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School on Wheels ...
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Making Basic
Education Easily Accessible To Underprivileged
Children
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There are more than six million
working children in Bangladesh, a large number of
them living in urban areas. Education is not
meaningful, attractive or accessible to them. Most
of them are engaged in hazardous activities, working
on average 48 hours per week and earning a very low
amount of money. It |
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is well understood that banning
child labor would not solve the problem since
unemployment precipitates the poverty of children
and rather increases juvenile crime and social
problems.
ChangeMaker is planning to provide education
opportunities to these urban working children and
adolescents. It is expected that the graduates would
experience improved livelihood conditions through
enhanced employment opportunities which would enable
them and their future generations to come out of the
vicious circle of poverty. The initial direct result
would be that working children can now have access
to basic education and would contribute to the
national goal of “Education for All” as well as
development of productive human resource. |
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Recognizing the demands of the
reality of urban working children and adolescents,
the mobile schools would enable the education
facilities at their door-step allowing attractive,
non-conventional education structure and flexible
school timing which is expected to overcome the poor
image of conventional schools and teachings
practiced in school. The school would provide basic
education, work safety awareness, health care
facilities, as well as counseling. The school would
also cater to development of different co-curricular
potentials of children through art,
drama, music, |
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sports and educational tours and
excursions. These social, physical and spiritual
developments are expected to shape children into responsible
citizens for the future. Through a mobile facility ChangeMaker believes that children and adolescents
would be able to develop not only as productive and
responsible citizens but also regain their self
confidence and self esteem. After completion of the
basic education the children can peruse formal and
higher education in general school.
It is expected that the project will raise the socio
economic condition of urban poor working children and
adolescents to a level so that they can efficiently
participate in national development with enhanced capacity,
dignity and fulfillment of their basic rights. The project
is expected to increase access to general education.
ChangeMaker plans to integrate the government, private
sector enterprises, and other civil society organizations in
the process to make the project sustainable through their
contribution and commitment.
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Why did we think of mobile school? |
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A mobile school system could be
an effective strategy for attracting the socially
and economically challenged children who have little
faith and confidence on traditional schools and
learning environment. In the past many different
approaches have been taken by government and NGOs to
make education available to these underprivileged
children. All of these programs involved fixed
school and formal education, following the main
stream curriculum. Unfortunately these approaches
failed to sustain in the long run. The key reason
for these programs going ineffective
was because the working |
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children were unable to deal with
the full time task load, and the main stream
curriculum was little applicable in the practical
fields for these children. Moreover, the entire
setup was not appealing to these children. To the
children living in the slum areas the importance of
education itself held a very low awareness and
interest, and the schools failed to attract them to
make the extra effort to enroll and continue the
formal education. Another drawback that was observed
on this issue is that the parents and employers were
not involved with the school activities, which made
it hard for them to get to the core of the impacts
these schools can make in life.
To address these issues ChangeMaker came up with the
concept of mobile school where the school will reach
out for its target pupil (street and working
children) and make education available at their
convenience as well as making it exciting for them.
What do we want to do?
To provide non-formal education classes for “out of
school” and working children (7 to 18 years of age)
residing in the slums and on streets and workplace.
Also provide them with knowledge on social,
economical and environmental issues through
infotainment – a system where critical and urgent or
life-oriented information is provided through
entertainment media. Since the target group for this
project involves the underprivileged, working or
very poor children, who neither can afford to have
mainstream education or healthy entertainment, our
goal would be to give them education in an
entertaining way to make it more appealing to them.
The mobile school will also incorporate health
services, such as basic check up, first aid,
vaccination, immunization and de-worming to address
the needs of the underprivileged children. Therefore
the mobile school would do the following:
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Provide education and literacy at the door-step of
the economically and socially chllenged children |
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Promote awareness of social issues associated with
illiteracy and poverty |
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Provide health care services and build awareness of
health safety |
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Provide different co-curricular potentials of
children through art, drama, music, sports and
educational tours and excursions. |
How will the System
Operate?
The mobile school would enable to reach out to children on the
street, and at their workplaces at the factories, construction
sites, hawkers, etc. Migrant population in Dhaka that is greatly
affected by frequent demolition of slums and hutment will be the
main beneficiary of the project.
The mobile school will be made by converting a bus into a
classroom. Facilities of textbook and other materials will be
arranged inside the bus, like the existing mobile-library.
Special features, such as, logo, jingle, illumination etc will
be assigned to the bus to make it easily recognizable to the
target group of children, as well as to their parents and
employers.
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The bus will provide a classroom for the children at
their convenience. |
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The bus will be equipped to provide with books and
multimedia as education materials |
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A general physician will be present on site to
provide children with first aid and safety tips and
specific health issues will be addressed once a month by
specialized doctors/ physicians at each location |
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An educational trip, parents meeting or celebrity
guest meeting will be arranged once a month. These
sessions will be open to children and their parents/
employers so that they can visualize the benefit of the
mobile school. |
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Awareness program for parents and employers to
encourage them to send their children to mobile school |
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Cultural events can also be arranged on special
occasions |
Each day the bus will make two trips, one in
the morning and another in the afternoon. Every alternate day
the bus will go to the same location. There will be one weekend
review session for those who are unable to attend school on
weekdays. Approximately 30 to 50 children will be enrolled in
one class. Every 6 months the locations will be changed to bring
larger area under project coverage. Eventually the project can
be replicated in major districts allover the country.
The mobile school would also target the parents or employers
where agricultural and business ideas, social issues, hands on
skills like stitching, knitting, painting etc. will be
conferred.
What to Expect out of the Project?
Right to knowledge and skills is one of the major concerns of
child right according to the survival and development rights
under the convention on the rights of children (CRC). Every
child has right to acquire knowledge and skills that is required
for their betterment in life. Unfortunately a large number of
children in Bangladesh barely live their lives under the poverty
line and are deprived of the very basic needs. Survival itself
becomes so hard on them that the words of ethics and knowledge
become an alien concept to them. Change Maker intends to bring
light to these lives though undertaking the project “School on
Wheels”. The changes we expect through this project are:
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Development of knowledge and skills for a better life |
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Increasing health safety through proper dissemination of
knowledge |
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Developing self esteem and self dependence through
practical education |
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Awareness against crime, drugs, HIV and more |
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Better employment opportunities through education |
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Prevention of child labor in hazardous jobs, improvement
of workplace and better health management through awareness |
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Enhance corporate social responsibility trough adequate
linkage |
The project also plans to engage the
large private sector enterprises to sponsor the programs through
corporate social responsibility.
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