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Chevron's CSR in education pays off

The oil company lifts Nadampur High School from obscurity

SHARIER Khan, back from Bibiyana
Nadampur High school in Nobiganj wore the same obscure look as any school in rural Bangladesh in 2005.
Located in a poorly connected remote area of Habiganj district, the school had a high dropout rate and ignorable student performance at the secondary school certificate exam.
The school with around 125 students was another example of the passion of villagers who felt the need for a school in their neighbourhood and built it from scratch, with donations. But it suffered from a fund crisis and lack of proper infrastructure.
In 2005, the school's board decided to turn to international oil company Chevron which had begun producing gas from the nearby Bibiyana gas field. They asked Chevron for a building and tables and chairs.
"At first they asked for a school building," said Naser Ahmed, Chevron's external affairs director. "But we talked about the education quality. We found that the dropout rate was high. The teachers do notget their salaries regularly. The number of teachers was inadequate."
"We needed Tk 50,000 per month just for teachers' salary back then," said Khaled Ahmed Pathan, one of the founding members and the president of the school.
"We depended on donations from people, especially those living in London. We could get very little money from the students' fee."
Back then, the oil company had just started some corporate social responsibility (CSR) work focusing on the people who sold out their lands for the country's one of the biggest gas field. These people were initially very happy with the hefty pay—but as soon as they were done buying motorcycles or television and spent out most of the money, they started cursing Chevron.
From its experience, Chevron decided to help them find their livelihood to ensure a happy co-existence of villagers and an oil company.
Chevron did not just want to offer the people some money or any help that created dependency, because the company would not stay in Bibiyana forever. Instead, it wanted to help people or insti-
tutions achieve self-sustainability.
In case of schools, it wanted to help improve their education quality and build some urgent infrastructure at the same time.
"So we offered this school—as well as three other schools around Bibiyana field—sponsorship of three teachers for each school and stipend for meritorious poor students," Ahmed said.
It helped the schools cut dropout rates drastically and perform very well in SSC exams. "And the school environment became so good that the teachers started to enjoy their work and the students started to perform well," Pathan said.
The 23-year-old school suddenly started doing so well that for the last five years, it has been maintaining 100 percent pass rates. In 2011, this obscure school stood seventh in the Sylhet board. Because of the reputation of the school, it is now attracting students from distant places.
"This year, 96 of our students appeared in the exam; nine of them got A plus, 39 got A and 18 got A minus. The remaining students got B," said Pathan.
The school now has 845 students, with the majority of them female students
(473), which is an encouraging trend. The school management committee believes the number of girls has increased because of the improved road communication as well as social changes.
But with all these assistance, how did Chevron's help essentially secure the school's future, which was the company's CSR goal?
For each school, Chevron created an endowment fund for the future financial security, Ahmed said. Each school would annually provide Tk 40,000 while Chevron Tk 60,000. This way, the Nadampur High School now has around Tk 5 lakh.
"Before we built the school in 1992, people of five to seven villages around here had long discussions. People donated land or cash for this school because they felt they needed to enlighten their children," said Pathan. With Chevron's timely help, the school now has a financial model that would one day make it independent.
As the country's biggest single gas producer, Chevron has invested $1.2 billion in the country. It has been running various CSR programmes in its work area benefit-ting around 50,000 people.