Brac founder and chairperson Sir Fazle Hasan Abed said Brac will expand Kumon method in Bangladesh for children to learn better mathematics.
He was speaking as the chief guest at the 60th founding anniversary of Kumon, a specialized institution for teaching math and language, in Tokyo on Monday, according to a press release.
Organizers said the program was themed upon global broadening, evolving and deepening of learning, and circulation of knowledge.
In 1958 Japanese teacher Toru Kumon invented a method for his son to fun learn mathematics and language, which after replicating across Japan, spread across the world. Today Kumon learning centres are active in as many as 50 countries including Bangladesh, creating better learning opportunity for millions of children.
Having congratulated Kumon and its staff on the occasion, Sir Fazle said, “What started as a father’s initiative to help his son learn maths, has now become a worldwide movement to strengthen skills in maths and reading among millions of children in Japan and other countries around the world using a structured and individualized approach.”
“In 2013, Lady Abed and I met the president of Kumon and his team in Tokyo. At that meeting, he expressed an interest in working with Brac to test out the Kumon method in a handful of Brac schools in Bangladesh. This plan went ahead with financial support from Jica. Kumon concluded from this pilot project that their method could help to improve learning outcomes in maths for the poorest children,” he further said, informing the audience that Brac is now running two Kumon learning centres in Dhaka, while planning to set up hundreds of learning centres for Maths and reading all over the country in the next few years.
President of Kumon Institute of Education Hidenori Ikegami in his chair’s speech focused on the future scale-up planning of the institution and the innovative ways the Kumon teachers and staff are following to overcome the challenges in spreading the method across the world. l
