Over the nearly two years that Covid-19 has been with us, numerous articles, editorials, and Op-Eds in many publications have appeared to alert government officials and the public about the way in which our children’s “right to education” has been stolen from them.
All the comments, suggestions, and demands appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
Recent studies have shown that of the approximately 28,000 deaths from Covid in Bangladesh, only 3% (840) were in the 0-10 year’s age range and 8% (2240) in the 11-20 year’s age range.
So, the question that all responsible parents should be asking is: Why have nearly two years of our children’s education been stolen?
In recent days, we have been told that schools, colleges, and other educational institutions will be reopened by the end of this month, but what were the reasons that they were kept closed for so long?
In a speech, delivered virtually, on February 13 at the International Mother Language Institute, UNB reported that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said: “Our students are the worst victims of the coronavirus fallout.”
Sadly, this, indeed, is very true.
It is highly likely that the children and grandchildren of many of the ministers and civil servants of the ministries of education and health go to private schools and have access to online education but the majority of children do not. Whenever there has been an announcement of a further delay of the opening of schools, the officials have said: “Online classes will continue.”
When will these officials live in the real world? Why have they not understood that schools should be the last to close and the first to open?
It is astonishing that the two ministries of education could not have sanctioned a more flexible approach. There are, for instance, thousands of schools, mainly in rural areas, where teaching could have been conducted in the open air, under trees.
It is also extraordinary that a common sense approach could not be adopted when schools did reopen. Some children attended in person learning for only one day a week, which is quite ridiculous.
To give an example of a small boy who I know who goes to a private school in Dhaka. He was in the first grade in March 2020 when schools were closed. He was at that time receiving three hours of tuition at school per day.
When online sessions started, he was only getting one hour a day, and eventually, these classes were done at night when the children’s parents would be at home with their smartphones -- to be able to access the online classes.
Assuming school-based classes reopen at the end of this month, this boy will be attending classes in the third grade. He has lost two years of proper teaching and learning. After all, not many families will have been able to arrange or afford extra tuition at home.
Have the officials in the ministries prepared any plan of how to recover this lost learning?
Recently, Dr Manzoor Ahmed, Professor Emeritus of Brac University has written that there are many suggestions made by education experts of organizations such as the Campaign for Popular Education and the Education Watch Report, Brac Institute of Governance Studies, Civil Society Alliance, and others. These suggestions include re-jigging the academic year in an effort to recover the lost learning.
Even though it is very late, it is hoped that officials in the ministries of education will finally and urgently “see the light” and begin to move mountains.
Julian Francis has been associated with relief and development activities of Bangladesh since the War of Liberation. In 2012, the Government of Bangladesh awarded him the ‘Friends of Liberation War Honour’ in recognition of his work among the refugees in India in 1971 and in 2018 honoured him with full Bangladesh citizenship.