EDUCATION PROGRAMS

IDF’s education program currently consists of 2 components. One is to support educational activities, and the other to award scholarships to the students. To support the educational activities IDF is currently involved in running one school at Satkania with the target of upgrading it into a college. The objective is to encourage and enroll all children in schools and to provide better education to them. The other regular activity is to award scholarships to the children of IDF members throughout the project studying in different schools and colleges including universities every year. In addition, IDF, in cooperation with PKSF, under the Samridhi program is running ‘evening schools’ with primary school students to reduce or stop the drop out from schools. The details are described below

In November 2015, IDF got involved in a school situated at Dullaver Para in Satkania Pourashava and included the school within IDF Education Program. In fact, the school was established in the year 2000 at the initiative of some local people. The school was named as ‘Dullaver Para Arkania Islamic Academy’. The school was not running well mainly due to financial problems. This got the attention of Mr. Zahirul Alam, ED, IDF and a discussion with the school management and local people resulted into IDF’s involvement in the school and IDF took responsibility of managing the school. At the time of taking over the management, the school had a 2-storied building in 5 decimals of land. The school had 48 students reading in classes through I to V. There were 4 teachers working at the school at that time. After taking over, IDF set the name of the school as ‘IDF School & College’ and formed a new 12-member managing committee with Prof. Shahidul Amin Chowdhury, a renowned educationist and the founding member of IDF, as its chairman.

Mr. Md. Yousuf Zobair, MA, B.Ed., LLM, LM – the Principal of the IDF school and college is the member -secretary of the committee. The committee took initiative to enlarge the area of the school campus and had acquired about 50 decimals of land adjacent to the school.In September 2019, this new campus of the school was inaugurated and a foundation stone for constructing a new building was laid down by the Honorable Minister of Planning Mr. M. A. Mannan, MP. IDF intends to develop this as an international standard educational institute where students would be able to acquire academic and technical knowledge in future.

In the year, 2019, there were 7 teachers (4 females and 3 males) in the school with 93 students upto class VIII. In the beginning of the year 2020, the school was being operated with 140 students from Play group to Class IX. In January 2020, free books were supplied to all students. Three more male teachers were selected through competitions but meanwhile the school was declared closed due to Covid-19 pandemic. Classes were suspended throughout the year. The teachers, of course, continued to maintain contacts with the students and guardians on informal basis.

Child Labor and Non Formal Education

IDF has been implementing Child Labour and Non-Formal Education component since 1994. The main objectives of this program are:

Objectives

  • Raise awareness on child rights and education;
  • Provide basic education (read, write and count) to poor children who are dropped-out;
  • Provide tuition/coaching support to poor student to prevent drop out.

IDF runs two types of education centres. In one type, education is provided up to class II level. Free education materials including books and writing materials are provided to the students. In other type, tuition services are provided to the students to prepare school lessons for the following day.