News from OfP

Bluebell School is experiencing growing pains. Total student enrolment is now 109 with 16 new students joining last year. As the student numbers increase, the teachers have recommended changes to make the building more functional. One extra-large room has now been divided into two classrooms. The outdoor toilet was also recently rebuilt at the request of the teachers. It had previously been repaired several times but with increased demand needed a new design. 

Outdoor toilet under construction at Bluebell School

Textbook distribution is always an exciting event at Bluebell School. Books are published and freely supplied by the government through the Upazila Education Office. As a registered school, Bluebell makes the necessary arrangements to secure enough books for all the students. BHP pays for many other books and learning materials supplied to students by OfP.

Students from OfP Institute of Science and Technology participated in area-wide sports programs, competing against students from other post-secondary institutes. The OIST team did well all the way to the semi-finals but did not win in the final round of competition.

Educating the future workforce

IUBAT nursing students with visiting faculty volunteers

In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Nicholas Eberstadt writes, “In the foreseeable future, many poorer countries will have to contend with the needs of an aged society even though their workers are far less productive than those in wealthier countries. Consider Bangladesh: a poor country today that will be an elderly society tomorrow, with over 13 percent of its 2050 population projected to be seniors. The backbone of the Bangladeshi labor force in 2050 will be today’s youth. But standardized tests show that five in six members of this group fail to meet even the very lowest international skill standards deemed necessary for participation in a modern economy: the overwhelming majority of this rising cohort cannot ‘read and answer basic questions’ or ‘add, subtract, and round whole numbers and decimals.’”

We have written frequently about BHP efforts to tackle this problem, including our delivery of free pre-school and primary education in a rural village; advocacy for meaningful, national-level student assessments, and BHP Director John Richards’ book on education in South Asia. As a tiny organization, however, BHP has only limited impact. We are hopeful that the education reform group now making recommendations to the interim government in Bangladesh will be able to achieve more substantial change.

Towards Education for All

A major scholarly text co-authored by BHP Director John Richards with Manzoor Ahmed and Shahidul Islam, was recently published in a low-cost version for Pakistan. (Last year, a similar low-cost version was published for Bangladesh.) The Chairman of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission attended the launch event for “The Political Economy of Education in South Asia: Fighting Poverty, Inequality, and Exclusion – Pakistan edition” in Islamabad in late August. The book explores reasons behind poor results of government primary schools in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Nepal – particularly for literacy and numeracy. It examines the rapid expansion of non-government schools over the past two decades and compares teacher training, hiring, and management in South Asian schools with education practice in other countries. One reviewer comments, “This book is an excellent reference for education policy-makers and practitioners in all regions of the world as they struggle to make education systems more resilient and keep the SDG4 progress on track.” Read more about BHP support for primary education, throughout our blog or contact us for more information at BangladeshHealthProject@proton.me