What will happen to the teachers who have lost their jobs?

The 543-day-long school closure in Bangladesh—one of the longest in the world—has caused worries about heavy learning losses, and raised concerns over the lack of teachers to help students with recovery. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, experts had warned that the absence of a well-established, pre-service teacher education programme was putting Bangladeshi teachers at a disadvantage and having repercussions on the entire education system. The subdued observation of World Teachers' Day yesterday revealed that the pandemic has made the situation far worse, and thousands of teachers across the country—especially from kindergarten schools—will likely never be able to return to their students.

According to a report in this daily, the education disruption in the country forced many kindergartens to shut their doors permanently. The kindergarten teachers' associations estimate that around 40 to 50 percent of teachers have lost their jobs, and nearly 20,000 kindergartens are unlikely to open up again. There are also reports of kindergartens that opened up but were forced to close down again, as most of their students have either shifted to government primary schools or dropped out.

Why did these schools not receive any financial assistance during the pandemic? Certain steps, such as soft loans for owners or the waiver of utility bills, could easily have been taken by the authorities. It is regrettable to see teachers being forced to give up their professions to toil in farms, open vegetable/tea stalls, and even pull rickshaws to make ends meet after not receiving their salaries for months on end. Especially now, when the pandemic has revealed the crucial role that teachers must play to support students in this "new normal," it is difficult to fathom that the Directorate of Primary Education still has no plans to support these teachers.

We have no idea what impact this reduction in the teaching workforce will have on our youngest students. However, it is clear that the government needs a strategy to ensure that teachers don't continue to haemorrhage from an already bruised education system. After all, the well-being of students is contingent on the well-being of teachers, and no learning recovery plan will succeed without taking care of the needs of teachers. It's high time the government thought critically and creatively about our education workforce. This year's theme for World Teachers' Day was: "Teachers at the heart of education recovery." We need to take this theme to heart as well, and build an education system where teachers are valued and given the resources they need to carry out their responsibilities efficiently.