Kneeling on the carpet in a schoolroom made of battered metal sheets, the beaming pupils sing with infectious gusto.
Though all are from families struggling to survive in one of Bangladesh’s most vulnerable locations, the children are dressed impeccably, and their behaviour is equally irreproachable.
As I watch these earnest students recite their teacher’s blackboard instructions by rote, they look like the embodiment of adorable innocence.
Outside the gaudily painted classroom, however, the harsh reality is that some of these 10-year-olds will be married off before they reach 16.
Here on the silt island of Bhola, the majority of the 19 girls in the class are at the mercy of a tradition which means they will be given away by their families well before adulthood.
A recent study conducted by the Bangladesh-based NGO BRAC – which provides primary education for many of the nation’s children, including in Bhola – found that over 60 per cent of families there are practising child marriage.
According to its survey of 50,000 households conducted across the country last year, 56 per cent of girls were forced into marriage before completing secondary school.
In the worst-affected district of Pirojpur, close to Bhola, 72.6 per cent of girls were married off by their families before the legal minimum age of 18.
This systemic problem in Bangladeshi society is one of the main reasons why BRAC invests so much in education.
The charity, which is the largest organisation of its kind globally with 90,000 employees, believes that by preventing children from dropping out of school in places like Bhola, it can reduce the prevalence of child marriage.
BRAC spokesperson Nafisa Islam explains that even though the girls are most vulnerable to being married off at secondary school age, there is equal focus on keeping boys in education.
Traditionally, many boys leave before they reach their early teens so they can support their families through work, often fishing or farming. This means that as the boys near 18 their families seek out a younger bride, in keeping with tradition.
“By solving the drop-out rate, we should arrest the prevalent problem of child marriage in Bangladesh,” Nafisa states, sitting next to me at the edge of the classroom.
“Until now, the drop-out rate has been high because they can see that education will not add much value to their lives.”
In Bhola, around 14 per cent of pupils drop out before the age of 11, often because extreme cyclones mean families are compelled to send children to work to cover the cost of rebuilding their homes.
Bhola, one of the nation’s river islands – known as chars – is only six feet above sea level at its highest point. Its towns have witnessed an influx of people forced to leave places which are now impossible to cultivate.
For many girls, there is no chance of even starting education. According to BRAC, 1.5 million primary-aged girls are not enrolled in school in Bangladesh.
The families of the primary school girls receive a small stipend as a way of encouraging them to keep their children at school. This donation enables families to withstand additional costs incurred by ongoing learning.
At the school, the cohort of 25 children all live within a ten-minute walk of the small classroom, in keeping with BRAC’s policy of keeping schools are as accessible as possible.
At its peak, in 2009, the BRAC network had 64,000 schools and 1.8 million students.
What is striking about all of the children I talk with is their ambition.
Hasna confidently proclaims her desire to become a teacher, while her friend Samiya is insistent that she will one day leave Bhola to train as a doctor.
Habib declares that unlike his father, who grows rice on a small plot, he will become an officer in the Bangladeshi Army.
Whether reality conforms to their expectations will only become clear in the coming years.
Their teacher Bibi Kulsum, 38, is more grounded in the aspirations she holds for her students. Nonetheless, she has observed considerable progress over the two years she has headed up the programme.
“When I started the drop-out rate was really high here,” she says. “It has got better, but most of the girls still get married off too early. During Covid, child marriage was even more prevalent.
“Sometimes we are able to protest to their families, or even report it to the police, and some then come back. Others just disappear, and we never see them at school again.
“Most of this is caused by poverty. They want to get their girls married off because they feel like they are a burden.
“I feel like I have an important role to play here and want to continue to offer these children something different.”
Parents gathered outside the school for our visit are gushing in their praise.
Although perhaps intimidated by the presence of authority figures in the audience, they insist their children will not be married off early.
“I want my daughter to be educated and then to get a job before she is married,” proclaims one mum, Nurjahan Begum, 35, whose husband is a farmer. “I wish I had had a chance to get a job when I was young. I want my daughter to be able to achieve what I could not in her life.”
Nurjahan’s positive views justify the policies of Safiqul Islam, director of BRAC’s education program for 34 years.
When he started out in the 1980s, 40 per cent of Bangladesh’s primary-age children were not in school.
As a result, the charity has spent decades renting one-room schools in every village to eliminate travel problems.
School hours are adjusted to fit families’ needs, especially during harvest periods, and local women are trained to be teachers, rather than bringing in people from outside.
Another solution has been to provide floating boat schools which drop anchor in remote communities impossible to access by road and often flooded.
As Bangladesh endured the longest school lockdown in the world during the Covid-19 pandemic, BRAC introduced an accelerated learning programme to bring pupils back up to speed, backed by Danish philanthropic body the Hempel Foundation and UK government funding.
For Hasna and Samiya, the schoolroom’s frail walls, although defenceless against cyclones, are a refuge. What happens when they leave is less certain.
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