City Report and Action Plan

Chittagong

Mr. Helal Uddin Ahmed
Private Secretary to Mayor (Senior Assistant Secretary),
Chittagong City Corporation
Bangladesh

CITY REPORT

Education System

Chittagong Municipal Committee was established in 1863. It was reconstituted as a government body, and was upgraded to Municipal Corporation in 1982, and further earned the status of City Corporation in 1990.

It is the late Nor Ahmed, former chairman of Citation Municipality who introduced compulsory free primary education program in the early 1930's. As of 1994, there were 21 high schools and 250 madrasas (religious school) run by Chittagong City Corporation (CCC). In recent years, CCC has undertaken programs to encourage people to send their children to schools. Now, CCC runs a university named Premier University, 8 female colleges, 41 secondary schools, 6 kindergartens, 2 primary schools, 5 computer colleges, one health technology institute, and one midwifery institute. Besides this one Homeopathic Medical College is run by CCC. For ensuring qualitative education Teachers Training Center was also established. For eradication of illiteracy CCC established six night schools for old age education, and also set up a mass education center at a sweeper colony for the children of low cast conservancy sweepers.

The Bangladesh Government plays a vital role to help children go to primary school. There are 463 primary schools in Chittagong, including 158 government primary schools (GPS) and 158 kindergartens (KG). There are 3,080 teachers, including 1,037 GPS teachers, and 1,231 KG teachers.

In Chittagong City around 35 percent of the population is still illiterate. Though basic education is not obligatory, CCC has played a vital role for the sake of qualitative education and the expansion of educational facilities with the able leadership of its present Mayor Alhaj ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury. His commitment towards city dwellers took various initiatives to ensure sustainable development in the education sector.

Current States and Challenges

About 20 percent of the urban population is poor in terms of income as well as urban services. More than 60 percent of the city dwellers are migrants from the neighboring districts. Chittagong has a large number of heavy industry and commercial areas. Chittagong is economically richer than other districts. As a result the city is experiencing rapid urban growth which has resulted in a lot of problems. The floating population and street children are two of the major problems. Floating population is the poorest of the poor. About 20 percent of the floating population live in Chittagong urban area. Street children are perhaps the most vulnerable section of the society. Most of them are runaway or abandoned children. About one thirds of them are 8 to 10 years old.

To eradicate poverty among the urban poor children, the government has taken up several initiatives through different departments. The urban children generally go to primary schools run by the government or NGOs. They usually take admission at the age of 6. But at 10 they drop out from the primary schools due to poverty.

The Project on Basic Education for Hard to Reach Urban Children is implemented by the directorate of non-formal education with the support of UNICEF, SIDA (Government of Sweden) and DFID (UK). In CCC the project activity started in 1999, and currently the third and fourth phase of the project are in progress.

There has been improvement in various internal efficiency indicators of primary education in recent year. Primary cycle dropout rate has been reduced to about 30 percent. But attendance rate is still low in the city area. Achievement level has improved but at a slow speed. Improvement in quality has not kept pace with improvement in quantity. The gain has mostly been experienced by girls alone. Poor and socially handicapped families tend to send their girls to school more than their boys.

ACTION PLAN

A. Objectives

1. Universalization of Primary Education.
2. Improve Quality of Primary Education
3. Create new school building and other facilities
4. Enrollment should be 100 percent
5. Drop out rate reduced to 0 percent
6. Attendance rate increase
7. The involvement of outgoing children with the coverage of education

B. Target group

1. Chittagong City with a population of 3.7 million
2. In Chittagong there are only 463 total primary school including 158 Govt. Primary School
3. Net enrollment in Chittagong was found 74 percent
4. Still 26 percent of children do not go to school
5. Drop out rate was estimated at 26 percent for boys and 28 percent for girls
6. Only 3,080 school teachers; most are not trained.
7. Street children are increasing day by day
8. Many slum areas are developing

C. Proposed Measures

1. Motivation
   • Motivation to parents by Government education development
   • Motivation by public media such as TV, radio, news papers, and cable operators
   • Motivation by public leaders
   • Motivation by social workers, religious leaders
   • Motivation by NGOs
2. Availability of Teachers
   • Trained teachers may be appointed
   • Teacher training schools may be developed / newly constructed
   • Improve teaching technique
   • Use better teaching materials
   • Friendly teachers allowed
   • Teacher-Parents relationship building
   • Salaries for teachers may be increased
   • Student-Teacher ratio should be reduced
3. Education Support activities
   • School buildings should be newly constructed according to the number of students
   • School material like school bags, pencils, books and meals should be freely supplied
   • Financial allocation from national budget should be increased
   • Financial support may be given to poor parents
   • NGOs and private schools may be encouraged
4. Other proposed measures
   • Community participation
   • Strong leadership
   • Primary education vested before the local government
   • Monitoring and supervision
   • Gender balance

D. Proposed Agent

1. Government department of education
2. City government /City corporation
3. NGOs
4. Private sectors
5. Religious missionaries

E. Adoption of Peer Counseling

1. Motivation by the NGOs
2. To provide street children with shelter and education

F. Flow Chart

1. To call a meeting for all NGOs: 1st month
2. Distribution areas of slum: 2nd month
3. Motivation of parents: 3rd and 4th month
4. Counting and compiling a list of out going school children: 3rd and 4th month
5. Establishing or sending children to nearby schools: 5th month
6. Contacting to parents and teacher: 5th and 6th month
7. Monitoring and supervision: 7th month
8. If necessary additional teacher may appointed 7-8 month
9. If necessary financial help to the parents: 9th month
10. Evaluation of students through examination: 10th month

G. For Street Children (For each slum area)

1. Establish school (non formal and residential)
2. To make list of how many street children are in the city
3. Appoint teacher
4. Register students, 50 percent girls and 50 percent boys for each school center
5. Adopting "Earn and Learn" approach
6. Ensure proper supervision and monitoring
7. Delivering the basic education
8. Prepare them for vocational training program