Manzoor Ahmed

The United Nations has called it the “longest disruption to education in history” worldwide. In Bangladesh, schools remained closed non-stop for 543 days from March 17, 2020 to September 11, 2021.

Schools re-opened on September 12 last year on a limited basis after 542 days of closure.

A sadly familiar playbook has been on display once again at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST). Students have been on “fast-unto-death” in front of the vice-chancellor’s residence.

On September 12, 2021, schools in Bangladesh reopened after 18 months of Covid-19 closure—partially, with restrictions.

It has been a season of reviewing and reminiscing about the past 50 years since independence and projecting into the future with expectation and hope.

The proverbial ostrich buries its head in the sand in the face of danger, assuming that if it cannot see the hazard, the hazard does not exist or will disappear.

The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has doubled down on its insistence not only to continue the nationwide Primary Education Completion Examination (PECE) at the end of Grade 5, but giving it a permanent institutional form by proposing the establishment of an examination board to conduct it.

The elections held in the US in the first week of November this year had state and local representatives, including two governors, mayors and school board members, up for selection.

We all can recall from our student days one or more teachers who touched our lives in a special way. They inspired us to aspire higher and served as our role models.

Examinees of PECE, SSC and HSC will attend in-person classes every day while the rest of the students will go to school once a week after schools and colleges reopen on September 12, Education Minister Dipu Moni announced on September 5. The SSC and HSC exams are planned to be held in November and December, respectively.

On the occasion of International Literacy Day, proclaimed by the United Nations in 1966, there will be pronouncements with much fanfare about the vital role of literacy in national development and the progress that has been made.

About 56 million children in 130,000 primary and secondary schools in the United States, including about six million students in 30,000 private schools, are returning to a second school year this autumn under the spell of the pandemic,

UNESCO has called the learning loss caused by the Covid-19 pandemic “a generational catastrophe.” What does it mean, and how can we cope with it?

The education community’s plea for breaking the pattern of Bangladesh having the lowest public spending on education in South Asia and among developing countries has fallen on deaf ears.

Since schools were closed due to the pandemic on March 17 last year, the closure has been extended 17 times.

The second wave of the pandemic has hit life and livelihood hard and has thrown us all into deep anxiety. For 40 million students,

The second wave of the pandemic has crashed onto Bangladesh and other countries, including India, after a downturn earlier in the year, dashing the hope for a waning of the pandemic.

On the 50th year of its birth, Bangladesh has crossed the bar to join the ranks of developing countries. It aims to be a developed country in two decades.

On October 28, 1970, in his address to the nation on national TV and radio channels prior to the 1970 parliamentary elections of undivided Pakistan, Bangabandhu enumerated the continuing disparities in education.

As we step into the second decade of the 21st century and Bangladesh is poised to become a middle-income country, a pertinent question about the education system may be whether the glass is half-full or half-empty.