Early Childhood Support Program Bangladesh (Phase I)
| Project Duration | January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015 |
| Funding organization | Aga Khan Foundation |
| Project Goal | Increased equitable access to quality basic education through increased enrolment and improved retention of students, and reduced gender gaps between girls and boys |
| Project Purpose | – Sustained improvements in organizational capacity, including gender equity, vision, strategy, and programming skill – of DAM, Phulki, FIVDB, and nine SCSO partners
– Expanded and effective ECD program delivery by DAM, Phulki, and FIVDB, and nine SCSO partners, to poor families, particularly to women and children – Improved CSO and GoB knowledge and application of sound ECD policies |
| Project Output |
|
| Project working areas |
|
| Beneficiary/Stakeholder | Direct :
Indirect:
|
| Short description | The Early Childhood Development Support Program Bangladesh (ECDSPB) is a multi-faceted and timely response to existing needs and emerging opportunities within Bangladesh’s education sector. ECDSPB will respond to the need for increased technical capacity and quality improvement in the field of early childhood development (ECD) in Bangladesh, as well as the necessity for increased coverage of ECD services to poor and marginalized populations by civil society organizations (CSOs) in the absence of expanded government service provision. CSECD will also answer to the needs of CSOs working within the ECD subsector to become more effective and efficient organizations by supporting internal organizational development. Simultaneously, ECDSPB will support institutional efforts to undertake research, professional development and advocacy on ECD at a national level.
The project had 4 components, which are briefly described below: Component 1: Organizational Development: OD services was designed to look at how organizations work holistically, as well as at the various functions and systems (planning, financial management, information management, human resource management, and asset management) that they employ. The organizational development process involved analysis and diagnosis of the organization in its institutional context (i.e., what are the organization’s strengths and weaknesses?); an analysis and diagnosis of the overall organizational framework, (i.e., what are we trying to achieve and why?); the design of custom-tailored interventions; implementation of these interventions; and monitoring and evaluation (see Figure 1). Such a process is long-term and engages all of the key actors (staff, management and board) in the organization. Component 2: Improving technical capacity in ECD: This component reflected on the existing ECD models of the Primary Partners and to work towards incremental quality improvement, resulting in more effective ECD services. The process involved a Quality Audit, followed by addition of the audit recommendations into the programmes. Component 3: Replication The replication process consisted not only of showing SCSOs how to design ECD programs and monitor and evaluate them, but also of actively mentoring and helping SCSOs through a process of piloting and growing their own program over a number of years . The PCSOs was thus be responsible for guiding SCSOs through both of these processes. The mentoring role involved PCSOs undertaking first-tier financial oversight for program funds used by SCSOs, and meeting regularly with each SCSO individually, as well as with each group of SCSOs. Through Replication, Phulki had 3 Partners who replicated Phulki’s Factory Based Child Care Center Model in Dhaka and Chittagong. Component 4: Innovation This component undertook a program of innovation around different components of one of the ECD programs of the Primary Partners – parenting, early learning or pre-school – and support exploration and testing of program links. Phulki’s innovation model has been Learning Center incorporated Child Care Center to address the holistic age appropriate learning of the children, especially their school readiness. All these are the core components of this project. The result based management approach has been followed to ensure the quality of the centers and supportive supervision was adopted as the core supervision strategy for this project. |
| Major Achievements | Component 1: Organizational Development:
Until the end of year 6 quarter 4, different levels of staff members of Phulki have been capacitated on the areas of Facilitation Skill, Professional Project Proposal and Report Writing, and Mainstreaming Gender in Organization, Monitoring and Evaluation. 6 Core Trainers in Phulki have been identified and continued to provide coaching in every month, however this activity is dropped from Phulki OD priority during this reporting period. The HRM of Phulki has been developed and upgraded in a participatory approach, and has also been subjected to review. The PIMS system of Phulki is installed and in the process of updating. The gender mainstreaming process of Phulki will be carried out by an individual consultant rather than the current OD service provider based on the decisions taken by the Senior Management of Phulki.
At the partner level, the HR and Financial Manual of all three partners have been developed and reviewed as per need, following their own OD priority. The partners are now being coached on the adoption of the policies. The partners are also capacitated in their priority areas such as: Gender Equality, Professional project proposal writing, Financial Management, Analytical Report Writing and Documentation, Basic Computing and Spreadsheet Analysis as well as Monitoring and Evaluation. The process of installation PIMS of Songshoptaque is started. CBSG has reviewed Gender policy of Songshoptaque. Strategic plan developed of SSTQ. CBSG has developed draft Annul report of SOF. The strategic Planning of AWAC and SOF has been completed and 1000 copies of brochure have been printed for SOF as communication material. CBSG developed Microcredit software for AWAC. Component 2: Improving technical capacity in ECD: Until the end of year 6 quarter 4, a total of 7 Phulki staff has received training on Foundation course on ECD, Play and Creativity and School Readiness from IED BRAC University; a total of 2 staffs have received training on Brain Development and Mental Health from the same institution; 21 of Phulki staffs have received training on Low/no cost ECD Material Development arranged in Phulki; 2 of the staffs received training on Ecology of Childhood, 2 of the Phulki staffs have completed their MSC in ECD in IED BRAC University. A total of 3 Phulki staffs have participated in the Certificate course on Early Childhood Education (ECE) at the Teachers Development Institute. Also, 2 staffs have participated in the Training on Curriculum Development in the same institute. One person from Phulki has visited MRC in Kenya and Phulki has adopted her learning, mostly that of low cost materials, into different programs of Phulki. Finally 2 persons have completed Post Graduate certificate Course in ECD” in Institution of Child and Mother Health (ICMH). Phulki has completed the process of adoption of the curriculum developed by international consultant according to the local context. This adoptive model has been used to update the training module for caregivers and the caregiver’s guideline for the innovative model of Phulki. This guideline is being used in all the community based program in Phulki. Phulki has differentiated its training modules in accordance with the age group of the children residing in the centers (one for 0-3, one for 2-6), as well as developed a training module designed for the supervisors. The center supervision and ranking tools have also been reviewed and in the process of finalization. The relevant staffs have been trained on those tools so that the centers can be supervised in a more systematic way. Also, two ECD curriculums have been developed national and international consultants for both age groups 0-3 (factory based day care centers) and 2-6 (community based day care centers with age appropriate activities). Two training modules are developed based on those two curriculums. Phulki has completed the process of publication of the caregivers training module and caregivers guidebook in this reporting period. Component 3: Replication A total of 74 Factory Based Child Care Centers have been established by 3 SCSOs until the end of project year .46 of these centers are located in Chittagong (Kalurghat, Double Mouring, Fouzdarhat, Nasirabad, Askarabad, Station Road and CEPZ) and 28 are in Dhaka (Mirpur, Gazipur, Savar, Ashulia and Narayanganj). A total of 677 children and their parents have received the ECD interventions through these centers. Of these centers, 72 have been handed over to the Garments Management, hoping to continue to provide service to the eligible parents and their children. Component 4: Innovation Phulki’s Innovative model is for the children of only working mothers of urban slum community in Dhaka city. Initially Phulki has started 10 centre. Among them, 10 are community based day care centres and 5 are butterfly centres in 4 slum areas of Mirpur (Polashnogor, Adorshonogor, Kalshi and Rupnogor ) in Dhaka city. One caregiver is responsible of a day care centre and one teacher is responsible for a butterfly centre. Each butterfly centre is set up for the children of 2 day care centres of aged 4-6. A total of 145 children and their parents have been reached out though these centers. Because of the proven effectiveness of this model, Phulki has adopted this model as its core design for community based child care centers, and this design has been followed accordingly. |