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4th Asia-Pacific
Urban Forum in Hanoi (12-14 October 2005)
Symposium D: Education
In Symposium D participants discussed the challenges for non-formal
education and how it could integrate with the formal system. Mr
Samir Nath from BRAC, a Bangladeshi NGO, narrated how BRAC had
become the largest provider of education in the country next to
the government.
Having set out with 22 single-room, one-teacher schools, BRAC’s
education programme included 34,000 schools all over the country
by 2001. Besides, a comparative study assessing basic competencies
had shown that the students of BRAC schools did significantly
better than their counterparts in the government primary schools.
One of the achievements of BRAC was that they were able to reach
those children who had never enrolled or had dropped out from
the existing formal school system due to poverty or the existing
gender barrier. To this end, regular parent-teacher meetings had
been introduced to help parents better understand the school and
what role they needed to play and help teachers familiarize themselves
with the parents’ views about the school. One practical
lesson of these meetings had been that classes should be offered
on a flexible time schedule adapted to the seasonal needs of the
families. Along with the above, visits by the teachers and the
programme organizers to the homes of those learners who were not
attending regularly had contributed to protecting learners from
dropping out.
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During the discussion that followed it was suggested that in
order to increase the access to education, national governments
should grant local governments as well as NGOs the right to run
schools and provide funds to assist them in such endeavors. At
the same time, it should recognize the value of informal education.
Apart from the need to increase the availability of education
opportunities participants identified the question of school dropouts
as a priority issue.
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Symposium
A: Localizing MDGs
Symposium
B: Urban Environment
Symposium
C: Health
Symposium
D: Education
Symposium
E: Gender Equality
Symposium
F: E-Governance
Symposium
G: HIV/AIDS
Symposium
H: Children
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