THE ministry of education on Thursday announced that in-person classes in all educational institutions from secondary to tertiary levels would resume from February 22 with vaccinated students while unvaccinated students will continue to take lessons online. The decision to resume in-person classes is a welcome change as the students have already suffered immense learning loss because of the Covid pandemic, but leaving the unvaccinated students behind raises serious questions about a possible vaccine divide. The decision was made with the hope that the students who are awaiting their second dose of the vaccine would be fully vaccinated by February 21. The total number of students from Class VI to Class XII in the country is 1.28 crore, of whom, as of Wednesday, 12,657,222 received the first dose and 3,440,448 received the second dose. The number of students waiting for the second dose is huge and they will continue to take classes online, a form of academic learning proved to be rather ineffective. The concern that the decision without ensuring vaccination for all students would create a new division and reinforce the pre-existing socio-economic and digital divide is real and the ministry of education should address the issue immediately.

Educational institutions suspended all academic activities on March 16, 2020, following the detection of the first case of Covid-19 in Bangladesh and remained closed until September 12, 2021, when institutions were reopened with the provision of mixing in-person and remote teaching. Teachers, students and parents have termed remote learning a challenge as they were unfamiliar with the method and the required technology is unaffordable and inaccessible for many. In November 2021, a study of the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development revealed that around 7.86 million students were at risk of learning loss as schools were closed for a prolonged period and 40 per cent of the students did not have access to any IT device. In this context, the government decision to leave a significant number of unvaccinated students outside of the classroom and asking them to continue their education through online classes demonstrates its lack of regard for its citizens’ right to education. And the government has done so without rolling out a plan on expediting the process of administering the second dose of the vaccine for the students. The rural-urban divide and gender and class inequality have already influenced students’ access to education; the vaccination divide, therefore, will further widen the pre-existing gaps.

The government must, under the circumstances, have a concrete educational recovery plan that complies with the globally acknowledged school reopening guidelines. In so doing, the government must expedite vaccination programmes for students from class VI to Class XII. The immediate reopening of educational institutions is necessary and in-person classes should be open to all, it should not be a privilege for the vaccinated students. The government must act knowing that the vaccine divide, as predicted by many, may make education more inequitable.