The ripple-effect of child educated

Mike Saycon

Kamla’s older sister, who takes care of their younger brother while their parents work at the farm, walks him to school. Many of the children’s parents are farmers, and on non-school days they help out along with their friends and neighbours. 

Kamla and his classmates return to their CBSR centre – from their 20-minute outdoor learning activities between their lessons. As many of their friends are from nearby houses, they have many children to play with during their games; especially those younger children who are not yet in the CBSR, or the older ones who are on their summer break from primary school.

  

Between their learning activities, children play various games as a group or with the other village children outside their classroom. Many of the outdoor games that they play as a class are designed to reinforce the lessons they had just learned, thus allowing for a more holistic learning experience.

Kham, village facilitator in Cho Tai village in Ta Oi, Saravan Province, believes in the importance of school readiness for children that he brings along his son Dao to join the classes as well. “I am always very happy when the children in my class are all in attendance, and it motivates me even more to make their lessons as fun and as interesting for them – so they want to keep on learning,” he says.

 

Kamla and his friends at the CBSR centre, on the more serious parts of their lessons – writing the alphabet and comparing notes. The CBSR is one of the interventions that UNICEF supports to increase the readiness of children to enter and stay on in primary school; in order for them to be competent and sufficiently skilled to finish through all levels of the formal education system and be employed later.

                                        

 

Literacy and numeracy modules in CBSRs are integrated with musical and games elements to keep the young pupils interested, giving the classrooms a fun vibe. The big groups of 30+ children can be challenging to manage for one or two village facilitators; hence by giving the children some form of entertainment while learning their lessons along with it, they are able to reinforce their lessons well.

Learning activities at the CBSR centre are designed to be as interactive as possible, to enhance the ability of the young learners in responding to stimuli such as colours, images and numbers; and allow them to engage actively with both their facilitators and peers. Pictured here is Kone who motivates his pupils to volunteer for a show-and-tell session with their peers.