Educational institutions likely to reopen in Feb: State minister

State minister for primary and mass education Md Zakir Hossain on Tuesday said educational institutions are likely to reopen any day in February after 11 months of closure forced by the coronavirus outbreak, reports UNB.

"We're reopening all educational institutions in February. We'll fix the time in accordance with the given guidelines of the health ministry and the prime minister. We're planning to open the institutions in the first and second week of February," he told reporters at the secretariat.

Zakir said the ministry has already issued a letter as part of preparation to reopen and directed the institutes to follow certain guidelines as well.

The ministry is planning to hold regular classes one or two days a week. Fifth graders will come to schools one or two days and first to fourth graders will join classes one day a week in phases, the state minister said.

About the private schools and kindergartens, Zakir said the government won't take responsibilities for them since they are not registered with the ministry.

"We wrote to health ministry to bring all teachers and officials of the institutes under vaccination campaign. But students won't get the jab as per a previous decision," he said.

Educational institutions were shut on 16 March last year after the country announced its first coronavirus cases on 8 March. The closure was extended in phases up to 30 January this year.

Meanwhile, the government decided to not to take any Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and equivalent examinations amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Also, the Junior School Certificate (JSC) and Junior Dakhil Certificate (JDC) examinations were not held last year.

On 7 May last year, the University Grants Commission (UGC) published a guideline on conducting courses online, including teaching, taking exams, their assessment as well as admission for private universities.

Bangladesh's coronavirus fatalities rose to 8,055 on Tuesday while the total caseload reached 5,32,916. The daily infection rate fell to 3.58 per cent with a mortality rate of 1.51 per cent.

So far, 477,426 patients (89.59 per cent) have recovered.