Creating high-quality, scalable play-based learning solutions

Project funding

Supported by the Yidan Prize project funds

Education theme

Education in emergencies

Equity, access, and diversity

Learning/teaching methods and environments

Social emotional learning

Overview

Background

About the idea

Impact and results

Stories

Media

Related projects

More to explore

BRAC Play Labs help deliver quality play-based learning to children aged 0–5 in Bangladesh, Uganda, and Tanzania.

BRAC Play Labs help children access quality early childhood education in Bangladesh, Uganda, and Tanzania. Each project is tailored to meet the most pressing local education and humanitarian challenges.

Laureate(s)

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed

Founder, BRAC

Background

Education starts well before school — and play is a powerful way to learn

90% of the brain’s development happens before age 5, and skills built in those early days can last a lifetime. Research shows that learning through play makes a huge difference when it comes to children’s physical development as well as language, motor, cognitive and social emotional skills.

BRAC works with families marginalized from traditional education systems, through poverty or conflict. In emergency and crisis settings, play-based interventions can help a child heal and build resilience.

Play Labs help bring quality play-based learning to children across three different countries

Local challenges are best met with local solutions. The BRAC team applies the Play Lab model differently according to the most pressing issues in the region.

For example, in Bangladesh mothers face a lack of affordable childcare, particularly outside city centers. For Uganda, the education system needs support to integrate hundreds of thousands of refugee children. And in Tanzania, three quarters of children aged 0–6 experience poverty, with less than half enrolled in pre-primary education.

About the idea

High-quality, low-cost, community-based early childhood education centers

BRAC runs 656 Play Lab centers in Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Uganda, engaging around 11,500 children aged 3–5 in play-based learning. The team trains play leaders — typically young local women — in play-based education, engages parents to help create toys from local materials and decorate learning spaces, and enlists experts to design context-specific curricula.

They’ve also brought together community leaders and BRAC University architects to design child-friendly spaces. Low windows make the outdoors easy for little ones to access. Community members help build outside play spaces using low-cost, often recycled materials. And innovative insulating and cooling systems keep children comfortable. BRAC shares the blueprint across communities with advice for adapting to fit different contexts.

BRAC adapts the Play Lab model to meet each country’s unique challenges

In Bangladesh, the project helps local people — generally women — launch daycare businesses, training them in early childhood development and play-based learning. They’re building livelihoods and a sustainable income. For many young mothers employed in garment factories, reliable local daycare offers a lifeline while they work to support their families.

In Uganda, BRAC’s developed a specially designed Humanitarian Play Lab for children in emergency settings. They’re working with 25 government primary schools and 10 Play Labs in refugee settlements — providing practical support and sharing inclusive approaches to play-based learning.

In Tanzania, the team is working with the government to support efforts to offer quality early learning. Play Labs are set up in government schools, helping children aged 3–5 get ready for school. Based on principles of joyful exploration, children build up a foundational knowledge of math and literacy, as well as all-important social and emotional skills.

BRAC committed the majority of Sir Fazle Hasan Abed’s project funds to the Play Labs project from January 2020 to September 2023. These helped build capacity and scale up existing plans.

Impact and results

Ensuring learning opportunities for underserved children

By the end of 2023, the BRAC team has trained 35 caregivers in Bangladesh to become entrepreneurs through successfully operating their own home-based Play Lab daycare centers. 175–200 children, who participated in play-based learning activities through BRAC’s day care curriculum, showed holistic development.

In Uganda, 35 play labs in government schools and refugee communities were set up, increasing access to learning opportunities for 1,366 children aged 3-5 years old. To keep children learning when schools were closed during Covid-19 lockdowns, BRAC delivered home learning packages, supported play-based learning activities at home on national and community radio, and used SMS and a hotline to support children and their parents.

And in Tanzania, BRAC reached over 2,000 children through the 30 Play Labs established in government schools. The children showed better physical, cognitive, social, and emotional growth than those not enrolled in Play Labs. In May 2023, these Play Labs were handed over to the local government for continued operations and further scale-up potentially.

BRAC also carried out plans to advocate the play-based curriculum in all three countries. They’re engaging the whole community through community awareness events, involving local authorities, parents, and teachers to improve knowledge on children’s development.

BRAC has been able to contribute to early childhood development (ECD) policy reforms in Tanzania with the approval of the national ECD curriculum — and is also working closely with Uganda’s National Curriculum Development Centres to review BRAC’s play-based curriculum for wider uptake.

Stories

Suma, Entrepreneur, Bangladesh

"I am delighted to be a member of the BRAC Play Lab Home-based Daycare team. I am the mother of three daughters. My husband works quite hard to provide for my family. I have always wanted to help out my family. Then BRAC provided the opportunity to start a home-based daycare. I had no experience or knowledge of how to run a home-based daycare when I first started. BRAC provided me with training on how to run and manage a home-based daycare.

However, running a business like this in my neighborhood of Ershadnogor, Tongi, is rather difficult because many working parents keep their children in the village due to a shortage of secure daycare. Though I struggled to manage children for my daycare, I was able to get my first child after BRAC's leaflet distribution and began working on my own.

One day I noticed that my spouse was wearing a tattered shirt since he could not afford to buy a new one. When I received the first payment after a month, I used my own money to purchase a new shirt for my husband. That day, I sobbed a lot because I was very delighted. Yes, I am capable of contributing to my family. To assist my family, I am currently developing my business and intending to cater to more children."

Juliana Mwasu Lubuva, Play Lab head teacher, Tanzania

“We are living in a community where they lack knowledge on early childhood development, a misconception causing the parents to believe that the curriculum itself just promoted children fun and games without learning anything that could contribute to their growth.

However, through community mobilization, continuous observation, supervision, and testimonies by staff, teachers, and parents respectively, it was understood that children who graduated from the play labs appeared ready to be engaged and easily understood the pre-primary classes compared to ones who didn’t receive the play-based curriculum early on.

Therefore, the intervention minimized the effort needed for the children to cope with school routines and activities and contributed to their easy understanding and engagement into the curriculum of the pre-primary classes.”

Wuya Grace, Parent, Uganda

“When my two children got enrolled in BRAC’s Humanitarian Play Lab at Good Hope, one of the play leaders told me that we shall be having parenting sessions once a month; something that I received well and I have been regularly attending.

Play leaders have since taught us many things but the one I will always remember is on brain structure and development. The play leader mentioned that once the connection of the child’s brain neurons is disrupted, it is so hard for it to normalize again. She told us that as a result of this, the child may get disabled or become an irresponsible person in later ages of life.

Among the issues mentioned that may disrupt children’s proper brain development included beating children in the head and in the back. I felt so touched because I need my children to be successful in life but I realized that my behaviour may prevent me from seeing the dreams I have for my children.

Since that day, I stopped overbeating my children and decided to always calmly correct them by telling them what is right and expected of them. They are now getting freer with me. What makes me happy is that, whenever they come from school, they freely share with me what they have learnt; which was previously not the case.”