The number of absent students is found higher in secondary schools than in primary schools in the country after the reopening of educational institutions, which were closed for a prolonged period due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
A group of NGOs said in a new study that an increasing trend in the average attendance rate is found at the primary level compared to the secondary schools after the government has reopened schools across the country.
The attendance in the three weeks after the school reopening showed that the lowest attendance was in class IV (65 per cent) and the highest in class I (86 per cent).
In the secondary schools, the lowest attendance was in class IX (57 per cent), and the highest was in class VI (69 per cent).
The study was conducted under the 'Safe back to school' campaign by 21 national and international organisations. It used a three-week-long survey at 328 primary and secondary schools in 17 districts of the country's seven divisions with 1606 students.
The findings of the study were revealed at an event on Wednesday. Education Dipu Moni was present as the chief guest at the event.
The report said the proportion of girls' attendance was higher than that of the boys during the three weeks of the survey. However, both girls' and boys’ attendance declined in class IX.
The primary reasons for absence as identified are engagement in economic activities, child marriage, migration of the family to other places, shifting to other educational institutes, especially Qawmi madrasah and loss of interest in the study.
The education minister said the government-run blended schooling has reached 65 per cent of students across the country during the pandemic.
She agreed that students faced a learning loss to some extent and added “We need to have a long term plan to make up for the losses in the primary and secondary schools.”
She emphasised on to work at the grassroots level to bring back the victims of child marriage.
About 94 per cent of the total students participated in the government-run online assignments and schooling programmes, she claimed, saying that internet access, availability of mobile phones and electricity were among the challenges to cover all the students.
“There were huge pressures from the UN agencies and development partners to reopen schools during the pandemic. But the government decision of shouting in-person schooling during the Covid pandemic was appropriate, and we reopened schools on time.”
“We have lagged behind a bit but we avoided the health risk of students,” she continued.
The minister also observed that the school drop rate isn’t unusual citing the student participation in SSC examinations.
“We have started training 200,000 teachers to work on mental health. Each educational institution will have at least two trained counselling teachers and a professional counsellor in each district,” she added.
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