Girls Not Brides: Concern of Distance Learning: Strategies to Prevent Child Marriage and Curse of Dowry: Bangladesh Perspective

Abstract

Women’s access to education must be treated as their fundamental right. And it is only through education that they wo uld get the chance to prepare themselves in order to play their roles in nation’s social, economic and political spheres as equal members of society. In Bangladesh, very few women can enjoy such rights and live a healthy and prestigious life. At present du e to government initiatives, girl’s enrolment in primary and secondary education is little bit higher than the boys. Despite of such encouraging scenario, there is a dark side behind this. Due to prejudice, mistaken education from family and society, lack of security, dropout rate of girls is higher and their retention rate is low. Marriage is considered as the alternative to education, which ultimately leads to violence against women due to unpaid dowry. Bangladesh has the second - highest rate of child marr iage in the world, behind Niger, and the highest rate of marriage of girls under age 15, according to a 2014 report by UNICEF. As a teaching and learning delivery model there is no option of distance education to meet up the challenges of inclusion girls wi th technological strength. The Open and Distance Learning system with its inherent nature of flexibilities has the potential to reach the unreached. It can provide an appropriate methodology to meet up the skilling needs of the unreached community through its academic, vocational, technical, professional, extension and lifelong learning programs. The article analyze the issues of child marriage, which gives the indication of the real causes of child marriage. The paper examines various strategies to minimi ze child marriage within a distance learning framework, underscoring the crucial role of diversity in culture and socio - economic status // Paper ID 34