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ABSTRACT
BRAC operates over 20,000 pre-primary education centres in the areas of formal primary schools. It is a one year long course and in each centre recruits 25 to 30 pupils. The aim of this study was to evaluate the ongoing practices of BRAC pre-primary education programme adopting both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. The findings section has four distinct parts, viz., review of pre-primary curricula, implementation of the curricula, socioeconomic background of pupils, and performance of PP graduates comparable to non-PP students. All areas have identified some interesting findings and concerns. BEP policy and regulations regarding teachers’ recruitment somehow went against BRAC philosophy related to promotion of women. Children’s from poorer communities were left out of the programme due to the nature of collaboration between government and BRAC. There is strong argument regarding rethinking of curriculum, textbooks, teacher preparation, etc. In addition to noticing the major concerns regarding the programme, some suggestions were made for its improvement.
1.1 BACKGROUND
History of educating people is as old as the history of human civilization. Introduction of education in human life was initiated in an informal way. For instance, in South Asia, it was inaugurated for the children through a process called Guru- Shiksha, placed in Gurugriho. In course of time, the process of educating children has changed a lot based on the demands of the society. Education has been proven as vital for socioeconomic development. This motivated the education implementers to adopt structured schooling system. However, as a result of over emphasis on it, pessimistic impact like ‘diploma diseases’ has occurred, which was not possible to ignore by many (Ronaldo 2003; Little and Ronaldo 2006).
Compared to the three levels of education, viz., primary, secondary and tertiary, pre-primary is new. Adherents of pre-primary schooling believe that effects such as cognitive, linguistic, school readiness, motor and other skills have been resulted through pre-primary schooling. The opponents of pre-primary schooling bolieve that it caused discrimination in favour of the privileged group (Moore et al. 2008). At the beginning, pre-primary was centred among the privileged groups as an informal provision. Later, this has been introduced in the formal schooling system where the clients were also from the privileged groups. To create an equal opportunity, non-government organizations (NGOs) have started offering pre-primary education for the underprivileged groups in many developing countries (UNESCO 2007).
1.2 GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE OF PRE-PRIMARY EDUCATION
Many children aged <5 years, particularly in developing countries, are exposed to multiple risks comprising poverty, malnutrition, poor health and de-motivating home environment, which drastically affect their cognitive, motor and socio-emotional development (Grantham-McGregor et al. 2007). However, these early years of life are particularly important regarding development of all domains. Rapid development of brain and other parts of body occurs at this stage. The extent of development decreases over the period (Shonkoff and Phillips 2000). Though the early years are important for the children, many of them, particularly from the poorer countries cannot grow up with full potential because of poverty and lack of other opportunities. These children miss some obvious components of development (Anonymous 2006). Steps have been taken to provide some skills to the deprived children so that they can fulfil the gap. Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) is one of the important programmes through which the neglected children are nurtured for smooth development. As a part of ECCE, pre-school education is provided to bring the children to school smoothly with school readiness skills. The underlying concept of pre-school education is to provide some missing components to the children before engaging in primary schools (Anonymous 2006).
Although the necessity of pre-primary education has been felt by countries, it received less importance compared to primary education. The EFA (Education for All) Conference of 1990, the largest jamboree of education, did not pay proper attention to pre-primary education. However, the world community has paid attention on this in the World Education Forum, held in Dakar in 2000. In that conference, the world leaders evaluated the progress of achieving EFA targets and formulated some new goals for the countries which would be achieved by 2015 (UNESCO 2000). Out of the six goals, the first one was about pre-primary education. The goal was, “Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children” (UNESCO 2000). It has stated that the situation of early childhood care and education should be improved comprehensively for the vulnerable and disadvantaged children. We can understand that the vulnerable and disadvantaged children lack the opportunities for developing their potentials. Because of such lacking, development of the children does not occur to the same level as it occurs for the advantaged children. Thus, pre-primary education is provided as compensation to the disadvantaged children so that they can keep pace with the advantaged children during schooling.
The developed world has sufficient arrangements for pre-primary education. Most OECD (organization for economic co-operation and development) countries have at least two years of free pre-primary education (UNESCO 2007). Worldwide, the gross enrolment ratio in pre-primary education has tripled since 1970s. Almost 124 million children were enrolled in pre-primary education in 2004, which was 10.7% increase over 1999 (UNESCO 2007). However, this increase did not occur equally throughout the world. For instance, pronounced increase was happened in Sub- Saharan Africa (43.5%), the Caribbean (43.4) and South and West Asia (40.5%) compared to Arab States (11.4%). Box 1 provides global scenario of pre-primary education in brief.
1.3 PRESENT SITUATION OF PRE-PRIMARY EDUCATION IN THE WORLD
Figure 1.1 shows a big difference in gross enrolment ratios in pre-primary education in different regions of the world. The ratio is only 12.4% in Sub-Saharan Africa compared to 101% in Caribbean countries. The enrolment ratio is below 40% in Asian and African countries and above 50% in European, American and Caribbean countries. It seems that there is an adverse relationship between poverty and enrolment in pre-primary education. In the poor countries, where the children are underserved due to lack of nutritional and other facilities, the provision of pre-primary education is insufficient. On the other hand, the children of well-off countries receive both nutritional and other facilities as well as pre-primary education.
1.4 PRE-PRIMARY EDUCATION IN BANGLADESH
Pre-primary education did not get priority as it received for primary education to the world community. Situation in Bangladesh is not different than this. Bangladesh, like many other countries, has made primary education compulsory but not pre-primary. The ministry of education, in its website, claimed that Bangladesh education has three stages - primary, secondary and higher education; there is no mention of pre-primary (MoE 2008). Since pre-primary is not considered as a stage of education in Bangladesh, none of the two ministries of education1 is responsible to oversee pre-primary education in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, household level national surveys revealed that the net enrolment rate at primary level is nearly 87% but the rate is only 13.5% for pre-primary (Nath and Sylva 2007).
Although there is no official provision of pre-primary education in Bangladesh, the government and non-government primary schools, the madrasas and the high-school-attached
There are two ministries in Bangladesh responsible for education – Ministry of Education looks after the Secondary and Tertiary Education while Ministry of Primary and Mass Education is responsible for primary and Basic Education.
Primary sections have baby classes prior to class I (popularly known as Junior I or choto one). About 45% of the formal schools have this provision for which no extra teacher is provided. There is no textbook or teacher guide for this. However, they often use the language textbook recommended for grade I (Nath and Sylva 2007). The kindergartens and English-medium schools operate pre-school programmes more seriously compared to the above mentioned baby classes. About 86% of these schools have this programme, most of which follow 1 to 2 years course using the locally developed textbooks. However, some of the kindergartens and English-medium schools use internationally published textbooks. In absence of national curriculum, a great variation in pre-primary curriculum and textbook and the length of course occurs among various providers. BRAC pre-primary programme operates a one-year course using three self-prepared textbooks and one teacher guide. The schools are situated either at the premises of primary schools (government or registered non-government) or away from the school premises.
1.5 BRAC PRE-PRIMARY EDUCATION PROGRAMME
BRAC has long and diverse experience in the field of education. It started functional literacy programme in mid 1970’s and non-formal primary education programme in 1985. With more than 50000 schools (including pre-primary and primary schools), BRAC’s non-formal primary education programme is considered as the largest NGO-operated education programme in the world. It also works with the formal primary and secondary schools.
1.6 EXPERIMENT, EXPERIENCE AND START
BRAC experimented pre-primary education first in 1985. Of the 22 schools, opened for the first time as BRAC School, two were pre-primary and 20 were non-formal primary. After one year of inception, the pre-primary schools turned into primary schools. BRAC again opened four new pre- primary schools in 1986. These schools also turned into primary schools after completion of one-year pre-primary course (Ahmed, 1988).
Experimentation with pre-primary did not end with the above activities. In 1989, BRAC opened 10 pre-primary schools. Twenty graduates of non-formal primary schools were selected as teachers of these 10 pre-primary schools, two teachers in each of the school. These young teachers, at that time, were the students of grade V or VI in nearby formal schools.
The following year is remarkable for the grand Jomtien Conference. Talks had been going on everywhere in the world to ensure primary and basic education for all children. Governments and international community’s started planning and making laws for implementing primary education. Pre -primary education did not get attention at the Jomtien Conference. In 1990, just before the Conference, Bangladesh made a law to make primary education compulsory for a certain age group (6-10 years). The law did not include pre-primary. Over emphasize on primary education by the government as well as the development partners may cause behind changing BRAC’s focus point from pre-primary to primary education. BRAC’s experience in operating pre-primary classes was also lesser than that of primary schools might be another reason of changing the spotlight. BRAC concentrated itself in expanding primary education provision in the comparatively hard-to-reach areas of the country.
In 1997, BRAC started experimenting pre-primary schools for the third time with 40 schools. Following factors influenced BRAC to begin pre-primary schools again at that time:
At the beginning of this experiment, BRAC appointed female graduates of BRAC non-formal primary schools who at the same time were the students of the formal secondary schools (classes VII-IX). The teachers worked as a volunteer and no remuneration was provided to them. After one year, it was understood that one teacher is inadequate to manage the students. The concept of two teachers came in to concentrate more on students’ learning. Although the teachers were better able to handle the pupils’ problems, it was found that conceptual and developmental aspects of the students were not reaching to the satisfactory level that BRAC wanted. The lead BRAC to consider a bit higher educated women as teachers instead of BRAC school graduates. At some point of such experiment (1998-99), BRAC charged tuition fees to the students. The fees varied from Tk. 5 to 20 per month. The money was spent for teachers’ salary. This caused behind dropout of poorer children from BRAC pre-primary classes. For that reason, BRAC abolished the provision of tuition fees.
Although the government was intending to start baby class in all the formal schools, it was not possible due to lack of adequate classrooms and teachers in majority of the schools. At this circumstance, BRAC sought permission from the government to expand its pre-primary programme. In 2001, the government gave permission to BRAC to open pre-primary schools at the premises of government and registered non-government primary schools (GPS and RNGPS). Government imposed a condition to enjoy the permission. According to that condition, all pre-primary completers must be admitted in the respective formal schools. After such consent from the government, BRAC went for massive expansion of pre-primary education programme.
1.7 CURRENT PROGRAMME STATUS
The main objective of BRAC pre-primary education programme is to provide educational support to the underprivileged children who were unable to develop some essential skills like cognitive, motor, language, and school readiness, because of low or no education of their parents and poverty (BRAC 2006). The underlying philosophy is that with the skills provided through BRAC programme, these children will be better able to get admission in primary schools, they will be better able to compete with their classmates and ultimately show better classroom performance. BRAC hopes that pre-primary education will contribute in increasing enrolment, attendance and completion rates at primary level.
Three textbooks and a teacher guide play substantial role in the curriculum of BRAC pre-primary schools. The books are Borner mela (collection of alphabets), Chobi dekhe shikhi (learning through observing pictures) and Shonkhar mela (collection of numbers). The curriculum specialists of BEP developed the textbooks. The course contents of these books are composed in the teachers guide. The contents are divided into 150 lessons in the teachers guide. After completing each of the 15 lessons, the teacher administers a test to the students. There is a guide for administering test and a format of the test has been incorporated in the guide. The teachers conduct 10 such tests in one year cycle.
The BPPS teachers are local women. The teachers are provided with six days basic training before recruitment and three days orientation training after appointment. One-day refresher training is provided to the teachers in each month. In refresher training, practical ways of teaching the contents is taught to the teachers. The teachers conduct the teaching-learning in the classrooms following the directions received during refresher training.
The BEP specialists, mainly from the Head Office level, are responsible to execute the BPP education programme at the field level. Nine units are there in order to execute all activities under BEP. The Government Partnership Programme (GPP) unit is responsible for pre-primary education programme. The main activities of this unit include operating pre-primary schools at the field level, follow-up of the BPP graduates in primary schools, organizing Tutoring Support Centres (TSC), etc.
The activities are divided into sub-units. The material development unit develops the textbooks, the teacher’s guide, training modules, etc. Three Regional Managers (RMs) operate and manage the field-level activities of school operation. The whole area of BRAC pre-primary (BPP) is divided into three broad regions and each of the RMs are responsible for a region. The officers after the RMs are Area Managers (AM) followed by Branch Mangers (BM) and Programme Organisers (PO). The POs are directly linked with the teachers and students of pre-primary schools. A sub-unit of GPP looks after the TSC operation and related activities. The Unit Manager of GPP is reportable to the Director of BEP. Policies are mainly made at the head office; however, implementation strategies are discussed and decided in the monthly RM meetings.
Expansion of BRAC pre-primary education programme was not that much faster during first six years (2009-2014). Number of schools was below 2500 during this period. It started to increase heavily since 2012 (Figure 2). Number of school was 7,500 in 2011, which jumped-up to over 16,000 during 2012-13, and to over 20,000 during 2013-14. In 2014, 20,140 pre-primary schools were in operation with 0.56 million students
1.8 OBJECTIVES
The main objective of this study is to do an in-depth evaluation of the pre-primary education programme of BRAC. The specific objectives are as follows:
ACRONYM
AM Area Manager
BBS Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics
BDT Bangladesh Taka
BEP BRAC Education Programme
BM Branch Manager
BPP BRAC Pre-primary
BPPS BRAC Pre-primary school
BRAC Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee
ECCE Early childhood Care and Education
EFA Education for All
GPP Government Partnership Programme
GPS Government Primary School
IQ Intelligence Quotient
NGO Non-government Organizations
NPP Non-Pre-Primary
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
PO Programme Organizer
PP Pre-primary
PSC Poverty Score Card
RA Research Assistant
RED Research and Evaluation Division
RM Regional Manager
RNGPS Registered Non-government Primary School
SMC School Managing Committee
TSC Tutoring Support Centre
UK United Kingdoms
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acceptance Letter
Acknowledgement
Declaration
Abstracts
Acronym
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
1.2 Global Perspective of Pre-Primary Education
1.3 Present Situation of Pre-Primary Education in the World
1.4 Pre-Primary Education in Bangladesh
1.5 BRAC Pre-Primary Education Programme
1.6 Experiment, Experience and Start
1.7 Current Programme Status
1.8 Objectives
CHAPTER TWO RESEARCH METHODS
2.1 Methodology
2.2 Analysis of Data with Questionnaire
2.3 Validity and Reliability
2.4 Ethical Considerations
2.5 Limitations
CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL PROSPECTUS
3.1 Literature Review
3.2 Review of Curriculum
CHAPTER FOUR CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION
4.1 Teacher Recruitment
4.2 Teacher Training
4.3 School House
4.4 Selection of Pre-Primary Children
4.5 Pre-Primary School Hours
4.6 Teaching Materials
4.7 Classroom Teaching-Learning
4.8 Attendance
4.9 Motivation of the Parents
4.10 Follow-Up of Former Pp Graduates
CHAPTER FIVE SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUND OF PRE-PRIMARY STUDENTS
5.1 Age of Students
5.2 Poverty Status of Households
CHAPTER SIX ANALYSES OF STATISTICAL TOOLS OF DIFFERENT CLASSES AND PERFORMANCE OF THE STUDENT
6.1 Analysis of Statistical Tools of Different Classes
6.1.1 Descriptive statistical analysis of BRAC students
6.1.2 Analysis of mean no. of students using ANOVA
6.2 Performance of the Student
6.2.2 Brihottor BRAC Primary School
6.2.3 Udirpur BRAC School
6.2.4 Udirpur BRAC Primary School
6.2.4 Panisha BRAC Primary School
6.2.5 Bakshara BRAC Primary School
6.2.6 Chowbaria BRAC School
6.2.7 Bramon Shekor BRAC Primary School
6.2.8 Bramon Shekor Shishu Niketon
6.2.9 Mazigram BRAC Primary School
6.2.10 Kechowatul BRAC Primary School
CHAPTER SEVEN FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
7.1 Findings
7.2 Recommendations
References
Questionnaire
Research, Report, Contribution, BRAC, Primary, Education, Bangladesh, Rural, Advancement, Committee, Pre-Primary, Teacher, Recruitment, School, Poverty, Score, Card, Tutoring, Support, Centre, Bangladesh
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