DoPeace Innovations for Educating Slum Children

DoPeace is implementing an innovative model that combines technology with traditional teaching. We strive to give access to the impoverished children in the slums to pre-school education, discouraging them from becoming a street child with no education. Access is the priority. To facilitate access, we open basic classrooms within the slum community for the parents to bring children within minutes of walking distance. We keep the cost low, and emphasize on the very basics: students, books, teachers, and a basic classroom. We inculcate the habit of going to school and the value of education. We also take the responsibility to take our pre-school graduates and admit them to the first grade in government schools which are free. We believe we have four innovations somewhat different from other providers of education to the marginalized slum children.

The first innovation is low cost and high level of access. We have developed approaches to lower the cost to as low as US$1 per child per month (excluding the digital devices and Internet connection costs).

The second innovation is the use of technology to leapfrog into the 21st century education, with access to Internet, using digital devices, for after-school coaching from grades 1-5. Our strategy is to develop on-line curriculum catered for success in the country of interest. For Bangladesh, we have designed on-line curriculum for Grades 1 to 5, leveraging the core curriculum created by the Bangladesh government. The on-line curriculum resides in servers in the USA, and is delivered on-ground by an instructor at the most basic classrooms in Bangladesh.

The third innovation is individualized learning, as courses are delivered on-line in byte size skills coupled with assessment. Only when a student achieves the skills as determined by the assessment, he or she proceeds to the next level. This facilitates the quality of education.

The fourth innovation is the emphasis on reduction of the dropout rate from the schools via our coaching for grades 1 to 5, mentioned above.