Week 6.1 - Floating Schools

Bangladesh is extremely densely populated and one of the least developed countries in the world. At the same time, the country has been identified by the United Nations as one of the countries most affected by climate change. Due to the geographical location and the backwardness of domestic economic strength, millions of Bangladeshis living in low-lying areas have been forced to endure extreme weather such as river flooding, rising sea levels, and devastating tropical storms. As rivers engulf towns and seawater invades coastal communities, more than one-fifth of Bangladeshis are flooded every year. UN experts warned that by the end of the century, about 20 million Bangladeshis will be able to become "climate refugees"



Frequent floods often isolate this remote village from the nearest school, which prevents students from going to school for education. So, the most common means of transportation on the street is simple wooden boats. In order to change this situation, a very peculiar teaching mode ‘floating school’ has begun to appear in Bangladesh. The BRAC University students in Dhaka have previously built a floating bamboo house model that can cope with flooding and easily drift anywhere. All boats equipped with solar panels to ensure that they unremitting travel to different villages.
In the Chalan Beel area, “floating schools” are distributed along flooded riverbanks and lakeshores, providing educational opportunities for children in the poorest areas. Mohammad Rezwan is the founder of the “Floating School” project, and he believes that children can go to school normally. If the children can't go to school because of lack of transportation, then the school should go to them now. Currently, Mohammad Rezwan operates more than twenty “floating schools”. The smaller "floating school" model has desks, a library, and a blackboard. For computer information technology disciplines will be equipped with computers that can access the Internet. For reading the subject, there will be small libraries inside, and even ships for sports disciplines, with slides, horizontal bars, and swings. On the other hand, they also built a water clinic, a library, and a vocational training center to allow adults to learn new farming skills.


I have to say that Mohammad Rezwan does bring hope to Bangladesh's education, but I think this may not be a long-term solution. First of all, how to ensure the safety of the children on board and whether there are sufficient survival facilities on board. Second, as the impact of climate change becomes more serious, the government should have more measures to curb local floods, such as building larger flood barriers and returning children to real campuses.

Reference
Vinnitskaya, I 2012. Local solutions: Floating schools in Bangladesh.
https://www.archdaily.com/307128/local-solutions-floating-schools-in-bangladesh


Floating schools. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3j2K2XQz7I&t=76s

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