Education is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and essential for the success
of all SDGs. Recognizing the important role of education, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development highlights education as a stand-alone goal (SDG 4) and also includes targets on education
under several other SDGs, notably those on health; growth and employment; sustainable consumption
and production; and climate change. In fact, education can accelerate progress towards the achievement
of all of the SDGs and therefore should be part of the strategies to achieve each of them. The renewed
education agenda encapsulated in Goal 4 is comprehensive, holistic, ambitious, aspirational and
universal, and inspired by a vision of education that transforms the lives of individuals, communities
and societies, leaving no one behind. The agenda attends to the unfinished business of the EFA goals
and the education-related MDGs, while effectively addressing current and future global and national
education challenges. It is rights-based and inspired by a humanistic vision of education and
development, based on the principles of human rights and dignity, social justice, peace, inclusion and
protection, as well as cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity and shared responsibility and
accountability.
Aparajeyo-Bangladesh Interventions:
Early Childcare & Development (ECD) is premeditated to address early childhood development and ensure
good nurturing and loving stimulation for children during their early years. The centres are decorated with
colourful and attractive materials for the children's intellectual development. The Centres also promote bonding
and interaction between infants, young children and their parents to ensure that children are physically healthy,
mentally alert, emotionally secure, socially competent and intellectually able to learn, by the time they reach
primary school age. The Centres teach children alphabets, rhymes, games, story-telling, physical exercise and
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music. AB operates 28 ECD centres in Bangladesh. We also operate 8 Daycare Centres in Jails for children
whose mothers are facing prison sentences. These centres provide support children aged 6 months to 3+ years.
The Centres operate six days a week from 8:00 am to 5:30 pm. Each centre is managed by caregivers and
assistant caregivers who are working mothers from the communities. When a child reaches the age of 3+ s/he is
transferred to our Education Centres or Government/NGO pre-schools.
Pre-Primary Education: Children who move from the Day-care centres to the Education centres and enrolled in
the ‘Shapla’ class (Play-I), ‘Doyel’ (Play-II) and Pre-School class. Children learn alphabets, rhymes, counting
and writing numbers, word making, sentences etc. and will be prepared for primary education. The Shapla and
Doyel class accommodate 180 children each (45 children per class) while Pre-school class accommodates 120
children per year (30 children per class). Day Nursery Teachers with the assistance of a Caregiver and an Asst.
Caregiver are responsible for the running of Shapla and Doyel Classes while teachers are responsible for
conducting the Pre-school classes. Day Nursery and Pre-school classes operate from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Primary Education: The Primary education from Pre-school to Class V is offered at 4 AB’s centres to the poor
urban children who have single or both parents and live below poverty line. Aparajeyo sponsors children/ youths
to attend partner NGO/private/public schools from Class VI up to Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC). After
school education or coaching classes are also ensured for children. Aparajeyo-Bangladesh also sponsors young
men and women to pursue academic degrees in colleges and universities.
Ability Based Accelerated Learning (ABAL): Over the past several years, Aparajeyo-Bangladesh have been
working collectively with UNICEF to also identify the abilities that students will need to be successful, whether
they plan to pursue their education or employment after leaving the programme. The ABAL approach
recognizes that students need to be able to apply the knowledge they have gained to real world situations.
Assessment of student achievement is also necessary to ensure that students have in fact developed these
abilities and to provide students with an opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned. The programmes
have designed a variety of strategies to assess student achievement in each ability and level in courses
throughout each discipline and program of study offered at the centres.
Source: Annual Report 2022