Survey confirms impact of digital divide on children’s learning during COVID-19

News Desk :
Fewer than one in five children (18.7%) in Bangladesh participated in remote learning during Covid-19 school closures, which at one and a half years were among the longest pandemic school closures in the world.
This extraordinary scale of the impact of school closures was confirmed on Thursday in the National Survey on Children’s Education in Bangladesh 2021, a joint survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and Unicef, according to a press release.
The survey shows that the hardest hit are the most vulnerable children who have limited access to the internet and TV, and who lack supportive devices such as computers or smartphones at home. Fewer children from rural areas (15.9%) participated in remote learning, such as online and televised, compared to those from urban areas (28.7%).
Significant geographical disparities also come to the fore with the highest  
percentage of students remotely participating in classes in Khulna and Dhaka (23.4% and 23.1% respectively), and the lowest in Mymensingh (5.7%).
The youngest children carry the heaviest burden as participation in remote classes was lower among primary school children (13.1%) compared to secondary students (20.3% in lower secondary and 23.7% in upper secondary).
“The pandemic’s impact on children is still reverberating throughout the country. It is critical to close the digital divide and to make the education system more shock responsive,” said Sheldon Yett, Unicef representative to Bangladesh.
Unicef provides technical assistance to the government in support of learning recovery and acceleration, including on innovative remedial education.
“The Survey on Children’s Education in Bangladesh 2021 would help to understand the extent of the impact of the prolonged school closure during Covid-19 pandemic on attendances, out-of-school, drop-out, and learning loss of children, along with other education outcomes and support the Government to take steps for improving the quality and standard of education,” said Mohammad Abdul Mannan MP, minister, Ministry of Planning.