A Discussion with Mayeda Rashid, Program Officer (Monitoring) of Caritas Aloghar Project, Dhaka, Bangladesh
With: Mayeda Rashid Berkley Center Profile
June 8, 2014
Background:
As
part of the Education and Social Justice Fellowship, in June 2014 student
Kendra Layton interviewed Mayeda Rashid, a program officer of Caritas Aloghar
(Lighthouse) Project. Beginning in November 2011, Aloghar is part of the Supporting the Hardest to Reach through Basic Education initiative and includes 1,005 education centers in six regions of Bangladesh. Aloghar aims to increase the literacy, empowerment, and integration of the hardest-to-reach Bangladeshi children. In this interview, Mayeda Rashid
reflects on her own work as a teacher, the benefits of being in the non-formal
education sector, and the sustainability of the projects.
How did
you come to this position at Caritas?
I started my career as a teacher for two years and worked in my own secondary school. I have always been interested in teaching and education and knew I wanted to work for underprivileged students. After teaching, I worked on a four month project for AusAID on child drowning prevention. After that, I began working here with Aloghar. The unique thing about Aloghar is that it works for the hardest-to-reach children who are deprived of education and do not have the opportunity to go to school.
Aloghar is predominantly in rural areas of Bangladesh. What are most of the communities like?
Most of the children are indigenous people, not that they not normal Bangladeshi children. Here, indigenous people are somewhat excluded from the mainstream. They do not have the same facilities like electricity, transportation, and access to diet. It is because they are living in a remote place like a hill or beside a river. It is not easy to fetch them and say, “Come here and be educated.” It is better if we go to them and create the opportunity so they can learn in their own community. We give education in their own language. Aloghar has already published books for the elementary level in eight indigenous languages. I think this is a good effort. Whenever they learn in their own language they learn happily and enjoy it.
As monitoring, what does your job include?
As monitoring program officer for Aloghar, my basic duty is to monitor the educational centers and the regional educational offices. I focus on developing tools and software, and I am working to incorporate software in our website to get real-time information from our working area, which is very large.
Would you say there is variance among the centers in terms of materials or teaching method?
There is a standard model across all of the schools, but there may be variations among teaching methods. The basic structure is the same. [In] most of the education centers we provide a multi-grade teaching format.
Who develops the multi-grade teaching format?
We follow the program of the Ministry of Education. We have basic changes, but we mostly follow it. For our children, we need to bring some change.
Another thing I have noted about Aloghar centers is they are in the non-formal sector and are non-governmental. What are the benefits of that?
Caritas and Aloghar work for hardest-to-reach students. If you work to build a formal school, considering the budget and everything you need, it will take a long time. To start a formal school, you need lots of children from playgroup to class five. It would require many teachers and lots of support. In Aloghar, we have 1,005 educational centers. In the places we work, there are not so many students that we need to build a formal school. If we consider the economics, it would not be feasible to build a government school. Also, those children are not used to a formal set-up. When they enter our centers, they feel at home, and it is easier for them to learn here. An informal set-up has influence in their learning.
What was your experience like as a teacher? Did you enjoy the work?
As a teacher, I was in a formal school, an English Medium School called Scholastica, one of the best in Bangladesh. The difference is that all of the children were so well off. They came from affluent families. In Aloghar, children are deprived and underprivileged. Education has universal appeal everywhere. I myself came from a school in a village for underprivileged girls. My mother is headmistress at that school. Aloghar is not unfamiliar to me. Still I work as a volunteer in that school. There are differences, but similarities as well.
What is the hope for students in Aloghar centers after they complete class five?
After class five, we have the primary school certificate (PSC). Whenever they complete class five, they sit for the PSC exam. It is a board examination. Once they receive a certificate, they can admit in any mainstream school and continue their studies in formal education. We hope that all the children for Aloghar will be mainstreamed. If you talk to the parents, they are very hopeful. They say, “Our children will have higher education.”
Do you notice there are different needs of different students in various regions of Bangladesh?
I have been her three months, so I have only visited three or four centers. I went to Sylhet and found those children were not indigenous. When you work with indigenous children, the teacher should be with their language, someone from that community. They also need to know Bangla and English. In some regions, I find that to communicate with their own language is very important. Since I did my master’s in Disaster Management, they should also do something with a school safety plan.
What else can you tell me about SHARE, Supporting the Hardest to Reach through Basic Education? Save the Children and Dhaka Ahsania Mission have other projects such as UNIQUE, SUSTAIN, and SHIKHON.
UNIQUE, SUSTAIN, and SHIKHON are also implementing education projects. SHARE is Supporting the Hardest to Reach through Basic Education. Under this theme, we are implementing projects. They are all independent but under SHARE.
Is there much collaboration among the projects?
All of the centers are different, and the working areas are different. Aloghar has no center in Dhaka Metropolitan Center. SHARE sometimes organizes a workshop or conference, and everyone can attend.
How did Aloghar get its name?
Aloghar—Alo means light and ghar means house. It is symbolic. We are like light bearers. We provide the light of education where there is darkness.
The funding of Aloghar is for six years from European Union and Caritas France to go up to 2017. What do you foresee happening after 2017?
Six years is not enough. We talk about sustainable education. I do not think six years is enough to get a project and leave it to the communities to continue. At least fifteen years is required because the areas in which we work are not equipped. We provide education up to class five. If we need to make a leader from that community so that we can give him or her responsibility, we must make leaders. If we want to make it sustainable and leave it to the community, we need to make leaders. Gradually we will leave, but not all of a sudden after several years. It would make people feel helpless.
I started my career as a teacher for two years and worked in my own secondary school. I have always been interested in teaching and education and knew I wanted to work for underprivileged students. After teaching, I worked on a four month project for AusAID on child drowning prevention. After that, I began working here with Aloghar. The unique thing about Aloghar is that it works for the hardest-to-reach children who are deprived of education and do not have the opportunity to go to school.
Aloghar is predominantly in rural areas of Bangladesh. What are most of the communities like?
Most of the children are indigenous people, not that they not normal Bangladeshi children. Here, indigenous people are somewhat excluded from the mainstream. They do not have the same facilities like electricity, transportation, and access to diet. It is because they are living in a remote place like a hill or beside a river. It is not easy to fetch them and say, “Come here and be educated.” It is better if we go to them and create the opportunity so they can learn in their own community. We give education in their own language. Aloghar has already published books for the elementary level in eight indigenous languages. I think this is a good effort. Whenever they learn in their own language they learn happily and enjoy it.
As monitoring, what does your job include?
As monitoring program officer for Aloghar, my basic duty is to monitor the educational centers and the regional educational offices. I focus on developing tools and software, and I am working to incorporate software in our website to get real-time information from our working area, which is very large.
Would you say there is variance among the centers in terms of materials or teaching method?
There is a standard model across all of the schools, but there may be variations among teaching methods. The basic structure is the same. [In] most of the education centers we provide a multi-grade teaching format.
Who develops the multi-grade teaching format?
We follow the program of the Ministry of Education. We have basic changes, but we mostly follow it. For our children, we need to bring some change.
Another thing I have noted about Aloghar centers is they are in the non-formal sector and are non-governmental. What are the benefits of that?
Caritas and Aloghar work for hardest-to-reach students. If you work to build a formal school, considering the budget and everything you need, it will take a long time. To start a formal school, you need lots of children from playgroup to class five. It would require many teachers and lots of support. In Aloghar, we have 1,005 educational centers. In the places we work, there are not so many students that we need to build a formal school. If we consider the economics, it would not be feasible to build a government school. Also, those children are not used to a formal set-up. When they enter our centers, they feel at home, and it is easier for them to learn here. An informal set-up has influence in their learning.
What was your experience like as a teacher? Did you enjoy the work?
As a teacher, I was in a formal school, an English Medium School called Scholastica, one of the best in Bangladesh. The difference is that all of the children were so well off. They came from affluent families. In Aloghar, children are deprived and underprivileged. Education has universal appeal everywhere. I myself came from a school in a village for underprivileged girls. My mother is headmistress at that school. Aloghar is not unfamiliar to me. Still I work as a volunteer in that school. There are differences, but similarities as well.
What is the hope for students in Aloghar centers after they complete class five?
After class five, we have the primary school certificate (PSC). Whenever they complete class five, they sit for the PSC exam. It is a board examination. Once they receive a certificate, they can admit in any mainstream school and continue their studies in formal education. We hope that all the children for Aloghar will be mainstreamed. If you talk to the parents, they are very hopeful. They say, “Our children will have higher education.”
Do you notice there are different needs of different students in various regions of Bangladesh?
I have been her three months, so I have only visited three or four centers. I went to Sylhet and found those children were not indigenous. When you work with indigenous children, the teacher should be with their language, someone from that community. They also need to know Bangla and English. In some regions, I find that to communicate with their own language is very important. Since I did my master’s in Disaster Management, they should also do something with a school safety plan.
What else can you tell me about SHARE, Supporting the Hardest to Reach through Basic Education? Save the Children and Dhaka Ahsania Mission have other projects such as UNIQUE, SUSTAIN, and SHIKHON.
UNIQUE, SUSTAIN, and SHIKHON are also implementing education projects. SHARE is Supporting the Hardest to Reach through Basic Education. Under this theme, we are implementing projects. They are all independent but under SHARE.
Is there much collaboration among the projects?
All of the centers are different, and the working areas are different. Aloghar has no center in Dhaka Metropolitan Center. SHARE sometimes organizes a workshop or conference, and everyone can attend.
How did Aloghar get its name?
Aloghar—Alo means light and ghar means house. It is symbolic. We are like light bearers. We provide the light of education where there is darkness.
The funding of Aloghar is for six years from European Union and Caritas France to go up to 2017. What do you foresee happening after 2017?
Six years is not enough. We talk about sustainable education. I do not think six years is enough to get a project and leave it to the communities to continue. At least fifteen years is required because the areas in which we work are not equipped. We provide education up to class five. If we need to make a leader from that community so that we can give him or her responsibility, we must make leaders. If we want to make it sustainable and leave it to the community, we need to make leaders. Gradually we will leave, but not all of a sudden after several years. It would make people feel helpless.
Opens in a new window