The Fifth Floor: Education against the odds
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At least 30 million children are out of school in the Middle East and North Africa, with many displaced by conflict in Sudan and Gaza. Today we’ll hear from Hanan Razek and Georgina Pearce, who are part of the team behind Dars Arabic, the BBC show that aims to connect these children with learning tools. Plus, BBC Arabic Xtra's Saif Rebai tells us about the teacher who travels 40km to reach a remote community in the Libyan desert, and Anil Kumar reports for BBC Telugu on the Indian school with just one student. We'll also learn how to say 'Once upon a time' in Turkish, Bengali, Korean and Kazakh, with Osman Kaytazoglu,Shahnewaj Rocky, Yuna Ku and Nurlibek Ukubaev. Presented by Faranak Amidi Produced by Alice Gioia, Hannah Dean and Caroline Ferguson
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:07.8 | This is the fifth floor. |
| 0:11.5 | The fifth floor, you knowssonous. |
| 0:15.9 | This is the fifth floor at Farnak Amidi Sobath. This is the fifth floor at the heart of global storytelling with BBC journalists from all around the world. |
| 0:29.0 | I'm your host, Faranak Amidi. |
| 0:35.6 | According to UNICEF, millions of children are out of school in the Middle East and North Africa, |
| 0:42.7 | with many displaced in Sudan and Gaza. |
| 0:46.4 | But there is a BBC program that is trying to bring an online classroom to them. |
| 0:51.9 | The interlocunerite, the city's a second-time. On the matter we can't make of the things... classroom to them. |
| 1:09.9 | Here two characters are being challenged by what they call a mathematician to solve the question what is 432 divided by 12. This is a math lesson from |
| 1:16.1 | Dars, the BBC World Services Educational Program for Children. It was first launched in 23 in |
| 1:24.1 | Dadi and Pashto to have Afghanistan's national languages and is now also available in Arabic. |
| 1:31.2 | Here with me today, we have Hanan Razek. She is one of the presenters on Darce Arabic and Georgina |
| 1:37.4 | Pierce, who is one of the editors. Hanan and Georgina, welcome to the fair floor. Thank you so much. Great |
| 1:43.3 | to be here. Thank you, Faranag. |
| 1:45.2 | Hanan, I'm going to start with you. Can you tell me more about DARS? What is it? |
| 1:50.5 | So Dars in Arabic means listen and it's a new program launched on the BBC World Service Arabic, |
| 1:57.8 | and it is aimed to provide educational content for children aged between |
| 2:03.8 | 11 and 16 years old. Each episode will share lessons in different subjects from math, science, |
| 2:12.5 | geography to English as well as mental health. It actually comes at such a critical moment in the Middle East and North Africa, |
| 2:21.6 | where there are different conflicts and humanitarian crises going on in the region, which have led to millions of children being displaced or out of school. |
| 2:31.7 | And Georgina, can you explain the situation in the Middle East for us a little bit |
... |
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