Mohiuddin Alamgir

Life expectancy at birth for Bangladeshis has risen to 72.6 years because of what experts said was progress made in health care and economy.

As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, causing classrooms to stay closed, online education becomes more imperative. Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) acting Vice Chancellor Professor Milan Pagon in a recent interview with The Daily Star said that online education is much more than just emailing educational material to students and he was sceptical about the ability of many Bangladeshi universities to offer proper online education.

When many guardians, either having lost their jobs or wages cut amid the coronavirus pandemic, are struggling to pay their children’s tuition fees, schools plead with them to make the payment on an urgent basis.

The University Grants Commission has urged the public universities to ensure online education for the third time to avoid possible session jams for Covid-19 shutdown.

The government has doled out a package to tide over about one lakh teachers and staffers of non-government schools and colleges that are outside the purview of the monthly pay order (MPO) scheme.

The government has taken a decision to extend pre-primary education, an important component of early childhood learning, to two years from existing one year.

The University Grants Commission is likely to urge public universities to ensure online education to minimise possible session jams, despite students’ and teachers’ consensus shifting momentum against it.

The government is going to provide financial assistance to over two lakh non-government school and college teachers and staffers, who are outside the purview of the Monthly Pay Order (MPO) scheme, aiming to minimise their financial hardship caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (OCAG) has decided to consider 640,000 general audit objections, filed from 1971-1972 to 2009-2010 fiscal year, as resolved.

The Election Commission has prepared a draft of a law with stringent rules for political parties getting registered.

The authorities may extend the academic calendar for primary and secondary students till February next year to overcome academic losses caused by school closure over Covid-19.

The government yesterday extended all educational institutions closure until August 6 as a preventive measure against the further spread of the novel coronavirus.

The government has extended closure of all educational institutions till August 6 , as a preventive measure against further spread of coronavirus.

When many students are on the verge of dropping out due to the discontinuation of their academic activities during the coronavirus pandemic, the traditional allocation for education in the proposed budget with no specific plan to recover the learning loss has frustrated the country’s educationists.

Ever since Belayat Ahmed completed his graduation two years ago from a college under the National University, he applied to different private companies and submitted his resume to a few job boards.

The allocation for the education sector in the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year of 2020-21 remains almost unchanged in terms of size and percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), compared to the current budget.

One can only hope, is what one would remark once learning of Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal’s revenue target for the upcoming fiscal year, due to begin from July 1.

The health ministry will not see a significant rise in allocation in the upcoming budget amid Covid-19 pandemic mainly due to its lack of capacity to utilise funds, say planning ministry officials.

The government has started working on introducing a toll-free hotline for students so they can get assistance from teachers over phone.

Thanks to increased domestic borrowing in recent years, the government’s interest payments will rise by 14 percent in the coming fiscal year.