'Play-nursery-kg and pre-primary classes will remain closed'
After a long year and a half, the educational institutions from primary to higher secondary level will reopen on 12 September, but the classes of pre-primary level will remain closed for the time being.
Alamgir Mohammad Mansurul Alam, director general of Directorate of Primary Education, confirmed the matter to Prothom Alo on Sunday evening.
He said pre-primary level classes will resume later considering the situation. Now classes will resume only for the students above the pre-primary level.
It is to be noted that the government primary schools have one year pre-primary education. In addition, English medium educational institutions and kindergartens have separate pre-primary education systems called play group, nursery and KG.
Earlier in the day, after an inter-ministerial meeting on the opening of educational institutions in the cabinet division of the secretariat, the education minister officially announced that classes for students of all level up to twelfth grade will resume from 12 September considering the Covid situation in the country.
However, at the initial stages, only this year's and next year's SSC and HSC candidates and primary fifth grade students will have classes every day.
Remaining of the students will have to attend classes one day a week. It will be increased gradually based on the pandemic situation in the country.
The education minister further said classes of HSC and SSC examinees of this year and next year will be over within a few days. After that, the ninth and eleventh graders will also have classes everyday.
Regarding the reopening of universities, Dipu Moni said they had a plan to reopen universities in mid-October. However, they will sit with the vice-chancellors (VC) of the universities again to monitor the situation in this regard. If they want, they can open the universities earlier.
When asked about the PSC and JSC examination, cabinet secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam said they have preparations for the exams. If it is not possible to take the exams considering the situation, they will fix the next course of action accordingly.
According to a report released by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on 24 August, Bangladesh is the second in the list of countries with the longest closure of educational institutions due to the Covid pandemic. More than 40 million students have been affected by this.
The coronavirus related national technical advisory committee advised to reopen the educational institutions during a meeting on Thursday.
After the meeting, Mohammad Sahidullah, chairman of the committee, told Prothom Alo, “The coronavirus transmission rate has reduced by 70 per cent from its peak. Therefore, the educational institutions can be reopened now considering the overall situation.”