Our students deserve better policies

The prolonged school closures in Bangladesh has put us at the top of yet another unpalatable list—according to UNICEF, we have had one of the world's longest full closure of educational institutions due to the pandemic. Its data also suggests that, after Brazil, Bangladesh has the most number of students who have missed almost all classroom instruction time since March 2020. We are one of the few countries in the world that have not even partially opened schools during the course of the pandemic, for over an entire year. Research suggests that 5.92 million primary and secondary students in the country are facing learning losses as a result. An Education Watch report also detailed how almost 70 percent of students are not participating in distance learning.