BRAC founder and chairperson Sir Fazle Hasan Abed said BRAC will expand the Kumon method in Bangladesh, for children to be able to excel in mathematics. He was speaking as the chief guest at the 60th founding anniversary of Kumon, a specialised institution for teaching maths and language, in Tokyo.

Kumon Institute of Education organised the event at the Pacifico Yokohama Exhibition Hall in Tokyo on Monday (11 February 2019), attended by Kumon instructors and alumni from around the world. Organisers said the programme was themed upon global broadening, evolving and deepening of learning, and circulation of knowledge.

In 1958, Japanese teacher Toru Kumon invented a method for his son to learn maths and language in a fun way, which, after replicating across Japan, spread across the world. Today, Kumon learning centres are active in as many as 50 countries including Bangladesh, creating better learning opportunity for millions of children.

Having congratulated Kumon and its staff on the occasion, Sir Fazle said, “What started as a father’s initiative to help his son learn maths, has now become a worldwide movement to strengthen skills in maths and reading among millions of children in Japan and other countries around the world, using a structured and individualised approach.

"In 2013, Lady Abed and I met the president of Kumon and his team in Tokyo. At that meeting, he expressed an interest in working with BRAC to test out the Kumon method in a handful of BRAC schools in Bangladesh. This plan went ahead with financial support from JICA. Kumon concluded from this pilot project that their method could help to improve learning outcomes in maths for the poorest children," he further said, informing the audience that BRAC is now running two Kumon learning centres in Dhaka, while planning to set up hundreds of learning centres for maths and reading all over the country in the next few years.

President of Kumon Institute of Education Hidenori Ikegami, in his chair's speech, focused on the future scaling up plans of the institution, and the innovative ways the Kumon teachers and staff are following to overcome the challenges in spreading the method across the world.