Decision on reopening educational institutions Sunday

The Ministry of Education will hold a meeting on Sunday to decide on the reopening of educational institutions across the country.
 
Mahbub Hossain, secretary of the Secondary and Higher Education Division at the Education Ministry said a high-level meeting led by Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni has been called on September 5 to take a final decision in this regard.

"Students lag far behind as educational institutions remain closed for long. Sunday's meeting will discuss on different initiatives to minimize the learning losses," he said.

The meeting will finalise different plans including a roadmap to minimize Covid-inductive academic losses, forming health safety guidelines and completing HSC, SSC exams. Technical committee members of the education ministry, primary and mass education ministry, health ministry will be present at the meeting.

According to sources at the ministry, the National Technical Advisory Committee opined to reopen educational institutions if covid-19 infection drops below 10 percent while Bangladesh has seen a rapid drop in the Covid-19 infection rate recently. 

The overall infection rate in the country is currently at 12%.  Experts hoped that the infection rate would drop below 10 percent in the coming days.

But the education ministry plans to reopen schools after infection level drops below 7-8 percent. 

There are 1.5 lakh educational institutions with 5 crore students from primary to higher education in the country. The students mostly remain out of their academic study since March 17 when the educational institutions were closed due to Covid-19 pandemic.

Many institutions have been conducting online classes and other means of distance learning during the suspension of in-person academic activities.

The government extended the closure multiple times, but it has been repeatedly saying that the schools and colleges will reopen only after the Covid-19 situation improves.