Challenge

Children and youth face significant challenges like high school dropout rates, gang involvement, child labour, child marriage and unemployment. According to the World Development Report 2018, low quality teaching methods, poor school management, low funding for public schools and lack of early childhood development programs are reasons that Bangladeshi students lose 4,5 years of learning and hence learn less in school¹. In grade 5, only 25% of the students pass the minimum threshold in math¹ and 55% are not able to read and understand a short, age-appropriate text in Bangla⁴.

In 2023 the dropout rates were 14% from primary school, 37% from secondary school and 22% from high school². The enrolment rate in secondary education was 61%. This is largely due to factors like poverty, lack of interest in school, conservative thinking and youth gang involvement³. Many students feel disconnected from traditional schooling, often finding it boring or irrelevant to their lives, as it often focuses on memorizing facts in segregated subjects and leaves little room for taking responsibility, learning from own experience and develop critical thinking and decision-making skills⁸.

Nearly one third of the Bangladeshi population are children and youth⁵, and 10 million of them are out of school⁶. They are a huge resource for development in Bangladesh and globally. Our responsibility is to provide them quality education where learning become meaningful, manageable and fun. Where they use multiple subjects to solve real life challenges and in the experiential learning process engage all senses and feelings to connect, develop compassion and build character.

Our response