Excellent results for OIST students

Country-wide exams are a requirement for students studying civil engineering and computer technologies at Oasis Institute for Science and Technology. At the end of each school year, the Bangladesh government issues these standardized tests to assess students’ progress with the national curriculum for each subject. In recent exams, OIST students in both programs performed extremely well, with a pass rate of 85% for first-year students compared to an average passing rate of 25% in the seven other polytechnic colleges in the area. For second year students, the passing rate was 84% compared to 33% elsewhere. Looking only at the highest grades, 31% of first year and 63% of second year OIST students scored over 3.25 out of a possible 4.0, compared to averages of 9% and 14% at the other colleges.  Congratulations to the students for their good work.

Congratulations also to OIST faculty who prepared the students so well. We are grateful for this highly dedicated group, who also make extra effort outside class time to coach students in professional behaviour and English, which are not covered in the required curriculum. During a spring 2024 site visit, OFP Founder Rabiul Islam and BHP Directors John Richards and Alex Berland met with faculty at OIST. When asked about their priorities for OIST, the faculty mentioned computer hardware and software, classroom furniture and materials-testing equipment for the skills lab.

OIST supports a major goal of the Bangladesh Health Project by creating the conditions for healthy lives through professional education for youth in the poorest division of Bangladesh. Starting a private non-profit college is a big task, however. Each year as students progress to new learning challenges, we need to purchase more sophisticated equipment for the skills labs. We rely on donor contributions to purchase learning tools and equipment for the civil engineering and computer technologies programs. If you would like to support development of these training resources,  please visit our donations page or contact us directly.

Keeping kids in school

Bangla or Bengali uses 29 consonants and 14 vowels as well as many combined vowels

According to UNICEF, Bangladesh ranks among the top 10 countries in the world with the highest levels of child marriage. Background characteristics such as poverty, living in a rural area, and less education make early marriage and childbirth more likely. In our recent survey of families living near Bluebell School, we learned that about 60% of the parents of young children could not read or write. In addition to being unable to help with schoolwork, many parents may be more interested in sending their children to work or into marriage than to school. The head teacher at Bluebell recently persuaded one family to allow continued schooling for a Bluebell graduate now in Grade 8 at a nearby government school. OfP supports initiatives to keep female students in secondary school such as bursaries to poor families and assistance with costs for textbooks and fees. Please contact us if you would like to contribute to operation of OfP’s primary and pre-primary education programs or to individual support for secondary and post-secondary students.

Assessing Primary Student Learning

Bluebell School provides children with a decent, no-fees education from pre-school to grade five. Most students are from a nearby social housing “cluster village” for ultra-poor families. On a recent site visit, BHP Director John Richards completed another of his on-going evaluations of Bluebell students. This year, for comparison, we included a sample of students attending schools in the nearby town of Balagram, using a survey protocol developed by an Indian NGO so that we could also compare results in Pakistan and India. Due to the small size of Bluebell school, all students in grades 3 to 5 were surveyed.

John discussing progress with two of the volunteer surveyors.

The in-home survey used two simple tests for reading and arithmetic skills:

·         ability to do subtraction and division: The share of students able to do subtraction and division in Bluebell (16.7%) is nearly twice that in Balagram schools (8.9%). The all-India government school average at grade 5 (21.6%) is higher than in Bluebell.

·         ability to read grade 2 level story: The reading result is slightly better among the Balagram school students (46.7%) than in Bluebell (43.3%) and both are better than grade 5 Indian children attending government schools (38.5%).

The results are somewhat disappointing. Two important factors are, firstly, learning loss during the COVID pandemic when all schools were closed for nearly two years. Bluebell teachers provided in-home support but this was not sufficient, perhaps in part because of the second factor: inability of students’ parents to support learning. Only 40% of Bluebell students have at least one parent able to read; in Balagram, 70% of surveyed families have at least one literate parent.

Meeting with Bluebell teachers in guest-house

Our follow-up meeting focused on solutions including rearrangements and replacements in teachers and lesson plans. Bluebell teachers will also intensify their efforts to help students become active learners through group study, mixed-age lessons, community service projects (clean-up, tree planting, helping parents at home), regular parent-teacher interactions, and home visits when students are absent.

OFP Founder Rabiul Islam summed up the situation, “Children attending Bluebell School are at high risk of dropout because of their families’ illiteracy, unawareness of educational outcomes and poverty. They remain vulnerable to rollback so quickly. We will continue our focus on continuous improvement and assessment, confident that our children will be able to do better in the near future.”