*“Pqathshala” is a Bangla synonym for “school”. The name carries a heritage of ancient schooling system of the subcontinent. The tagline says “We dream of a world free from illiteracy”= The Story of Dreams University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, established in 1921, has produced great minds like Jagadish Bose and Nobel Laureate Mohammad “Yunus. About 35000 students regularly walk the university's Campus grounds. They have heavy and heated discussions Gnd debates over tea-cups,~breakfast bites and meal-plates. How many of these students notice the uneducated and poorly dressed waiters who delivers the tea-cups, breakfast breads and meals? Yes, how many of them think about the cafeteria boy, the helper at the tea-store and the small girl with illusive smile who sells flowers in the campus for living? These children live on Campus, the highest place of knowledge, but none of them can even write a letter to their — ~ loved ones. To them, the newspaper is only a sheet of paper with meaningless’ black — markings and well-facilitated classrooms are only dreams. ~ SF. These ill-fated children do not know what fe dream about, the curse of illiteracy has put bars in the way. This project, titled, ~ “Paathshala”, meaning school in Bengali; cherishes a-small — dream of delivering basic education to the 500 odd working Children * who: live in the university campus... We have undertaken a vow to eradicate illiteracy from our beloved — campus. We dream of the day when slum/poor areas adjacent to educational institutions will have illiteracy removed permanently. The overall idea of the project is to establish . teaching-teams out of 150 volunteers, consisting of university students in the 17 halls of the residence and 15 ‘spots out of the halls. Working out of a space dedicated for the purpose, members of the team would take sole responsibility of teaching ‘selected working children. living on-campus. The volunteer students would use specially designed lesson plans and _ teaching-learning materials for this purpose.To provide a model by which educational institutions in. 2 Bangladesh can support the educational devélopment of those without education, living in and adjacent to the educational institutions throughout Bangladesh. Paathshala aims first to tackle illiteracy in the campus area of the University of Dhaka. In doing so it wishes to provide a model that can be followed by other public universities and later by educational institutions. —— = :