The Covid-19 pandemic has affected education worldwide, Bangladesh being no different. According to UNICEF, many countries had implemented nationwide or localised closures due to Covid-19, impacting almost 98.5 per cent of the student population worldwide. In Bangladesh, education ministry declared all educational institutions to remain closed due to Coronavirus outbreak from March 18 onwards to prevent spread of the deadly virus.

Despite the official measures to stop Covid-19, the outbreak kept spreading. The order for educational institutions to remain closed due to Covid-19, also had to be extended over time. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared all educational institutions across the country to remain closed till October, provided that the coronavirus situation improves by then. The decision of the Prime Minister is applauded by all - the educators, teachers, parents and all those involved in education in the country.

Also, many educational institutions are giving their opinion to open up. I think they are just doing business by using education as a product. These institutions are making great strides in taking classes online so that they can collect salaries and other benefits from the students.

The government should take the initiative to establish more education institutions, as there is a need for them. According to the guidelines of the Ministry of Education, schools in the rural areas should be distanced at maximum three kilometres apart and in urban areas one kilometre from one institution to another. In order to establish a higher-secondary school, the distance between two schools should be four kilometres in rural areas and one kilometre in urban areas. Similarly, in order to establish a college, the distance should be at least six kilometres in rural areas and two kilometres from one college to another in urban areas. Although these regulations are on paper, in practice it is not seen.

In urban areas, more than two colleges are seen established in adjacent buildings instead of being two kilometre away. In rural areas, the distance is three kilometres for non-secondary and four kilometre for setting up secondary schools, but in reality there are kindergartens and madrasas within that distance. In other words, there is supposed to be a school every three kilometre, but now there are more private institutions abounding. There are even instances of establishing an educational institution for a few houses!

In terms of population, there should be one secondary school for every 10,000 people. If the population of Bangladesh is 170 million, there should be 17,000 secondary schools, but at present there are about above 40.000 lower-secondary institutions including government, MPO enlisted, English medium, madrasa, and kindergarten. But parents in rural areas of Bangladesh are not being able to afford quality education for their children.

There are supposed to be one Higher Secondary College for every 75,000 persons of the population. By this the total number of higher secondary colleges in the country is supposed to be 2267, but there are about 5,500. These additional educational institutions and their staff are now a cause of headache for the government. Because, as the schools could not collect the fees from the students, so the employees could not get their salaries from the institutions. It is clear through statistics that many unnecessary educational institutions have been established in the country. The number of government and non-government primary schools in the country is around 1, 34,148. The number of kindergartens is 70,000 for 68,000 villages! There are also about 7,000 independent ebtedayi madrasas. In total, only primary level institutions stand at 2 lakh 12 thousand 138!

Now, even though they have demanded funds from the government, they have also been on the streets demanding MPO registration at different times. In other words, the teacher society of these educational institutions are much neglected and deprived in today's society. Proper and integrated plan is required to strengthen the education system of the country.

But the directorate has proven to be reluctant or capricious towards the education system of the country by permitting establishment of substandard educational institutions. Some miscreants are taking advantage of this opportunity. The government needs to take strict action in this regard so that no educational institution is set up outside the rules laid by the government. They should ensure punishment of officials and employees who are responsible for setting up these educational institutions. Else, it will not be long before education becomes only a commodity for business instead of for knowledge accumulation.

Md. Sharifur Rahman Adil, Lecturer,

Department of Philosophy, Feni South – East Degree College