All educational institutions to remain closed
Tribune ReportEducation
All the educational institutions across Bangladesh will remain closed, as a part of the government’s freshly imposed Covid-19 restrictions.
The government issued a set of 18 directives on Monday, through a gazette notification signed by the prime minister's principal secretary, Ahmad Kaikaus, aiming to curb the rapidly rising Covid-19 transmission across the country. The new restrictions are effective immediately.
One of the directives says all pre-primary, primary, madrasa, secondary, higher secondary, universities and all coaching centres should remain closed in the current situation.
The directives also say that proper hygiene norms should be ensured at any kind of public examination where physical appearance is required.
According to the circular, the directives will remain in force initially for two weeks.
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Sources at the Ministry of Health said they would observe the situation for the next 14 days.
Partial, zonal lockdown may be imposed if the situation deteriorates during these two weeks, they added.
On Monday, Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni told a national daily that all educational institutions, including Qawmi madrasas, would be closed following the new government directives.
Although all educational institutions across the country were shut down on March 17 last year due to Covid-19, the Qawmi madrasas were reopened in August under special consideration.
The schools, colleges and universities remained closed, with their academic activities conducted online.
In February this year, amid protests by students of several universities, the government decided to reopen all universities on May 24.
A month later, the government extended the school and college shutdown, which was supposed to end on March 29, and decided to reopen them on May 23.