TIB recommends vaccinating students, reopening schools fast

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) has recommended vaccinating students and reopening educational institutions in line with health measures as early as possible to recover losses in education and employment the youth have faced due to Covid-19.    

It has made eight other recommendations, including evaluating students of all levels through short-, medium-, and long-term plans to promote them to the next levels.   

In a media statement issued marking International Youth Day, which is being observed today, TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said 16 months had passed since Covid-19 led to school closure, but no comprehensive and effective action plan had yet been taken to reopen them.      

He said the online education program had largely been unsuccessful due to a lack of technical skills, uninterrupted power supply, and internet connection.  

It rather created new forms of discrimination in education, but the government had not taken any step yet to address those, he said.   

He also said some recent studies had shown that 19% of primary and 25% of secondary students had dropped out due to Covid-19 while child marriage had risen at an alarming rate (26%) due to fears of an uncertain future.

The government had not yet allocated any fund for the additional investment needed to address these new challenges, he added.

TIB also recommended taking special measures to bring back dropouts to the classroom, including incentives to ensure uninterrupted education for female, disabled, and insolvent students as well as those from indigenous and underprivileged communities.

Iftekharuzzaman said youngsters had mostly lost their jobs due to Covid-19 and most of them were in the informal sector.

The government had not announced any large-scale assistance for them yet, he said.

He said job uncertainty would grow further if proper educational measures were not taken to help people gain new skills needed to cope with the changing nature of jobs caused by the pandemic.   

In addition to incentives for young entrepreneurs, TIB recommended special stimulus to reopen small and medium enterprises young people lost jobs from.  

It also recommended technical and special training to prepare unemployed youths or new graduates for alternative occupations, such as freelancing.

The anti-graft watchdog's other recommendations include resuming government and private job recruitment tests and appointments that remain suspended due to Covid-19 and ensuring equal competition in all jobs based on merit and qualification.