DHAKA, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Fewer than one in five children (18.7 percent) in Bangladesh participated in remote learning during COVID-19 school closures.
This extraordinary scale of the impact of school closures was confirmed in a report released here Thursday.
The report titled "National Survey on Children's Education in Bangladesh 2021", a joint survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and UNICEF, 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 percent) participated in remote learning, such as online and televised, compared to those from urban areas (28.7 percent).
"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.
The survey would help 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, in a bid to support the government to take steps for improving quality and standard of education, said Mohammad Abdul Mannan, the minister of planning. ■