Flexible, Multi-Level Learning for OOSC: Dhaka Ahsania Mission's Children's Learning Centers, A Case Study
Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) is one of EAC’s initial partners, joining in 2012 when the idea of reaching 10 million OOSC was still more of a dream than a real possibility. DAM’s Children’s Learning Centers (CLCs) project is of particular interest to EAC because it reaches some children who face multiple barriers to accessing education. It does this through an innovative approach that includes accelerated learning in multi-grade classrooms that cater to individual student’s learning level on a subject-by-subject basis. The DAM graduates perform better on the national end of primary level test and with higher retention rates than students from government schools.
Although Bangladesh has made significant progress in primary-school enrolment, millions of primary-school aged children remain out of school. Per the Bangladesh education sector annual performance report 2016, the proportion of out of school children (OOSC) has fluctuated from 15% to 25% over the last decade. To address some of the substantial barriers facing OOSC in Bangladesh, Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) and Educate A Child (EAC) formed a partnership to provide access to quality primary education opportunities to 40,000 out of school children through the Children’s Learning Centers (CLC) project from 2012 to 2017 along with two co-funders; Cordaid and Marico. The project was a non-formal education model for OOSC implemented in Jamalpur, Noakhali and Chittagong districts.
Educate A Child (EAC) commissioned Results for Development (R4D) to conduct an in-depth case study to document and analyse DAM’s approach of the Children’s Learning Centers (CLC) project in providing quality, non-formal primary education to dropout and never enrolled children in remote, rural and poor areas of Bangladesh. The findings would contribute to the body of global knowledge on OOSC.
