Education Minister Dipu Moni has reiterated that the educational institutions of the country will be reopened once the infection drops below 5%.
She was speaking to the media at the International Mother Language Institute on Sunday.
Dipu Moni said: "The infection rate will go down if everyone follows hygiene rules. According to experts, we can open educational institutions if the infection rate drops below 5%.”
On Sunday, Bangladesh reported 187 new fatalities and 6,684 new cases, with an infection rate of 20.25%.
She said that resuming operations at educational institutions would also depend on all the students aged 18 and above getting vaccinated.
“Most of the residential students of the universities have been brought under the vaccination campaign. So if we can vaccinate the rest of the students, we can bring them back [to classes],” she added.
The minister said the authorities were fully prepared to reopen the educational institutions at all levels. “Everything now depends on the Covid situation.”
She added that the universities would be opened first since most of the students had already been vaccinated.
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The minister said that since infections were low around November-December last year, the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary School Certificates (HSC) examinations this year might take place at that time.
In-person academic activities at schools, colleges and universities of the country have remained suspended since March last year, when the pandemic broke out.
The ministry had announced a schedule for reopening earlier this year when the number of coronavirus cases fell, but a second wave forced it to scrap the plan.
In the pre-Covid days, the SSC exams were held in February and the HSC in April every year.
Last year, the SSC tests were completed, but the HSC exams were postponed and later the results were published by averaging the grades in JSC and SSC.
As schools and colleges remained shut, the students were promoted automatically to the next classes without exams after classes were held online and based on the scores of assignments.