Suborna Rahman Sony :
Primary education is a certain prerequisite for the sustainable development of a country. Elementary education in Bangladesh is run under the Primary and Mass Education Ministry. After being invaded by the COVID-19 pandemic this sector has been afflicted extensively. When the situation of our early childhood education was about to be dismantled, our government along with several non-government organizations have initiated an E-learning system across the country.
Bangladesh owns 85,000 public and private elementary educational institutions which contribute the fundamental education throughout the country. Lockdown was promulgated since 18th March due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and an abrupt interruption was introduced in the arena of our entire educational condition especially in elementary sector. After more than thirty days shut down, the authorities of non-government primary schools commenced conducting online classes. The majority of the consumers of these institutions belong to the high-middle or upper class of our society and undoubtedly, they can afford electronic technologies required to attend online classes. But the miserable state is still existing among the young learners coming from the deprived socio-economic background. 65,000 out of 85,000 primary schools are government registered and around half of these schools’ students are from low income families. So, they cannot afford any sort of electronic gadgets for their children. As a consequence, remote learning is a challenge for them.
Despite multiple technological moves taken by our government, only 23.52% primary students have got access to online classes. To overcome this inequity variant government and non-government television channels have begun to broadcast regular classes according to particular grades and subjects during this prolonged lockdown period.
COVID-19 pandemic has affected our primary education tremendously. The situation will not only obstruct our academic progress but also take a toll on our young learners’ mental health. Although the lockdown is being extended repeatedly, our future generation is looking forward to joining their adorable classrooms hopefully.
(Suborna Rahman Sony is Former English Teacher, Kids Campus School, Daffodil International School, Child Heaven School, Dhaka).