Nudging Parents to Improve Children's Education

People in the historically low-income rural communities of Ukhiya and the Kutubdia island in Cox’s Bazar engage in activities that either generate family income or save expenses. Most families try to do both to grapple with the prices of daily essentials increasing by a great margin due mostly to the refugee influx. However, the socio-economic vulnerabilities also deepen every year with intruding salinity and cyclonic flash floods affecting people’s livelihoods.

In such communities, being able to send children to school is already an achievement. Parents hardly get time or scope to individually look after their children’s education. However, with support from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the UN World Food Program (WFP) in Bangladesh, Room to Read Bangladesh continues to uphold quality education as a key target. This requires the literacy project in Cox's Bazar to keep the focus on school attendance and retention and ensure that children enjoy reading both in and away from school.

Nowrin and Tasrin – daughters of Selina Akter – read in the Nalbunia primary school. Their class teacher was worried that they were becoming irregular at school and were not being attentive to class activity. The siblings failed to complete classwork and revert homework. This was feared as a disinclination towards going to school. Selina never appeared in the parent meetings either.

Respective Room to Read staff in Nalbunia visited Selina and her daughters. They shared on the agenda of the meeting and discussed why joining these meetings will help both Nowrin and Tasrin with their education. Selina agreed to make time for the next meeting. The parents’ meeting is a part of the ‘family and community engagement’ aspect of the literacy project. Parents are regularly communicated individually and in groups as they convene for meetings towards awareness-building and increased engagement in children’s education.

At the parent meeting, Selina was understandably upset to know about her daughters’ academic results, but was assured that there are ways to help them recover. She became aware of how best to support in case children struggle with lessons. She also learned tips and tricks on developing children’s reading skills. Selina is quite inquisitive: she quickly connected the importance of reading skills with a reading habit. Shadhin Pathok (trans: independent reader) – she liked the slogan that's expected to grow as a national campaign thanks to Room to Read Bangladesh’s national-level advocacy.

In March 2024, a total of 56 parent meetings were organized around the distribution and use of the education support materials. More than 3,983 (77% women) parents joined these meetings. The next meeting is scheduled to take place in May – after the project has conducted student tracking, which assesses students’ learning status. The meetings are school’s mandate. Room to Read shows how – as a stakeholder touchpoint – it can positively influence children’s education.

Selina and thousands of parents like her extend support to their children’s education at home and inspire them to continue going to school regularly. Selina regularly communicates with the class teacher and knows how to guide Nowrin and Tasrin to use the workbook and khata from the project. She also inspires them to read supplementary materials from classroom libraries:

“When my daughters bring storybooks from classroom libraries [set up by the project], I tell them to read out the stories to me. Sometimes I also tell them the stories I know. My daughters feel happy when they get my help with their reading and writing tasks. I cut down family chores to make time for my daughters’ education. I won’t find the scope to do this if time flies by. I feel sorry that I’ve lost some time – but I will not lose any more. That is my promise to my daughters.”

Both Nowrin and Tasrin regularly attend school now. They completed the missing lessons and are at per with the rest of the class. Their mother Selina is happy about their recovery and her own stake in it. The project team also is glad about the positive results parents' meetings bring.