Anna Akter, a nine-year-old student at a floating school in Bangladesh's remote Natore district, says she might have missed out on her education during annual floods without her boat-based classroom. The same goes for Khushi Khatun, who also studies at the boat school where she gets free tuition and materials. “Had there been no such school, she would have had to walk two kilometers along a muddy path or take a boat journey which may have discouraged her from studying,” said her father Nazir Uddin, a farmer in Pangasia village. Hundreds of students in the northern Bangladesh district are taught in floating schools. “Instead of the students going to school, the school reaches them,” said Mohammed Rezwan, founder of Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, the non-profit organization that introduced the country’s first floating school system. The boats first serve as the school bus, collecting children from different riverside stops. Once they have stopped, class begins. Rezwan’s organization now has 22 wooden boats, each able to hold 30 students. Each year, much of the Bangladesh countryside is hit by flooding, forcing schools to close. In 2007, for example, some 1.5 million students were estimated to have been affected by floods. Around two thirds of the country’s 160 million people live in rural areas. The floating schools cover an area of 2 square km, offering primary level education to local children who might otherwise have stayed away from school. Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha now also trains adult villagers on children’s and women’s rights, nutrition and health, and how to farm ducks and fish alongside vegetables in “floating gardens”, helping them adapt to the impacts of climate change. Some other countries, including Cambodia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Vietnam and Zambia, have introduced floating schools, following Rezwan’s model.