BRAC employs 33,000 teachers, mostly women, to work with 1.2 million children. These children are aged eight to eleven, and 70 per cent are girls. Classrooms are basic, and the children commonly sit on the floor in a horseshoe, with the teacher at the end of the room but able to move freely up and down to help individual children. The curriculum covers the first three years of primary education. It includes literacy and numeracy, but is strongly linked to the needs of the local community.
Parents are part of the lives of the schools.
Peer tutoring is a strong feature of the system, and children in difficulty receive help from those sitting next to them. The drop out rate is one fifth of that of government schools, and 85 per cent of the children graduate to year 4 of the state schools. An itinerant supervisor visits each teacher once a week, helping with assessment, curriculum and lesson planning, and providing ongoing support, mentoring, consultancy and continuing training through joint problem-solving. I was especially interested to learn about BRAC's plan to admit one or two children with mental retardation to 2,500 of its schools over a five-year period. The project is being undertaken in partnership with the Society for the Care and Education of the Mentally Retarded, which will provide training and support for the supervisors.