Md. Bayazid Khan :
A significant number of people in the South Asia and Africa live below the poverty line. Emancipation from poverty directly and closely depends on increased number of educated people. But unfortunately huge number of people in these countries are still not enrolled or dropped-out of education. According to a report of UNESCO in 2012, 61 million children of primary school age and 71 million of lower-secondary school-aged children were out of school over the world. Another UNESCO report published on 5, June 2013 showed that 57 millions children all over the world are out of school, 49% of whom are never enrolled into schools and 23% are dropped-out. One half i.e. 30 millions live in Africa.
But the scenario in case of Bangladesh is different from Africa. In the last few years government of Bangladesh has taken lots of effective initiatives in the education sector and therefore achieved a lot of success in both primary and secondary education. Success can be measured in the education sector as bringing almost all the school-going children to schools, increase of girls’ enrolment, increased rate of attendance, removal of gender disparity etc. Specifically net enrolment rate in primary schools has increased from 90.8% in 2009 to 99.7% in 2013. The rate of children completing a five-year primary education cycle increased from 52.1 per cent in 2005 to 70.30 per cent in 2011. The dropout rate decreased from 47.2 per cent to 29.7 per cent over the same period. The dropout rate now in 2013 was 29 per cent.
Besides attaining significant success in crucial indicators of education, the country needs to develop more as literacy rate of the country is only 65%. A country never thinks of attaining sustainable development keeping 35% people of its total population illiterate. So this might be the challenge for the government to literate its entire people especially the vulnerable people and people of ethnic minority as well as to reduce drop out rate in all stages of education i.e. primary, secondary and higher education level. Bangladesh like other south Asian and African countries have tea gardens, low lying areas and hard to reach areas where significant number of children has been identified as dropped-out and never enrolled. Moreover dropped-out and never enrolled children are still found in the areas of these countries where families of vulnerable groups of people live. This is really detrimental to reduce poverty when unemployment is high and labour markets are demanding more skilled and educated workforces than ever before. Here theory of ‘Vicious Cycle of Poverty’ is working as on the one hand drop out rate is increasing due to poverty and on the other poverty remains because of drop out of children from schools. Since education is a powerful driver of development and one of the strongest instruments of reducing poverty, therefore the government of Bangladesh badly need to take new initiative to bring all the dropped out and never enrolled children into education through creating relaxed and congenial learning environment suitable for them.
It will be more feasible for the government to set up Second Chance Learning Centre in the areas where high risk families with vulnerable group of people live, just to create opportunities for school leavers to return to education. The goal of second Chance Learning Centre is not only to bring dropped out students return to education but also to help students understand that education will empower them to open the doors of opportunities. It should be the prime responsibility of the centre to motivate dropped out students so that they feel they didn’t make full use of their first chance in education.
Since the aim of second chance alternative education is to give learners a second chance education in a non-threatening environment which is learner-centered, so courses, subjects, teaching-learning time and location of centers should definitely be convenient to the students. Second Chance Education Centre should provide students education which is desired and suitable for real life in a relaxed environment by educating and teaching them through mentoring, personal tutoring and counseling. Centers also should promote education with scholarships, grants and providing meals or foods during teaching-learning time. Centers can be used for early year, primary and secondary courses as well as for non-formal education course for the adults in day time, evening time and at night so that these will be cost effective to the government. Teaching-learning timetable should be flexible and it will be decided considering learners’ comfort.
There should be a wide range of disciplines and subjects for each course and the courses should be designed to prepare students or learners necessary for work by giving them specific skills and training and also act as a stepping-stone to qualifications suitable to receive next stage of higher education. It will be wise to develop the curriculum for the students of these centers by injecting ideas of introducing their ( tea garden workers, tribes, vulnerable groups of people etc.) socio-economic conditions, natural environment, cultures and rituals, life styles, issues and ways of addressing issues in professional activities etc. There should be opportunities in the centers to receive vocational training by the students suitable and relevant to their profession so that they may utilise their learning in the respective profession just to own the learning from the centers.
To ensure education of dropped-out as well as those who never enrolled in schools in the hard-to-reach areas of the country through Second Chance Learning Centre, it will be effective to bring parents or guardians of children under Social Security Network providing allowances or incentives so that they may encourage ensuring regular attendance of their children in the centers. It can be mentioned that Bangladesh government strengthened its social security network by providing freedom fighters allowances, widows and distressed women allowances, allowances for old people, stipend for poor but meritorious primary children, stipend for girl students till higher secondary class etc. So, without dilly-dallying government may think of setting up second chance learning centers to ensure education of dropped-out and never enrolled children as well as to literate adult learners through non-formal and informal methods of learning.
