Primary schools to reopen on 1 March

All primary schools in the country will resume in-person classes from 1 March, informed the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education.

An official notice would be published in this regard soon, said Mahbubur Rahman Tuhin, public relations officer at the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education.

He said, this decision was taken on Thursday night due to the declining trend of Covid-19 infections.

Yesterday Education Minister Dipu Moni announced that all educational institutions, except primary schools, will be able to resume in-person classes for fully vaccinated students from 22 February.

The government's decision to reopen educational institutions came following recommendations of the National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19 made at a meeting with the minister on Wednesday night.

Education Minister Dipu Moni said currently only 34 lakh students have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, while 1.26 crore students have received their first vaccine dose.

"We have asked schools, colleges and madrasas to strictly follow health guidelines. Wearing a mask and washing hands is mandatory. Our team has already started their monitoring," she said. 

Speaking about this year's Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSC) examinations, she said the exams might be held in June if the virus situation improves.

"We do not know the trend of the virus. We hope that we can start the SSC and HSC exams in the middle of this year. But we cannot speak about a specific day right now," she said.

This and next year's SSC, HSC, and Primary Education Completion examination candidates will now attend classes six days a week though students will be allowed to stay at school for only four hours. On the other hand, grade one, two, three, four, six, seven, eight and grade nine students will attend two classes a day every week.

The government announced the closure of all educational institutions in the country on 17 March, 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The educational institutions were reopened in September last year after 18 months when the Covid-19 situation in the country improved.

On 21 January this year, the government announced that all the schools and colleges of the country will remain closed from 21 January to 6 February amid a renewed surge in Covid-19 cases largely due to the new Omicron variant. The shutdown was extended until 20 February for the safety of the students as the virus continued to spread.