The overall objective of this chapter was to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on primary education in Bangladesh. Published government and non-government reports, books, research papers, and newspaper articles were reviewed to write the chapter. The chapter discusses the primary and general education system of Bangladesh and the overall measures that have been taken by the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) considering the prolonged closure of schools for the COVID-19 outbreak. Analysis showed that GoB has introduced distant learning through various digital learning platforms, but the initiatives have proven ineffective. The chapter further discusses how poor access to technological devices has hindered the process of availing online education, and also the association of how the fall of parental income and rural and urban differentiation in facilities have affected primary children's education and led to learning poverty and multi-dimensional disparity. The analysis would be important in the creation of guidelines for policymakers, government officials, NGO managers, academicians, and researchers.
Top1. Introduction
Novel coronavirus diseases (Covid-19), caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first detected in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, in December 2020 which later spread across the globe (Cowling & Aiello, 2020; Zu, et. al., 2020; Bogoch, et. al., 2020; Novel, 2020 Siam, et. al., 2020; Kabir, et. al., 2021). Considering the severity of the global health impact, World Health Organization (WHO) declared it as a global pandemic on 11 March 2020 (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020). The global outbreak of the Covid-19 has created an unprecedented chain reaction in every sphere of modern civilization (d’ Orville, 2020; Zhu & Liu, 2020). Since its first detection and recorded death, the infection rate and the death toll has been gradually swelling, and as of 26 September 2021, more than 231.5 million people are being infected, and nearly 5 million people have died worldwide due to Covid-19 (Johns Hopkins, 2020). People from every walk of life have been living in a confined situation, and their usual way of living has halted with the fear of viral infections. Almost every country in the world has been going through the newly imposed critical and challenging situations and has made many steps to cease the transmission of the virus, which includes ensuring social distancing, country-wide lockdown, closure of educational institutions, etc. The pandemic has instigated new emerging challenges for all sectors, the education is one of them (UNESCO, 2020). The outbreak of the global pandemic caused the closure of the educational institutions in 191 countries and has been severely affecting the life of 1.5 billion learners worldwide, 89.5 per cent of the total learners (Dawadi & Simkhada, 2020; Chaturvedi, et. al., 2021). Nearly 430 million school-going children are being affected due to the closure of schools (UNICEF, 2020; Stanistreet, et. al., 2020; Islam, et. al., 2020). In addition, globally more than 168 million children lost a complete school year and 214 million (or 1 in 7) children lost three-quarters of school learning (UNICEF, 2021a). To address these unprecedented situations, educational institutions worldwide have developed various innovative ways to continue the learning process and offer a range of options to the students and their parents. Almost all of these innovations are solely attached to digital technologies due to the 'Social distancing' practice prescribed by the WHO, and the government has been trying to keep the learning process on and provide learning facilities to the students through digital and broadcasting platforms. This approach, however, has developed a strict line between developed and emerging nations (Yeasmin et. al., 2020) as these innovative ways are highly dependent on the digital equipment and networking system, e.g., television, smartphone, computer/laptop, internet facility.
In Bangladesh, the first three cases of Covid-19 were identified on 08 March 2020 by the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), the country's epidemiology institute and the first death was recorded on 18 March 2021 (Siam, et. al., 2020; Kabir, et. al., 2021; Rahman, et. al., 2021). Since the first detection of the Covid-19 patients, the number of infections has been fluctuating over time. The Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has announced a lockdown from 26 March 2020 to control the mass spreading of the virus. The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education (MoPME) decided to keep primary educational institutions off from 18 March to 31 March 2020 (Kabir, et. al., 2021), which later had extended to 11 September 2021. Nonetheless, Bangladesh is one of the 14 countries in the world in closing schools up to 61 weeks (academic year), and after the 78 weeks (543 days) of complete school closure (calendar year), GoB has partially reopened the school from the primary, secondary and higher secondary educational institutions from 12 September until further instructions (The Business Standard, 2021a; New Age, 2021). Due to this prolonged closure of educational institutions, 20.1 million primary students out of a total of 36 million students were out of school (The Financial Express, 2020a; Baird, et. al., 2020). Besides, nearly 8 million children are waiting for their first day at school, which includes almost 4 million first time learners (UNICEF, 2021b).