Call for the opening of educational institutions
Call for the opening of educational institutions. The ‘Safe Ishkule Pheri’ campaign has urged students to complete the vaccination quickly and open educational institutions without extending the holidays. The call was made on Wednesday (February 9) at the one-year anniversary of the campaign. In a press release issued by “Safe Ishkule Phirri”, the government has again announced a temporary closure of all schools and colleges in the country from January 21 due to the fear of the deadly infection of the new variant of the coronavirus, Omikron.
After the outbreak of corona infection in Bangladesh in March 2020, direct teaching was stopped in all educational institutions for one and a half years to keep the children safe. The students had returned to classrooms on September 12 last year with the decision to open schools and colleges in view of the decline in infections. Educational institutions came back to life. But it wasn’t permanent. With the spread of the new variant omicron, the direct teaching program came to a halt again.
Children face different realities due to the closure of classroom teaching for 18 months. The disruption of children’s chances of normal development in the life of house arrest has an impact on their mental health. Due to the lack of equal opportunities for all in the online education program, many children become irregular in the education program. Girl children from poor and distressed families are victims of child marriage. Due to the fall in the family’s income due to the crisis of the pandemic, many children are forced to earn money instead of getting an education.
The level of violence against children also increases. This is the picture that emerges from our observations. Therefore, it is feared that children may face the same problem as the school is closed again. The ‘Safe Ishkule Pheri’ campaign feels that in order to protect children from the coronavirus, instead of closing the school, they should accept the reality of corona and return to normal life by following proper hygiene and government guidelines.
It is also very important to vaccinate children between the ages of 12 and 17 at the earliest so that the children can return to the classroom more securely. The press release said that the ‘Safe Ishkule Pheri’ campaign and 21 private development agencies associated with it are ready for any cooperation from the government to complete the vaccination program of children and to start teaching by opening schools at the earliest and following proper hygiene.
