Experts have suggested that social and emotional skills are needed to be taught at the classrooms and outside of the schools as a part of the new normal world following the new normal brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speakers came up with the remark at a webinar jointly organized by Room to Read Bangladesh and #NextGenEdu on Wednesday, says a media statement.
The Covid-19 pandemic has transformed and reformed the lives of students, teachers, and other educational professionals to a great extent.
The participants reviewed education strategies and explored ways to integrate Social Emotional Learning (SEL) into literacy teaching-learning in the newly defined pedagogy of Covid-19 context.
Md Akram Al Hossain, senior secretary of Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has given us a new lens to see the education system through, that magnifies successes as well as challenges in the education system of Bangladesh and at the same time makes us thoughtful about future steps.”
“We have to rethink our whole education system in terms of curriculum, pedagogy, skills, etc. and have to reflect on them using our experience from this pandemic,” he added.
Heather Simpson, chief program officer of Room to Read said: “We have to keep in mind that if we can nurture the social and emotional learning, the literacy, the mimetics and other academics are going to increase even more.”
Mirta Isabel Figueroa Fernandez, director at University Center for Social Participation, Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla, and Sean Bellamy, co-founder of Sands Democratic Schools, UK also spoke at the webinar.
The participants at the webinar came up with some strong suggestions on how to minimize critical gaps, and explore opportunities to co-create reimagined models.
Representatives from different country programs of Room to Read, UNESCO, UNICEF, Alokito Hridoy Foundation, Sesame Workshop, National Academy for Primary Education (NAPE), National Curriculum and TextBook Board (NCTB), Acumen Academy, Teach for Bangladesh, and a2i – Aspire to Innovate participated in this discussion.