Covid-19 is wreaking havoc in Bangladesh, like in the rest of the world, for the last 18 months. There was always a concern that the pandemic would disproportionately affect poorer countries. That is how it is in times of crisis: the fragility of public institutions becomes more evident, and their shortcomings are laid bare. Amidst the grim struggle between lives and livelihoods, one group in the country has practically fallen off the policy radar: schoolchildren. While public health and hunger are rightfully the most urgent concerns during a pandemic, the current state of education is causing irreversible harm to our country’s human capital, damage that will take decades to bounce back from—a ticking bomb, in other words.
Covid-19 is wreaking havoc in Bangladesh, like in the rest of the world, for the last 18 months. There was always a concern that the pandemic would disproportionately affect poorer countries. That is how it is in times of crisis: the fragility of public institutions becomes more evident, and their shortcomings are laid bare. Amidst the grim struggle between lives and livelihoods, one group in the country has practically fallen off the policy radar: schoolchildren. While public health and hunger are rightfully the most urgent concerns during a pandemic, the current state of education is causing irreversible harm to our country’s human capital, damage that will take decades to bounce back from—a ticking bomb, in other words.
