The Nippon Foundation, a Japanese private non-profit organisation, is going to donate around USD 2 million (over BDT 17 crore) for BRAC to scale up its education programme for Rohingya and host community children in Cox's Bazar.
The grant will help build 50 two-storeyed prefabricated moveable steel structures to be used as learning centres for eight thousand Rohingya children. Besides, 100 pre-primary learning centres will also be built for host community children. BRAC and The Nippon Foundation announced the partnership at a press conference on Wednesday at BRAC Centre in Dhaka city. Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, Yohei Sasakawa, executive director of BRAC, Asif Saleh, director of BRAC Education Programme, Dr Safiqul Islam, other officials of the two organisations and Japanese embassy in Bangladesh were present at the event.
Addressing the press conference, Chairman Yohei Sasakawa said, "The objective of our initiative is to create opportunities for Rohingya children so that they can also learn besides the host community children. We hope that the Rohingya children will be able to continue learning as they return to their homeland." BRAC executive director Asif Saleh said, "55 per cent of the people who came from Myanmar are children. So we are focusing on their education."
Officials of BRAC informed the press that right from the beginning of the new influx of the Rohingya people into Bangladesh in 2017, BRAC undertook education programme for their children as the largest partner of the government in this regard.
The learning curriculum for Rohingya children includes pre-primary education, alphabets and numbers, life-saving information, psychological counselling and life skills development.
BRAC is also developing education materials for Classes One and Four for Rohingya children.
Currently, more than 61 thousand children of 4-14 years of age are receiving basic education in its 759 learning centres at the Rohingya camps in Ukhya and Teknaf upazilas of Cox's Bazar.
1 per cent of these children are girls. 722 children are disabled among them. Also, 57 per cent members of the managing committees of these learning centres are women.
The separate 100 pre-primary learning centres BRAC will build with The Nippon Foundation's support will accommodate three thousand host community children of 5-6 years of age.
