‘Will to study’:The Children of drowned Haur does their schooling now in Boat schools

Schooling is adventurous for the children of Haur- a wetland in Bangladesh which is now submerged in water for the past 8 months. The Haur is unique in its ecosystem. The land is a depression-like a saucer on the earth’s surface, which makes the vast stretch of land(25,000 SqKm) to be immersed in water during monsoon. If the rains are good, the villages in Haur look like isolated islands with the lake resembling a raging sea, with waves frequently challenging the walls of village homes.

The effects of last year’s monsoon had not finished in Haur as the area is still underwater. The government with the joined effort of several NGO’s now had launched a breakthrough reform for the schooling of village children, without interruption during the monsoons. They had deployed 500 boats in which all the requirements as per state standards are furnished and the boats with the teaching and other staff will head to designated teaching locations on each village. Some special features of the Boat schools are that all the staff deployed are women and they should be of the same locality and ethnicity, so as to be familiar with the frequenting tides which are particular to each region.

With these out-reaching floating schools, the school attendance has jumped from 1 percent to 97 percent in the Haur wetlands. The Boat schools now have more than 14,000 students imparting the light of knowledge to each of the remotest islands of the wetlands of Haur.