Making education attractive to slum and working children

Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in creating access to and achieving gender parity in primary education. According to the MDG progress report 2012, the country is about to achieve the goal of universal primary education for all. The net enrollment rate is around ninety nine percent, while high repetition and dropout rate become serious challenges in both primary and secondary education.    
However, 7.4 million children aged 5-17 years work for pay, many under hazardous conditions. These children work for their survival and contribute to their family income. They are denied of education rights due to insufficient provision, inflexible education system and indirect education costs. Moreover, parents and guardians prioritize children's involvement in work over education and there is limited awareness on the part of employers and community towards working children's education.
Considering the dire situation of working children Save the Children and European Union joined hands to implement the SUSTAIN project aiming to increase equal access to quality basic education for urban slum and working children and mainstream them into the formal or alternative education system. Currently, SUSTAIN reaches around 40,000 urban slum and working children through an accelerated education approach following the national curriculum.
In this accelerated education model children complete grade five within three years and acquire twenty nine government competencies as well as all children participate in Primary School Certificate examination. Parents and community accept this model as they are less interested to engage their children in long term education and want to get the results quickly. In 2013, ninety three percent of children graduating from SUSTAIN schools passed in PSC examination of which forty four percent obtained grade A.
SUSTAIN follows a number of innovative approaches to make the learning environment more attractive and interactive. Each school is organised as a compound, which consists of five classrooms and one child club. Each school compound follows three shifts in a day, where timing is flexible and adapted to the schedule of working children. Considering the isolation of working children in the society, each school has a child club, where all children from the community get the opportunity to make friends and build social networks.
To ensure children's participation in classroom monitoring, all SUSTAIN compound have an information box, where children can put comments about important topics such as their learning difficulties, interactions with teacher, and challenges at workplace. These are reviewed by School Compound Management Committee (CMC) each month that take actions to support children in overcoming their problems.
Rahim, a 12-year old boy, is studying in SUSTAIN school. He has worked in a CNG garage for 4 years and never went to school earlier. Before enrolling in SUSTAIN, every day he came to garage at 8.00 am and ended his work in late evening. He worked for purse cleaning, cleaning CNG, and carrying food for the employer and other staff. One day Rahim came to know about the SUSTAIN school located at Moghbazar from the community mobilizer. He showed interest to enrol in school and then community mobilizer started dialogue with his parents and employers to allow him to attend school. Now Rahim is studying at grade V in addition to continuing his work.
He says, "I was working in the garage and saw many children going to school with uniform and bag. Since then it was also my dream to go to a school. Several times I shared this with my parents, but they were unwilling to send me to school. They told me that education is costly and timing will not fit with my work time. Now I am happy that I can study, play and work, all at the same time. In my school I have learned many things related to my study and everyday life. I like my teacher as she is very caring to me. Also I like my class mates."
Rahim also says, "Child club is my favorite space in the school, where I have many friends, I can share my good and sad feelings with them, we make lots of fun. Sometimes, I just come to the club to take some rest. I also take part in art competition, essay writing, debate competition, sports and drama."
Rahim's mother Ramija Begum is participating in the parenting education sessions regularly. "I realised that all parents should participate in the parenting education sessions; we can learn the importance of education, how to treat our children and learn our responsibilities towards our children," says Ramija Begum.
 "Earlier Rahim worked in my garage for 9-10 hours and never went to school. SUSTAIN school was established, community mobilizer convinced me about the benefit of education. Realising this I allowed him for going to school," says Rahim's employer Akkas Ali.
Finally Rahim concluded his happiness by stating that "Now I am happy and confident to appear PSC examination in 2014. My most favourite thing in my life is my school bag."
He would like to continue his education after grade V like his other senior friends who completed PSC from SUSTAIN school and are now continuing their secondary education.
Like Rahim, SUSTAIN's vision is to bring changes in the lives of urban slum and working children through providing comprehensive education.
Shahida Begum, Nishat Afroz Mirza, Md. Tanvirul Islam and Kazi Sultan Ahmed, Work in SUSTAIN project