoring from Government; Inadequate government support in the schools; Monitoring from the project is not taken positively by some teachers and government officials; Non-functional stakeholder groups.
2 Few Cases: 1. Sukhitan saved from child marriage In Gaibandha early marriage of girls is still practiced. In one of the SETUP schools it was found that parents of a 11-years old girl, Sukhiton, were arranging marriage for her. The parents were very secretive about it, but the girl informed the Change Agent of SETUP. Immediate actions were taken, the UP Chairman called her parents and held a meeting with few other leaders of the community. Finally the parents were convinced to delay the marriage of Sukhitan, at least, until she completes primary education.
1. Mothers make a difference in Children’s Education Many of the poor families in rural Bangladesh take their children out from school after a certain age (usually after 10 years) and engage them in various income-generating activities. Likewise some children from SETUP schools also dropped-out because their parents thought that there was no use of further studies for these children, who could instead contribute to family income by being engaged in family work. When schools informed the mothers groups about it the mothers visited the parents of these children. They found that most of the children were engaged in working as domestic aid in rich households, some engaged in biri (tobacco) factory and others as laborers in agricultural field. The mothers groups called a meeting with these parents and had long discussions on the need for primary education and children’s future and also on the harmful effects of child labor. One meeting was not enough, the members of mothers groups continued paying visits to these households and kept talking to the parents and also other household members. Other respectable persons in the community were also urged to talk to parents and motivate them to bring back their children to school. As a result of these efforts about 19 children came back and started regular schooling. According to the children it is much easier and more fun to learn at school than do domestic work at people’s houses. The Mothers Groups decided that they would take an initiative to motivate women in the community not to engage young children as domestic aid or in the biri factory as it could do permanent damage to a child’s growth and development.
2. SMC acts against corruption Recently the Government of Bangladesh has introduced a stipend program for children of poor household to support them in completing primary education. In this program 40% of the students receive Tk. 100 per month. Unfortunately some teachers take advantage of the ignorant parents and do not provide the full amount of stipends to the students. The SMCs of SETUP schools, on becoming aware, keep a close watch on the distribution of stipends and also validates the candidates who are receiving it. In one of the schools, one of the teachers was found to be guilty of withdrawing the stipend money from the bank on behalf of the parents and never distributed it to the deserving candidates. He informed the parents that the money is being delayed from the Upazila level. The SMC contacted with the Upazila Education Office and learned that the money was disbursed long time ago and they also found that the school teacher had withdrawn the total amount. The SMC immediately gave warning to the teacher and asked him to return the money within a week. The teacher sold his cows and distributed the amount to all the candidates within one week and vowed in front of the community that he will
3 never do such thing again. However the SMC decided that official action would be taken if the teacher is found guilty of such acts one more time.
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