Empowering Women and Girls through Education and Skills in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

The project aims to address barriers that hinder the demand for and access to education for girls adolescent girls and women in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region in south-eastern Bangladesh. The CHT is a multi-ethnic conflict-affected region where poverty and cultural norms severely restrict access to basic education and employment for girls and women from both indigenous and settler populations. The project addresses the barriers through support to 300 pre-primary and primary schools serving approximately 20 000 students and through skills training. Activities are designed to provide inclusive gender- and environmentally-responsive education at the pre-primary and primary levels; and increase access to gender-sensitive demand-driven technical and vocational education and training for adolescent girls and women including those with disabilities. The project aims to improve the retention rates for approximately 12 000 girls and adolescent girls; strengthen the knowledge and skill levels of approximately 900 teachers; and enhance employment opportunities for approximately 1 000 adolescent girls and women.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved provision of accessible safe and inclusive education and learning for girls and adolescent girls in primary and secondary levels; (2) improved provision of quality gender- and environmentally-sensitive education and teaching by education actors in the Chittagong Hill Tracts; and (3) increased provision of gender-sensitive technical and vocational education and training for adolescent girls and women.