As many as 50,000 slum children of the country’s 11 city corporations are now given primary education as the government has taken a massive programme to bring all kids under the coverage of primary education.
Officials familiar with the programme said that a huge number of children of the country are still deprived of the facility due to financial inability of their parents.
With a view to providing primary education to all children of the country, the government has launched a scheme titled ‘Reaching Out-Of-School Children (ROSC) Phase-2 Project’.
As part of it, 50,000 children living in slums of 11 city corporations — Dhaka North City Corporation, Dhaka South City Corporation, Narayanganj City Corporation, Gazipur City Corporation, Chittagong City Corporation, Rajshahi City Corporation, Sylhet City Corporation, Khulna City Corporation, Barisal City Corporation, Rangpur City Corporation and Comilla City Corporation — have so far been brought under ROSC’s education programme, the officials said.
The project is being implemented by four non-government organisations — SEEP, CPD, SAAF and Incidin Bangladesh — with the financial support from the World Bank and Bangladesh Bank and the technical support from the Save the Children.
To this end, a workshop of Urban Slum Children Education Programme under the Directorate of Primary Education was held at its conference room at Mirpur in Dhaka on Saturday.
The induction programme was held to discuss overall implementation of the programme at the slums under the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC).Dr M Mizanur Rahman, Project Director (additional secretary) of the programme, spoke at the workshop as the chief guest, while Indu Bhushan Deb, divisional deputy director of Primary Education, chaired it.
Speaking at the workshop, Dr Mizan said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has given special priority to the project in line with the government initiative to ensure quality education to all children in the country.
“The project aims to bring the children who are not sent to the schools or dropped out from the schools due to financial incapability of their families under the coverage of primary education,” he said.
The dropped-out children have been given a second chance of education under the ROSC project, Dr Mizan said, adding the government has digitised education system and provided multimedia facilities in all schools across the country.
The project director stressed the need for a joint effort to implement the scheme with active participation of the public representatives from all wards of the city corporations.
“With the participation of all concerned, it would be possible to achieve the target set by the government to ensure quality education for all,” he said.
