Bondhu Shikkok (English translation: Teacher Friend)

Covid related school closures started in March 2020 and continued in 2021, affecting 38 million students in Bangladesh (UNICEF). A World Bank study in 2020 indicated that around half of adolescents reported that they were spending less time on education than before the lockdown, with 94 percent reporting increased time on household chores or childcare. The study also concluded that prolonged school closures threaten to erase education development gains achieved in recent decades, especially for girls and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Due to frequent school closures, thousands of students could not complete their syllabus for the year in the class.  While the Government of Bangladesh with help from donors provided on-line classes, majority of rural students could not access such classes because of lack of internet and computer access. It was also noted that 25 percent of mothers are concerned that adolescents will not return to school when schools reopen, and this was equally true for mothers of boys and girls. These disruptions have led to a decline in student learning and retention. Bangladesh’s Learning Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS) are expected to fall from 6.0 years in 2019 to 5.3 years in 2021 (simulation), costing the Bangladesh economy between $67 billion and $114 billion in GDP (based on January 2021 estimates).  Most students from low income families could not access Bangladesh government sponsored on-line education because of no or poor internet connectivity.  It may be noted that only 9.2 percent of children aged between five and 15 years in the poorest households have access to televisions. Some 59.7 percent of children belonging to the middle-income households have access to tele-broadcasting.

Our solution is to provide free need-based tutoring to students. This can be on-line or in person. An App will be made available free of charge for students to identify their needs for support. For ease of understanding, the App name will be Bondhu Shikkok which means friend teacher. Due to COVID related school and NGO run academic centers closures, thousands of students lost access to education and have fallen behind in their studies. Due to such disruptions, the students missed meeting their foundational milestones. Bangladesh government mandated school closures for several months in 2020-21. Most of the students from poor families do not have the resources to bridge education gap and are dropping out of schools and increasingly opting for work in the informal sector. There are no opportunities for these poor students to get help with their education. The proposed innovation is based on a tested model in the USA (www.upachieve.org). A local Bangladeshi NGO, LEEDO, will manage this process.  LEEDO (Local Education and Economic Development Organization) has extensive experience with children from poorer families and their education. LEEDO is a partner of US-based firm c4ie LLC.  We are proposing a free tutoring assistance for the students. The entire need identification process will be based on an App which will be designed & developed for students.  The App will help identify students who need help with particular subjects. The students & their parents can assess students’ education gaps and use the App to communicate their tutoring needs.  This App will be developed by a local IT firm and field tested before making it accessible to students throughout the country. A marketing strategy will be developed to increase awareness of the App through social media, local civil society partners, and educational institutions so that large number of students and parents can download this free App and understand how to use it. We will also reach out to UPACHIEVE to understand their lessons learned and also encourage some guidance during the development of the App and operational modalities. The App can be downloaded in any phone. In rural communities or poor slum areas, we will reach out to community-based organizations to use the App to engage the students for need identification. Mobile phone penetration in Bangladesh is 51%, thus allowing thousands of parents access to this App for their children. Several NGOs who are helping students from the poorer communities can also use the App to communicate students needs. LEEDO will select, through a competitive process, tutors who will be available to provide tutoring services for a fee. The on-line tutoring will be free for children from poorer families and can be provided through mobile phones or computers where internet access is available.  The App will have facilities to identify children from poorer families through simple process. Four core subjects will be included in the program – Maths, Science, English, & Bangla.  These are core subjects for secondary education in Bangladesh. For students in high schools, three additional subjects will be included – Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. In addition, a mental health program will be included in any tutoring.  This is because students psycho-social well-being are critical to success of their education. Due to COVID, students have undergone severe mental problems at home and in the communities. The free tutoring will be either on-line or community-based. On-line will be for those who have smart phones or computer with internet connections.  Community-based will be done for those students from the poorest communities who do not have access to internet. Our target population are in the age group of 5 to 18 years which includes primary, secondary, and high schools. In order to keep cost low, high school students who have good grades will be selected as tutors and will be provided special training for quality educational support for students. Several million of students complete high school education in Bangladesh and several thousands achieve high grades. In order to ensure quality and avoid any kind of abusive processes, only LEEDO certified tutors will be part of this program.  This will ensure quality education and support for the target population. For those students who do not have access to computer/internet or mobile phone, LEEDO will use its existing programs, Schools under the Sky & mobile school, to organize tutoring in public places. Overall focus of the proposed program will be to bridge the education gaps in particular subjects for the students to re-integrate in the school system.

Majority of the students from low income families can not afford to pay for any kind of tutoring or other supplemental educational support to bridge the gap caused by COVID related interruptions. In order not to loose them and avoid large scale drop-out, we are proposing free on-line tutoring as well as in-person tutoring for students from low income families. In-person tutoring will be provided to those who do not have access to smart phones or computers with internet. The App will help identify students and their needs which will help plan the tutoring by LEEDO.  The major advantage of our proposed solution is that any children, from any place in Bangladesh, can use the App to register their interests and need for tutoring.  We will be able to reach hard-to-reach children who are often missed out by the government and other donor funded programs.  Our program will strengthen national efforts to put more children in schools and allow many to continue their education.  We will also be open to students who are willing to pay for tutoring, thus helping to generate incomes which can be used for the children of low income families.

The mental health component for students is essential for the success of the program. According to UNICEF, “The consequences of such continuous school closures are staggering and include learning loss; mental distress; missed school meals and routine vaccinations; heightened risk of drop out of structured education; increased, child labour; and increased child marriage. Many of these dire consequences are already affecting countless children, and many will continue to be felt in the years to come.”

Our solution will allow students from low-income families to access   tutoring support to bridge the education gaps caused by COVID related school disruptions.  Our target population are children from low-income families who cannot afford to pay for tutoring or additional education support.  The target population are in urban slums or low income housing and also in rural areas.  The parents of these children are farmers, daily wage workers, informal sector workers, and are also employed in low pay jobs.  These students are underserved because they lack additional resources to access supplemental education for catch up and re-enter the education system.  COVID has also increased poverty level in Bangladesh, thus forcing parents to make choices of engaging children in informal sector for work. More recently, cost of living has gone up considerably due to global increase in energy prices.  The poor parents are not able to cover costs of tutoring their children. Thousands of students from low-income families will benefit from individual tutoring and personalized help to overcome the educational gaps to re-enter and remain in the education facilities.  Each student receiving tutoring support will have an opportunity to re-engage in schools and complete their education.  That is the impact we are seeking through this intervention.

Mr Forhad Hossain is the CEO of LEEDO who has over 20 years experience working for the welfare of children from poorer families and have implemented several innovative schemes to improve health and education of children. Mr Taufiqur Rahman, CEO of c4ie LLC has managed USAID funded girls education programs in Bangladesh for five years which included 20,000 girls in secondary education in 10 districts. Taufique has managed large and complex health and education projects in Bangladesh and other countries, thus brings considerable management expertise to manage donor funded projects. Mr Hossain will lead the local implementation with technical and management support from c4ie LLC.  LEEDO has a team of local experts who will be deployed to manage this initiative.  LEEDO also has extensive experience working with local communities, local government, community-based NGOs, and local government and private schools.  The App development will be based on input from students and community people, and will be tested for ease of use.  LEEDO will have considerable discussion with the user group to make sure the App is user friendly.  Infact, the App will be in Bangla as well as in English for ease of use.  The Tutoring support plan will be developed based on needs and will be implemented in a planned way.  Quality of education will be a key indicator of the program.

The pilot phase will require technical input from Solve community in terms of designing the App and on-line tutoring system.  While LEEDO has experience in children’s education, the COVID related disruptions and educational gaps are new challenges which can be solved through systematic use of technology as well as community-based support.  We will also need financial support to develop the App based on successful US model used by UPACHIEVE and pilot test the entire initiative in Bangladesh. The entire initiative includes App to identify children with educational gaps, tutoring support, and community mobilization to strengthen support for students.  We will learn from global community on successful distant tutoring system, lessons learned, and how best to provide such services on-line as well as in the communities.

Using an APP to seek students self assessment of educational gap is new in Bangladesh.  Free on-line tutoring and community-based tutoring is also innovative in Bangladesh.   This is a significantly improved approach because it is based on self-assessment of need by the student which is supported by parents. Bangladesh private sector tutoring is expensive and only the students of middle income & higher income families can afford these.  The vast majority schools do not provide any remedial courses or tutoring support, thus leaving out hundreds & thousands of students from poor families without any support to mitigate the educational gaps from COVID related closures. If the pilot initiative is successful, it will have significant impact throughout the country by ushering in a new model to provide support to improve education of children from low income families.  It is also innovative because it will use high school graduates with good academic performance to serve as tutors at low cost.  The entire tutoring system is based on Uber concept and the quality will be maintained through a carefully designed and monitored tutoring system. In addition, students from middle and upper income families can use the same App to seek tutoring support at an affordable fees, thus generating revenues for the program to sustain the support needed for low income students.  Currently, the tutoring system in Bangladesh is heavily dominated by school teachers which is expensive.  Our approach will disrupt current monopolistic arrangements by expanding participation of large number of high school graduates in tutoring and large scale participation of students from low income as well as other income groups. Through a system of tutor performance rating which will be similar to Yelp rating used in the USA, we will also be able to maintain quality and ensure that poor quality tutors are not of the program.  This system of monitoring will protect the students who need quality education.

• We expect to reach at least 10,000 students over next one year.  We can reach more students if funds are available.  The App will allow thousands of students from poor families to request tutorial support in core subjects.
• By year 2, we expect to reach at least 50,000 students with tutoring support and help them re-integrate in the education system. 
•  By the end of the five years, we expect the App to serve as a platform for the entire country for all students needing special tutoring support.  Poor students will receive free tutoring support while students from middle, upper middle,and high income families will pay a fee to securing tutoring support.  It is expected that urban students who have access to internet will become major users of on-line tutoring support.

This innovative approach will have transformative impact because thousands of students will be able to get back into schools to complete their education.  The App has the advantage of being used by any students who need tutoring support, free or with fee payment.  This is going to completely disrupt the current system of tutoring which is expensive and biased toward students whose parents can pay exhortbitant prices.  Also, the current system does not have any system to monitor quality of tutoring received. Our App will allow students to grade the quality of tutor and tutoring support, thus ushering an era of accountability and quality which has been missing in Bangladesh.  We will disrupt the inefficient private sector tutoring sector.  We will also help thousands of high school students to earn an income. The entire tutoring support will be uberized.

Overall quality of education for children will improve. 

Few key performance indicators will be used to measure success of the initiative. They are:

• Number of students from poor families receiving tutoring support on particular subjects
• Number of students who are integrated in existing education system after receiving tutoring support. 
• Number of students providing feedback about the quality of tutoring

Specific tutoring support will mitigate the education gaps of students, thus helping them to re-integrate in schools and complete their education.

An App that can be used in smart phones and computers.  It will be developed by a local IT firm using user friendly software so that the App can be in Bangla or English.

Our partner organizastion LEEDO has a team that includes male and females from various disciplines.

Our business model is to provide services to the poorest of the poor.  Our partner LEEDO provides services to poor children and also children rescued from the streets.

We hope the App will draw students who can pay fees to access services from qualified teachers.  The fees from upper income students will help us with revenue generation.  If the App is successful, we will also monetize it by encouraging private sector advertising which will also generate revenues.

LEEDO has received funds from various donors to support their children rehabilitation programs.