Educate the Most Disadvantaged Children (EMDC)

Project Duration

Start date: November 1, 2022
End date: December 31, 2026 (52 months)

Donor / Partner

UNICEF FCDO

Location

District: Bandarban Sub district: Lama (2022) and Alikadam (2023)

Target Group

Most Disadvantaged Children

Total Beneficiary

Around 13,451 School girls and boys

Total Beneficiary

Direct Reach:
A total of 13,451 Out of School girls and boys, including at least 5% of children with a disability if available at the catchment areas. The breakdown by age is provided as follows:

5,651 Out of School Children or at risk of dropout aged 7- 12 years, out of which at least 50% will be girls and 5-10% children with a disability if available at the catchment areas through the catch-up programme.
4,800 Children aged 7-12 will be supported through remedial intervention in schools who are facing severe learning loss
3,000 Out of School girls and boys aged 8-14 years, who either dropped out or never enrolled in the school system including 50% girls and 5-10% children with a disability if available at the catchment areas through Multi Grade Multi Level (MGML) Learning Centres (LCs).
A total of 100 Teachers, including
* Community teachers – 50
* Community facilitators – 50
Indirect Reach:
At least 28,000 indirect reach including parents/ caregivers/ siblings, CMC members, GPS Teachers, Ward members, UP Chairmen, and Upazila and district level Education Officers.
13,451 siblings
13,451 parents
875 CMC members with 50% women
223 relevant stakeholders as Ward members, UP Chairmen, and Upazila and district level Education Officers

In addition to that about 75,000 community people/ villagers will be reached through different community and family engagement activities.

The total number of direct and indirect beneficiaries under the project stands at least 116,451 with 50% girls/ women participation and inclusion of Children with Disability up to 5-10% in direct beneficiaries will be addressed.

Rationale

Bandarban is the worst performing district in child development and education indicators compared to other districts in the Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT) and Chattogram Division. There are also geographical and ethnic disparities within the district, with more hard-to-reach remote areas and smaller tribes facing a higher degree of disadvantage and exclusion from education.

MICS-2019 revealed that Bandarban has one of the highest rates of out-of-school children, with a primary age rate of 11.9% and a secondary age rate of 23.5%. The primary school completion rate is only 73.5%, which is 9% lower than the national average. Moreover, the report found that 96.86% of children are enrolled in primary schools in Bandarban, compared to the national net enrolment rate of 97.4%.

One of the major challenges in Bandarban is the low learning achievement of children, with foundational reading skill at only 16.7% and foundational numeracy skill at only 10.7% for children in grade 2-3. The issue is compounded by multi-graded and multi-level children in one class, as well as children from different language-speaking communities in the same classroom. The lack of intervention to strengthen MLE in primary education has been contributing to the low learning achievement in the district.

To address these challenges, UNICEF and partner NGO JAAGO are proposing three innovative models to reach the most marginalized children and locations in Bandarban. These models include LC-based regular model, Court-Yard based Learning System (CYLS), and Personalized Learning System (PLS). The aim is to enrol different aged and multi-graded Out of School Children, with 65% refill on mainstreaming of the children for catch-up model and 20% refill for MGML.

Objective

EMDC Overall Objective: The most deprived children have increased opportunities for education and gain associated personal learning, health and social benefits.

Specific objective: Service delivery to address the most pressing needs of marginalized children, and to provide improved access to education services for out-of-school children.

Activity Details

JAAGO Foundation plans provide various types of innovative and digital interventions by adapting TaRL (teaching at right level) approach, blended teaching-learning approach, capacity development of the mentors and instructors, community mobilization and government-stakeholder collaboration to make students that are dropped out or at risk of drop out due to ongoing pandemic catch-up with their learning gaps and to help students that were out-of-school before the onset of pandemic complete primary cycle or mainstream through PECE. Our aim is to address all the children, with attention given to girls and children with disabilities.

Despite our government’s initiatives like using television, radio, social media and online applications since the start of pandemic, present context does not allow us to assume that every student was able to avail the opportunity due to gap in tech-knowledge and facilities. And due to the devastating effect of COVID-19, JAAGO is anticipating that many students may not be able to continue with the formal education structure. JAAGO Foundation, being the pioneer in online education and having experiences in implementing both formal and non-formal education, using blended-learning approaches, innovative contents, materials, and synchronous online classes, can address the challenges that lie ahead.

In this project, JAAGO will initiate both TaRL and blended teaching-learning approach for ensuring the learning objectives and three teams (Program, Instructor, and Mentor) will be assigned for ensuring the project interventions. By adopting the mentioned approaches, a foundational competency framework will be developed for each grade of primary level and the contents will be set for each student after identifying their existing competency level through a diagnostic test. Teaching-learning activities will be conducted in the learning centres (LCs) through both physical interactions and online modality. One instructor will be assigned in each LC to facilitate the teaching-learning and one mentor will be responsible for supporting and supervising the teaching-learning activities of 15 instructors through online. Simultaneously, the program team will support the mentors in teaching-learning material development and ensure the implementation of the project activities. The learners will be assessed through formative assessment and an online tracking system will be maintained to track the learning achievements of the students. Gradually the learners will be mainstreamed in their appropriate grade (catch-up) in the local government primary schools or complete the primary cycle (MGML NFPE) according to their overall learning achievements. The project manager will ensure the project outcomes, maintain documentation and report to the related stakeholders. In both segments of the interventions JAAGO will try to ensure the concept of gender equity, sustainability, and rights. JAAGO will ensure participation ratio of more than 50% girls and 5-10% differently abled children. The demography will be more clearly available as the intervention proceeds. However, like any data-driven interventions, partnership with local school authorities where UNICEF has had interventions previously will ease the process of bridging gender gaps.

Communication for Development (C4D) is an integral part of this project. There will be provision of social and behavioural changes initiatives as per developed strategies as community dialogue, sensitization activities, IPT show etc. upon collaboration specific sectors which will contribute towards the positive change of the community. Child protection is also the other area of convergence for the project through CBCPC and implementation of Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) Policy. In the PD depending on the availability at least 50% of the targeted children will be girls and 5% will be children with disability.