Speakers at a workshop held today emphasized that the manuals currently being developed by icddr,b and the Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) are designed to meet the educational needs of all underprivileged children, including those with disabilities.
The comments were made during a day-long manual finalization workshop at the DPE Auditorium in the capital. This workshop was a collaborative effort between the DPE and icddr,b, as part of the EN-REACH Education project.
Attendees included parents, head teachers, assistant teachers, district and sub-district primary education officers, representatives from organizations of persons with disabilities, and members of the national advisory committee.
In his introductory remarks, Md. Kamrul Hasan, Director (Policy and Operations) of DPE, expressed appreciation for icddr,b’s efforts and urged all participants to thoroughly review the provided parents’ training and teachers’ training manuals for the pre-primary level. He also projected that this collaboration would enhance pre-primary teacher training, ultimately benefiting parents the most.
Md. Joynal Abedin, Deputy Director (Pre-Primary and Inclusive Education) of DPE and guest of honor, stressed the critical need for inclusive measures across all facets of the educational system, including administration, training, teaching, and parenting.
Md. Mahbubur Rahman Billah, Director (Training Division) and special guest at the workshop, remarked, “Never before have so many relevant parties been involved in the development of an inclusive training manual. We have a great responsibility now to see it through to completion because we were heavily involved in its development. We have contributed to validation ourselves. We shall now exercise vigilance to ensure that our initiative does not go in vain.”
Raza Md. Abdul Hye, Additional Director General (Revenue) of DPE, served as the chief guest. He commended the efforts to address shortcomings in existing government manuals and to create a more sophisticated version. He added that the manuals were developed with the vision that all underprivileged children, including those with disabilities, should have the opportunity to learn through this pre-primary system, and if successful, it could be implemented nationwide.
Dr. Jena Hamadani, emeritus scientist of icddr,b and workshop chair, thanked all participants for their contributions. She expressed her enthusiasm for everyone’s commitment to finalizing both manuals, stating, “It is my hope that we will successfully finish this project. Additionally, we envision scaling up. We are now working in just 48 schools across two districts. However, we hope to expand it throughout the country in the future and believe that DPE will continue supporting us.”
The workshop was jointly moderated by NCTB’s senior specialist Md. Abdul Mumin Musabbir, DPE’s education officer Md. Sharif ul Islam, and icddr,b research investigators Mohammad Abdul Awal Miah and Utpal Mallick.
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