Child Labour and Education in Bangladesh - Bangladesh Online ...

58 Bangladesh Education Journal2. Basic Education for Hard to Reach Urban Working Children (BEHTRUWC)UNICEF has partnered with the Bureau of Non-Formal Education on a relatively large NFEprogram for urban working children who are out of school, with the intention ofmainstreaming the NFE graduates into primary education (UNICEF, undated). The firstphase was from 1997-2004, in which 346,000 children aged 8-14 were targeted in the sixdivisional cities to undertake a two-year course to reach an equivalency of grade 3, whilstthey continued to work. 50% of the participants were girls. 1,000 of BEHTRUWC graduatesof 12-14 years were then provided with livelihood skills such as a trade and the rest werehelped with self-employment, job placement and follow up for the first six months.However, there were criticisms of the first phase in that it was a top-down approach,improper selection of NGO took place and there was a focus on numbers rather than quality(Associates for Development Sevices Limited, 2006a). Moreover, as noted in the previoussection, the design did not incorporate the lessons from non-formal primary educationprograms of NGOs, provided for a two-year basic education course instead of fullequivalency of primary education, and did not provide sufficient social and economicsupport to put the highly vulnerable children on a course of self-sufficiency.The second phase (2004-2011) of the project provides a 40 months life-skills based basiceducation to 200,000 urban working children aged 10-14 years through 8000 learningcentres in the six divisional cities. An estimated 20,000 of the 200,000 working children willacquire livelihood skills. Whilst mid-term evaluations of the second phase have yet to beimdertaken, it is possible that similar criticisms may emerge for Phase II as for Phase I.Furthermore, it is unclear as to what efforts are being made on the BEHTRUWC program toput the graduates into mainstream primary education and how successful they may be.3. Other actors/programs in the fieldThere are a number of actors, including NGOs (local, national, international), private sector,and trade unions, who are undertaking small-scale programs or actions which will help tocombat child labour and ensure access to good quality NFE programs. However, the lack ofdocumentation or knowledge sharing between these different actors makes it difficult toassess the impact of these programs. It also may mean that programs are small scale, and areisolated and fragmented interventions. Nonetheless, some of the small-scale programs havebeen very successful in awareness raising, mobilizing their target population and in beingquite creative in the design of their programs. A few are described below.a. ILO Preventing and Eliminating Selected Worst Forms of Child Labour in theUrban Informal Economy of Dhaka City launched in 2001 was a four-yearprogramme aimed at removing 24,000 children from hazardous work in the urbaninformal sector and preventing children from entering the labour market throughadvocacy and awareness raising; creation of viable alternative for 10,000 families andworkplace monitoring. These services were delivered through 85 multipurpose centres,2 vocational training centres and through strategic partnerships with other public andprivate service providers.