Floating Schools, Part 2

Americans love their brick and mortar schools. It’s part of the traditional public education system. But in other parts of the world, leaders have learned to adapt to their environments by creating learning spaces anywhere and everywhere.

Most recently, Getting Smart’s Nate McClennen sat down with Mohammed Rezwan, who has spent over 20 years increasing school access for Bangladeshi students through what he calls a “floating school program.” Here is Part 2 of excerpts of their conversation:

“NM: Can you describe, because we don’t have any floating schools in the United States, maybe a few schools on boats, how big these boats are? How many students study on them? And what does a day look like? You said that their parents can see them getting an education on the boat. So how does the system work?”

“MR: In rural Bangladesh, boats are built with wood and bamboo. All the materials are sources locally, and the local people build the boats with their indigenous or traditional knowledge of boat building. I thought of using that knowledge, local labor, and materials. I know that if we design boats and create space with all these locally found resources, then it will help this project sustain for a long time. The community will be able to manage it. It will not be a new thing to them. It will be built by themselves, maintained by themselves, and operated by themselves because the boatmen, the teachers, and the boat builders are all from the same community. So it will create a strong relationship.”

“That’s why we used the traditional or indigenous knowledge of boat building. These boats are bigger than traditional boats. The floating school or school boat is 55 feet long and 11 feet wide. But the bigger boats are 65 feet by 13 feet.”

…

“Within the classroom, a boatman is responsible for looking after and running the boat. On each school boat, we have 30 students per class or session. The school boat works as a combination of a school bus and a schoolhouse. It collects students from different riverside areas or stations or villages, docks at the last destination, and arranges classes on the boat. After the class, it drops students off at the same places. In this way, our school boat works throughout the day, arranging three classes, each with 30 students, for a total of 90 students per school boat.”

“It works six days a week and provides education up to grade five. These children come from landless families, where it is normally a challenge to get three meals a day. The house condition is very poor, and these are flood-prone villages…”

“On the school boat, we have to follow the government curriculum. At the same time, we have our own environmental curriculum. I not only designed the school boat, but as an architect, I also write school books for the children. We have an environmental curriculum that focuses on biodiversity, protecting the environment, and informing children about the sources of pollution so that they can share the information with their families and communities.”

“The children graduating from the floating schools can stay in touch with education through our floating libraries, where we provide training on computers and have 1,500 books. We also have training centers where girls and women can get training on new skills so that they can generate income and delay their marriage in the community.”

“We have boys’ and girls’ clubs that work together in preventing early marriage in the community because Bangladesh ranks number four in terms of early marriage, with one-third of the girls getting married before the age of 15. Early marriage is one of the challenges, and our work addresses this challenge.”

“NM: …Right now, how many floating schools are there? Have you been able to measure the impact? How many students have been served? What’s the difference in these lives? You’ve been at it for 20 years, so it’s a long time. How do you measure success?”

“MR: At our organization, we have 26 school boats working in districts in northwestern Bangladesh, reaching around 2,340 children a year. Our work has inspired other organizations over the last 12 years. Communities within Bangladesh and outside of Bangladesh – in Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, and countries in Africa – have taken our idea of floating schools. They have built floating schools. So far, I think in total, more than a few hundred floating schools are floating through rivers, canals, and wetlands in these eight countries globally.”

…

“NM: What’s next for you? Do you want to keep adding more floating schools, or what are your next big ideas? Because clearly, you’re always creating and building something. So what’s next for you?”

“MR: At present, throughout different types of activities – schools, libraries, training centers, health clinics – we are directly reaching 75,000 people a year, and another 75,000 are indirectly impacted. So 150,000 people are benefiting from our services right now. We want to double that beneficiary reach and most to more remote communities throughout the country.”

“We have a plan to introduce another 35 boats over the next five years. At the same time, we can see the strong impact of climate change in other communities globally. For example, we got a call form Papua New Guinea. In Papua New Guinea, many communities don’t have access to education. Children cannot go to school. They do not have all the necessary support they need. When I talked to a community member there, I thought that we should go there. So in the future, we have a plan. We want to help these communities globally so that they can design and build their own school boats.”

…

We need to get over this idea that learning can only take place, and be rewarded, in spaces called schools. Today, we now can define, plan, execute, and evaluate our own learning anytime and anywhere in the world – even on a boat floating in Bangladeshi waters.

Til tomorrow. SVB