A new brief from Education Out Louds Global Learning Partner Accountability Research Center, is based on a case study of a new generation of civil society actors in Bangladesh that have emerged in the past 10 to 15 years, in a context of shrinking space and declining aid flows. The brief finds that:

• Bangladesh’s emerging generation of new education civil society actors marks a shift in the motivations and activities of activism around education. There is much to be learned about their innovative approaches and strategies.
• The constraints and challenges they have faced also speak volumes about how the context in which they have emerged has affected their scope of action and impact.
• The new-gen civil society actors are young and often from backgrounds in business and tech-based innovation. They approach their work in a spirit of altruism and personal commitment.
• The initiatives of these new actors remain relatively small in scale, and have to date had limited impacts on broader education policy agendas.
• Evidence of this new-gen of education civil society confirms the vital importance of legal and political space for engagement, as well as of adequate resources.

The recent dramatic and unexpected student-led movement to restore Bangladesh’s democracy highlighted the significance and power of its organized youth. In a context in which young people’s initiatives have been suppressed and silenced for 15 years, it is clear that more attention to and support for youth civic initiatives is vital for invigorating Bangladesh’s education reform agenda.

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