# School assembly activities will be closed
# Pre-primary off, reduced primary time
# Classes also held on Saturdays in Secondary to overcome learning deficits
Keeping schools open on Saturdays is a good initiative
- Prof, Dr. Siddiqur Rahman, Former Director,IER, DU
The government has issued a new three-day heat alert across the country due to intense heat flow. Meanwhile, all primary and secondary educational institutions of the country opened today. However, the assembly activities will be closed till the heat wave comes to a tolerable level. Class activity time is reduced in primary. The class will end by 11:30 AM. Pre-primary schools will remain closed. The number of classes in secondary has been increased by one day to overcome the learning deficit of students. There is a mixed reaction among parents and teachers. However, educationists feel that it is a good initiative to have one more class to meet the learning deficit. They called upon the teachers to cooperate in this regard. It is known that secondary and primary level educational institutions get an additional 5 days holiday due to the heat wave in continuation of the holy Eid-ul-Fitr holiday.
Recently, the Ministry of Secondary and Higher Education and the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education have announced the opening of classes in two separate announcements and circulars. Several instructions have been given in the notifications and circulars.
Secondary instruction
The notification mentions four decisions. They are-
1. Educational institutions will be open as usual from today, class activities will continue
2. The assembly will remain closed until the heat flux is tolerable.
3. The portion of class activities that are conducted outside the classroom and require students to be exposed to the sun will be limited.
4. Class activities will continue every saterday to meet the learning gap created due to heatwave and other reasons and to achieve learning outcomes according to the new curriculum until further instructions are given.
Primary instruction
a) Government primary school classes will continue from today
b) Single shift schools will run from 08:00 am to 11:30 am daily
c) Schools operating in two shifts 1st shift will run from 08:00 am to 09:30 am and second shift from 09:45 am to 11:30 a;
d) The assembly shall remain closed until the temperature has reached a tolerable level;
e) The Upazila Education Officer will formulate a weekly routine for conducting upazila-based class activities taking into consideration the routines sent from the Directorate of Primary Education for conducting class activities with the concerned;
f) Pre-primary classes will remain closed until further notice.
Mixed reaction to Saturday classes in Secondary
The country's educational institutions are closed for half of the year. Monsoon, heat and winter are closed for some more days. The condition of institutions having SSC and HSC centers is even worse. These institutions have holidays for more than eight months. For this reason, Department of Secondary Education (DSE) and Department of Primary Education (DPE) want to eliminate the learning deficit of students. That is why the Saturday weekend has been excluded. Parents have welcomed the elimination of Saturday holidays. They want their children to study in schools instead of private coaching. Although the teachers want two days off like the employees.
A teacher named Rafayet Ahmed said that Saturday class activities need to be postponed with special consideration. A week with Friday off and Saturday off helps play an important role in the mental development of our young children. Especially for those students whose parents are working, they can spend some time close to their children during these holidays. So we recommend Friday and Saturday holidays in the week to reduce the extra stress of studies for our children. A parent named Sifat Hasan said, we are having classes on Saturday when the school is open, we don't seem to have any problem. Rather, if the school is open on Saturday, we hope that the education system will improve.
A parent named Mehdi Hasan Masud said that educational institutions need to open on Saturday for two reasons. One is holiday trapping, the other is coaching dependency. Children are not able to finish their books as there are often holidays, classes are not held as per the class routine in educational institutions most of the days. For this reason I am forced to send children to coaching.
By reducing working hours and canceling Saturday holidays, increasing supervision, ensuring classes according to class routine, the dependence on coaching will be greatly reduced. Former Director of Education and Research Department of Dhaka University Professor Dr. Chiddikur Rahman told my news that our schools have to be closed due to various reasons. Currently our students have learning deficits. For this reason, instead of five days, six days of classes have been decided. It is a good initiative. Teachers need to cooperate spontaneously in this.
ZH
