Jessore Information Foundation has started an education programme for adults in Shangkarpara area of Jessore.
During a visit to its classroom, 24 women were found attentively engaged in learning English alphabets. Students of high schools and universities work here voluntarily to provide education to the illiterate people of the area.
A classroom of Golam Hossain Patel Government Primary School is used for the activities. Halima Begum, 50, a student of the adult education programme, said previously she used finger script while drawing money for loans. She read the Quran but could not read the Bangla translations. Sometimes she could not take her medicine properly as she could not read the prescription. This programme had made her life much easier.
Under the programme, the students are taught Bangla, Mathematics, English and Arabic. People aged from 16 to 60 are taking the programme. Another student Jhorna Begum, 40, had a dream of becoming literate one day. She used to stare at her children’s books with wonder. Her husband is intellectually disabled.
“Now I can even read the labels on different packets in the kitchen,” said Jhorna with a toothy grin. Five girls and three boys provide education to males and females separately. They take the classes after 8pm on weekdays.
Taslima Akhter, a teacher of the programme, is studying in grade 12 at Jessore MSTP Collegiate School.
“Students who can identify alphabets are taught under category ‘A’, students with lesser knowledge are put under category ‘B’ and ‘C’ respectively,” she told the Dhaka Tribune.
All of the 60 students are eager to learn but they were irregular in classes, she added. “I have been associated with the programme for the last two years. I am not paid for it but the activity gives me immense joy. Although some students drop out after attending classes for a few days,” said Brishti Akter, another teacher of the school and a student of Government MM College.
Both teachers and students are provided with copies, books, pencils and erasers free of cost.
The two-year old Jessore Information Foundation also provides medical facilities to the students and have plans to provide training on computer to the volunteers.
Iqbal Hossain Siddiqui, chairman of Jessore Information Foundation, said: “We are working in a small scale for the betterment of the backward community of Jessore.”