The resumption of in-person classes rekindles hopes in the kindergartens that had struggled to survive or gone bust during the suspension of all physical academic activities because of the coronavirus pandemic, but seek succour for full rebound.
They are now in a rush to welcome both new and old students in the upcoming new year, especially those who dropped out during the pandemic, and taking measures with an offer of reduced admission and monthly tuition fees.
The pre-schooling, primary and partly secondary school operators that help 40 per cent of the country's primary education, according to them, now demand the government to increase the days of students' physical presence at school to at least three days a week.
They also seek financial support in the form of 'soft loan' so that the corona-hit kindergartens can restart their activities and run as usual.
The covid-19 pandemic, alongside affecting other sectors, has put its claws severely on education as educational institutions remained closed since the beginning of coronavirus infection in March last year until August this year.
Since March, education had been provided online, which the kindergarten owners considered one of the major reasons for the dropout of students in absence of modern devices and internet connectivity.
The government allowed in- person academic activities a day in a week from September 12 while two days for grade-eighth and grade-ninth students.
The pandemic had forced many kindergartens to shut down academic activities in absence of students.
The FE correspondents have visited some parts of the capital city, including Mirpur, and found other establishments replacing many schools, especially those of pre-schooling and kindergartens, in what academics call a serious setback to education for a generation.
Many of the closed kindergartens failed to survive during last one and a half years as they were unable to retain students through 'distance' or 'online learning' while majority of them were in rented buildings, said L M Kamruzzaman, chairman of Bangladesh Kindergarten Association, a platform of about 10,000 kindergarten schools.
"We survived mainly because we have our own building while we have some students at secondary level," he told the FE last week.
Mr Kamruzzaman is also the founder and principal of MA Latif Memorial Institute located at Mirpur 12. His school provides education from play level to class 10 and sustained 30 to 40 per cent of its pre-covid 1800 students through online education.
He, however, sees a light of hope with students returning to school with the resumption of physical presence, though on a limited scale. He says parents are pressing for more physical classes.
Parents in the last couple of meetings pressed for classroom learning as they rued that students could learn 'little' from online classes.
Quoting parents, he said, "Children are now becoming addicted to mobile devices as they get much access to the internet due to online classes."
Explaining other side- effects of virtual or online classes, he says many students have not been attentive during online classes while they keep themselves engaged in other activities during the digital way of education.
Echoing the BKA leader's views, Saymun Nesa, assistant teacher of Renaissance Junior High School, said they are now communicating through mobile phones with their students who dropped out during the covid onslaughts on life and livelihoods across the glove.
"Most of the families left Dhaka due to hardship as majority of them lost their jobs or source of income due to the pandemic," she said, adding that they are hopeful of getting back those students who are still living in the capital city.
She, however, opined that enrolling the students whose families left the capital is still a challenge.
"We will also physically visit their residences to make their parents understand the importance of sending children school back," she said.
They hope that they might be able to convince the parents after the resumption of in-person education.
If physical presence is increased to at least one alternate day a week, hopefully, students will be back as both parents and children want to come to school physically, both Mr Kamruzzaman and Ms Saymun Nesa noted.
Explaining the hardship as to how Ms Saymun Nesa's school is still open, she said their management failed to pay the rent of the L-shaped school with a small yard from August last year, but paid the utility bills only.
As the one-storied building's owner is a relative of the school founder, the owner allowed them to continue their activities, she said, otherwise the school might have faced closure like many others.
The number of their students now came down to 40 from pre-covid 200.
She said though the monthly fee is Tk 600, the majority of the parents are paying according to their ability and they also reduced the annual admission fee.
Mr Kamruzzaman also echoed the same, saying that like many others, he also reduced the admission fee to Tk 5000 from previous Tk 10,000.
Paradise International School also halved their admission fee to 6400.
Md Mesbah Uddin Shimul, chairman of Candour International School, says they have announced that it would not take any admission fee for next year.
Almost all the kindergartens are planning to send teachers to visit their respective old students' dwelling places throughout December to bring them back to learning.
Talking to the FE, a guardian who came to collect admission form for her five-year-old daughter from South Point International School at Mirpur said she did not get her daughter enrolled for online classes during the pandemic lest the kid should not properly understand the virtual way of learning.
Another guardian said she came to collect the admission form as in-presence classes have been allowed and hoped the number of classes would increase.
The FE correspondents also found a good number of guardians, especially mothers, visiting schools to get information about admission and expressed the same desire for more physical school activities.
Like kindergartens in the capital city, Nurunnahar is running a kindergarten school in Rajshahi city. She struggled hard during the 18-month closure of academic institutions because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"My life was turned rise and fall during the period as my students dropped out mostly," she said, adding that like her many of the owners struggled the same way.
Now she has started recouping losses, although 70- to 75-per cent seats of her school still remain vacant.
"If coronavirus infections do not rise further, admission rate would return to normal like before," Nurunnahar said. She is now taking preparation for New Year's admission.
According to Bangladesh Kindergarten School and College Oikya Parishad and BKA, there are around 50,000 to 60,000 kindergartens across the country. Of those, about 20,000 were closed due to prolonged closure of academic activities during the pandemic.
The rest of the kindergartens have been trying to overcome student crisis with the partial in- presence classes since September.
"So far, we could fill 50 per cent of seats of our schools," said Oikya Parishad chairman Iqbal Bahar Chowdhury.
Many families left cities due to financial crisis, and they did not come back to their previous residential places. So, they did not get back their old students, he mentioned.
"We are preparing for admission of the upcoming year," he said, adding that hopefully, they would be able to recover their losses.
But it would take a long time to return to pre-pandemic situation, he further said.
Many owners had lost capital due to the decrease in their student numbers - schools located in small towns are the worst affected, he mentioned.
Both the BKA and Oikya Parishad leaders said vaccination might become an issue as majority of the kindergartens are not registered with concerned authority because a good number of them have students in secondary grades.
About 3.0 million pre-secondary and secondary-level students are studying in such schools, Mr Chowdhury said.
This is another obstacle in the way of getting new students, as many parents are not interested to get admitting their children to such schools which fail to facilitate vaccination.
In this unstable time, people involved with the academic institutions wanted government support to help them get back on their feet, he said.
Leaders sought government cooperation in getting registered the unregistered ones as soon as possible and loans at 'affordable rate'.
Moreover, the kindergartens are facing teacher shortages. About 1.0 million teachers used to work in the kindergarten schools, and many of them switched to different jobs, and many others went to villages, owners said.
Newcomers nowadays also don't like the teaching profession in kindergartens, according to them.
Amzad Hossain closed his two schools at the beginning of this year and now he wants to reopen his institutions. But he has no necessary funds.
"I continued my schools some days by borrowing money from near and dear ones," he said.
He could not bear the burden of loans, and stopped the activities of institutions.
Amzad Hossain launched his first school 'Glory Bird' in 2014, and second one, 'Vision International', in 2015 in Chattogram city.
His students were 650 in number, while teachers and staff members 35. But the schools became empty during the pandemic.
"If I got support from the government, I could reopen my institutions," he hoped.
