Unique efforts to end disparity in education
Unique efforts to end disparity in education
Teach for Bangladesh helps univ graduates teach at primary schools
"I teach for Imon and students like him… to keep them inside the classrooms and off the streets… so that they learn multiplication tables instead of swear words… get addicted to reading, not to smoking. I teach for Imon. I teach for Bangladesh."
The monologue about class III student Imon and how he was transformed from a school bully and a possible dropout to an eager learner was presented by Zarifa Zakaria, Imon's primary school teacher. But Zarifa is not a regular government teacher, who has been forced to take up the profession as her last choice.
Equipped with education from the country's top public institution, Dhaka University, she volunteered to work at Sher-e-Bangla Government Primary School in Mirpur, thanks to a fellowship programme run by non-profit organisation Teach for Bangladesh (TFB).
Zarifa and others from the first batch of fellows shared their experiences of teaching at primary schools of Dhaka yesterday at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel where TFB welcomed its 2015 fellows, who would go through a six-week training on teaching and later volunteer to work as teachers in primary schools.
Starting in 2012, TFB aims to fight educational disparities by bringing top talents from the best universities of the country under a two-year fellowship programme, during which they would teach full-time in low-income schools.
The fellowship includes stipends and one and a half years' evening master's programme on education leadership, planning and management at Brac University for free.
The first batch of 12 fellows has been teaching class II and III students in four government and two non-government primary schools in Dhaka.
The 31 fellows of the 2015 batch would be teaching in 17 more schools in the capital for two years from January 2015, said Abu Jafor, partnership development manager, TFB.
"With the help of the Department of Primary Education, Dhaka division, we select schools where the student-teacher ratio, teacher turnover and dropout rates are high and which suffer from resource constraints," he said.
The same batches of students will be groomed by the fellows till they take the junior school certificate (JSC) examinations.
Twenty-five-year old Saila Nusrat used to work at development firms after completing her master's in international relations from Jahangirnagar University. Hearing about TFB, she felt the urge to get involved in the programme.
"With an English medium schooling background and later shifting to Bangla medium, I knew how underprivileged students of government primary schools are," she said, explaining why she joined this movement.
"There are 800 students and only five teachers including two of us from TFB at Shaheed Tojo Government Primary School," she said, "From 7:30am to 1:30pm, we do not get even a minute to sit down and rest."
Saila and other 2014 fellows said they realised what a difficult and challenging job teaching was and pointed out how the paltry salary received by government school teachers was not at all justified.
"That is why they do not give their hundred percent," said Almeer Ahsan Arif, who graduated in electrical and electronics engineering from American International University Bangladesh.
Fellows also talked about the need to change curriculum and textbooks, and most of them aspire to work in the education sector to remove the lack of quality education and existing disparities there.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of TFB Maimuna Ahmad underscored the importance of believing in the potentials of children to help them realise their dreams.
Special guest of the programme, Dan Mozena, ambassador of the United States, where Teach for America began in 2007, termed TFB an education revolution and passion of fresh graduates as the key of that movement.