EDUCATION

• Bangladesh is one of the 25 countries selected globally to achieve universal primary education for both boys and girls and achieve gender parity in secondary schools by 2015 through the United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI).  Bangladesh is on track to meet these targets. However many challenges remain for education, in providing quality learning opportunities for all children across the country: young children, working children, girl children and boy children.

• UNICEF assistance to early childhood development includes providing pre-schools and play groups, especially in the para centres of the Chittagong Hill  Tracts, or in urban development centres in urban slums. Early learning centres through the Early Learning for Development project will be expanded to reach 500,000 children and their families by 2010.  Almost 63,000 children (aged 3-5) are already attending centre-based early learning.

• UNICEF is working to improve the quality of primary education through building on a government driven programme called the Second Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP-II). PEDP-II aims to ensure the quality of primary education for  ALL children in the country through increasing primary school access, participation and completion. By improving the quality of education UNICEF aims to increase children's learning outcomes.   These quality standards also extend to schools having child friendly classrooms, text books and teaching methods.  PEDP-II covers all 64 districts, reaching some 17.7 million children and 315,500 teachers in 65,000 schools by 2010.  As one of 11  partners, UNICEF provides targeted support to PEDP-II through in-service training, social mobilisation, community involvement and providing access to disadvantaged children currently outside the formal system.

• To address child labour, UNICEF works to make non-formal schools more accessible and attractive for all children. It aims to provide learning opportunities to 200,000 working children in six major urban areas of the country.  Of these, 20,000 adolescents will be given vocational training.