Permanent closure of 14,111 private primary schools in 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, is a dire statement but hardly surprising. Prepared by the Directorate of Primary Education (DPE), the Annual Primary School Census (APSC) 2021 further discloses that the number of students dropped to 20,090,057 from 21551691 within a year. This means that the number of students of all elementary schools fell by a total of 1,461,634 students. Similarly, the number of teachers came down to 657,203 from 740,471---a drop by 83,268 teachers.
Unless there was the pandemic, the number of both students and teachers, if not schools, would have registered a rise. Instead, their numbers dropped and this report is exclusively for the year 2020. In 2021, the number of students, teachers and even schools may have come down further. Chairman of Bangladesh Kindergarten School and College Oikya Parishad claims that 20,000 of such elementary educational institutions were closed down, leading to joblessness for teachers. The remaining 40,000 kindergartens are not doing well, either, he adds.
It surely unfolds a grim spectacle for education. The primary and mass education state minister is on record saying that the government has no plan to restart those closed educational institutions; rather there is an attempt to improve the government primary schools. If necessary, primary schools will be set up in areas where there is none, he elaborates. He also argues that most students are now moving to government primary schools.
On paper such arguments may sound appropriate but are not free from their weaknesses. Starting with the shifting to government schools by students from the closed private elementary institutions, one concrete account the APSC provides concerns the comparative enrollments of students between 2020 and 2021. According to it, 60.52 per cent of all primary school students got admitted to government primary institutions in 2020 whereas it rose to 70.23 per cent in 2021. This is quite natural because parents preferred schools for free education at government institutions because of financial hardship. But this does not explain the whereabouts of all the missing number of students. True, those who could, moved to government primary schools but logic points out that they do by no means account for the huge deficit of 1,461,634 students, let alone the additional number supposed to be added in a new academic year. The picture may have further worsened by the year 2021.
It was time to find out the missing number and the new entrants. Apparently there is no such programme. There is an apprehension that the large number of drop-outs will never return to schools if the learning facilities with a difference ran by non-government organisations and voluntary groups do not restart their operation. Many such educational institutions had accommodated learners from poor and working families under a flexible time table so that they could attend schools as well as lend a hand to income generation for their families.
Although a recent circular states that child labour would be abolished once for all, the practical application of the provision will remain elusive under the existing circumstances. Even child marriage, legally prohibited, could not come to an end and during the pandemic cases proliferated despite greater awareness of its multifarious maladies. Financial and existential compulsions get over legal restrictions and discretion.
Any assurance of measures such as setting up of new government schools thus sounds impractical, if not hollow. Concerned here is a possible lost generation and unless special measures are taken to bring them back to the fold of primary learning, they will be lost forever. There is no point making statement that schools will be set up where there is none. It is an urgent matter concerning education of children from whose life two years have gone. Talking about future action programme will do them no good.
It is urgent to identify those closed schools and make all arrangements in collaboration with all the stake-holders for those institutions' restart. Financial incentives have to be made available for this purpose. It will not only benefit teachers and students but also the entire nation on the final count.
Then there is yet another vital issue of foundational retrogression which warranted special programme and teaching method. The education minister once claimed that teachers are trying to address the problem. But how? Is there any systematic procedure to take care of the foundational weaknesses? The answer obviously is a big 'No'. Educationists, scholars and child psychologists had to be involved with the process to develop an instrument and guidelines for teachers. A special batch of teachers equipped with proper training on the learning gap was required to be raised.
What has happened instead, an increasing number of students in the reduced number of private elementary schools that remained and government primary schools have exerted a far greater pressure on the teachers. They hardly have breathing space let alone take special care of the foundational weaknesses. The ratio of students-teachers has never been ideal in this country and now this has been further upset by crowding of students to those institutions in operation.
In advanced countries, special measures outside the in-person classes are taken to help out the laggard. This time they have gone for extensive and intensive care for young learners in order to make up for the learning gap during the pandemic.