BHP Director John Richards recently published an article in the Daily Star, Bangladesh’s leading English-language newspaper. He and co-author Shahidul Islam of Queen’s University write, “The good news is that politicians, if they place high emphasis on school learning outcomes, can make significant improvements, even in neighbourhoods where children's families have few books and many parents are illiterate.” This is the situation in Balagram where we support OFP’s education programs, Bluebell School and the Early Learning Centres (photo).
“The only resource we can develop for certain is our human resources,” say Richards and Islam, “Bangladesh can realize a demographic dividend. However, to realize it we need to invest more on education and improve the education status of the next generation's work force. Good quality education is the necessary input. Period!” Working with USAID, Shahidul also produced this video about helping primary school children to improve reading and comprehension.
For economic development in Bangladesh, all of the next generation must learn to read and write