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| Bangladesh Rular Advancement Committee (BRAC), Bangladesh | ||
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Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) started in 1972 as a Relief Agency. In the next year it got transformed into a Development Progamme focus-sing on the relief work among famine and flood victims. In 1973 the focus was shifted to community development. BRAC emphasises mainly on rural development activities focusing on Village Organisations. It has around 54,000 Village Organisations covering around 32,000 villages. Important rural development programmes initiated by BRAC are Poultry Programme, Rural Enterprise Project, Fisheries Programme, Vegetable Cultivation Programme, Sericulture Programme, Health and Population programme etc. Educational programme is also been as one of the elements in the rural development activities of the BRAC. BRAC started educational activities in 1985 through its NFPE (Non Formal Primary Education) programme. The major effort through this programme was to provide primary education to rural children. This programme started with 22 experimental schools in Bangladesh. At present there are around 34,000 NFPE school operating under BRAC. These schools enrol around 1.1 million children and employ around 33,000 teachers. BRAC educational programme pays special attention to the needs of the girl child. Nearly 70% of the students in BRAC schools are girls. Similarly, 97% of the teachers are women. The NFPE schools are flexible in timing, located close to homes of children. Most of the NFPE schools are single teacher schools, where one teacher is responsible for 30-33 students. The teacher moves with the same cohort of students from Grade I to Grade III. These children join regular primary schools after three years in BRAC schools. The drop out rate in these schools are low when compared with the schools run by the Government. The organisational decisions are taken by the governing body which consists of the Chairman, Executive Director and members. BRAC is a non-government organisation and its resources are mobilised from nongovernmental sources. It gets funding support from various international agencies. Apart from that it mobilise its own resources through various income generating activities initiated through its own activities. More than 50% of the resources are mobilised through its own activities. The major divisions of the organisation are Rural Development, Research and Evaluation Division, Health and Population Division, Non-formal Primary Education Division. Each of these divisions are headed by a Director. All these were work under overall guidance of the Executive Director. At present BRAC has around 17,500 full time staff. Address: |
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