Kazi Rafiqul Alam
Hall of Fame Class of 2017
Kazi Rafiqul Alam dedicated his life to promoting quality adult and continuing education through enhancing facilitators, teachers, and learners’ capabilities.
Under Alam’s visionary leadership, the Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) has grown to be a multi-dimensional initiative, running 104 projects and institutions. The Mission has been recognized for its services to the society and won many national and international prizes and awards. Through Alam’s leadership, DAM launched an innovative model for Community Resource Centres (Ganokendras) which have not only created a platform for the planning and delivery of adult and continuing education but also proved an effective space for networking within the community to better harness other development services.
Alam’s extensive experience and practice (through DAM) in adult and continuing education have been channeled to support the strengthening of public policy and public adult education provisioning in Bangladesh. Alam served as a member of several government technical committees on education and, notably, was a member of the National Committee for the Preparation of the National Plan of Action on Education for All (EFA). In these capacities, Alam assisted the Bangladesh Government in formulating its literacy and Non-Formal Education (NFE) policies, and in strengthening public education provisioning of NFE through the extensive development of literacy curricula and primers. Under his guidance, DAM has developed 743 continuing-education materials, literacy curricula, and primers that remain relevant and are still currently used.
Alam was also instrumental in the development of 12 volumes of APPEAL (Asia Pacific Programme of Education for All) Training Materials for Literacy Personnel (ATLP) and eight volumes of APPEAL Training Materials for Continuing Education Personnel (ATLP–CE) for UNESCO, which are widely used across the Asia Pacific Region.
Alam has moderated more than 79 international workshops worldwide, acted as an international resource person for UNESCO, the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU), Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE), and for promoting EFA. With decades of active involvement with UNESCO, Alam chaired many workshops, meetings, seminars, and conferences at national, regional, and international levels where he promoted the right to and value of youth and adult education. He was also an Executive Council member of ASPBAE from 2000 to 2008.
Alam is currently Chairperson of the Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE), an alliance of 1,300 NGOs working in the fields of literacy and education and serves as President of the Bangladesh Literacy Association affiliated with International Literacy Association.