While wealthy urban children can continue their schooling online during the coronavirus pandemic, lack of means and infrastructure have left the rural poor without access to education.
Image: picture-alliance/NurPhoto/S. Ramany
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Nine-year-old Subarna Akhter Sathi spends most of her days with friends at a local playground in Brahmanbaria, an eastern district of Bangladesh. Normally, Subarna would be in school or doing homework but most schools have been shut since late March, when Bangladesh went into lockdown to contain the outbreak of the coronavirus.
"My daughter has lost interest in studying since her school closed," Subarna's mother, Roksana Begum, tells DW. "She wakes up late and plays all day."
The South Asian country has registered more than 394,000 coronavirus cases and over 5,700 deaths to date.
The March 26 nationwide lockdown brought everything in the country to a near standstill, and forced 38.6 million students of all education levels out of school. Though the government eased lockdown measures after two months, education institutions are expected to remain closed until October 31.
Education in the time of COVID-19
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City schools outsmart COVID-19
Bangladesh currently has an estimated 21.6 million students enrolled in its elementary and primary schools, another 13 million in secondary schools and 4 million studying at universities and colleges. According to the Ministry of Education, 76% of Bangladesh's secondary schools are located in rural areas. It says roughly 60% of primary school children attend government-run schools, which are mostly in rural areas as well.
"Rural schools lack infrastructure including digital equipment, qualified teachers and hygiene facilities," says Mahtab Uddin, a research fellow at the non-government organization (NGO) South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM). Uddin says this has hindered online schooling efforts in the country.
Bangladesh's private schools, on the other hand, have been quick to adopt online learning methods in the wake of the lockdown, offering lectures delivered via social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube.
Mostly located in urban areas, these schools are attended by the country's wealthier classes. Not only are the schools better equipped and prepared, students are also more likely to have access to required technologies at home, with parents who are usually computer literate.
Coronavirus brings back-to-school challenges
As school holidays wind down around the world, COVID-19 infections are once again on the rise in many countries. In an effort to avoid further shutdowns, schools have adapted their approach to in-class learning.
Image: Getty Images/L. DeCicca
Thailand: Class in a box
The roughly 250 students who attend Wat Khlong Toey School in Bangkok now sit in plastic cubicles during class, and must keep their face masks all day. Sinks and soap dispensers are positioned outside each classroom, and temperatures are taken as students arrive to school in the morning. The strict measures seem to be working: the school has reported no new infections since July.
Image: Getty Images/L. DeCicca
New Zealand: School for some
These students in the capital, Wellington, are happy they can still go to school. Those in Auckland aren't so lucky. After the country went virus-free for three months, four new cases were reported in the country's largest city on August 11. Health authorities ordered the closure of schools and non-essential businesses in the city, and told citizens to stay home.
Image: Getty Images/H. Hopkins
Sweden: No special measures
Students in Sweden are still enjoying their summer holidays, but this picture of graduates taken before the break continues to symbolize the country's special approach to dealing with COVID-19. Unlike almost everywhere else in the world, the Scandinavian country has never required citizens to wear masks. Businesses, bars, restaurants and schools have all remained open.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/TT/J. Gow
Germany: Single file, at a distance
These students at Petri Primary School in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, are exhibiting exemplary behavior. Like all schools in Germany's most populous state, theirs requires face masks. Yet unlike students in Germany's other 15 states, they must also wear them in the classroom. It's too early to tell if the measures are working, however — the school year only kicked off on August 12.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/I. Fassbender
West Bank: Back to school after 5 months
School has also resumed in Hebron, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Jerusalem. Students in the region are required to wear face masks, with some schools even calling for gloves. Yet despite her mask, this teacher's enthusiasm is evident. Schools in the Palestinian territories have been closed since March, with Hebron being an epicenter of infections.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/H. Bader
Tunisia: Masked since May
This class of high school students in Tunis began wearing masks in May. As schools across the North African country resume in the coming weeks, all students will be required to wear them. When Tunisia's schools were closed for several weeks in March, parents had to school their children at home, helping them with TV and internet-based learning programs until classes could resume in early summer.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/F. Belaid
India: Teaching by loudspeaker
This school in Dandwal, in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, has a special setup for students who have no access to the internet. Here they can attend a type of tutoring session to catch up on missed assignments, listening to prerecorded classes over a loudspeaker. Maharashtra was particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
Image: Reuters/P. Waydande
Congo: No class without temperature check
Authorities in Lingwala, a well-heeled suburb in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, are taking the threat of coronavirus infections among students extremely seriously. Every student attending the suburb's Reverend Kim School is required to have his or her temperature taken before being allowed to enter the building. Face masks are also mandatory.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Mpiana
United States: Lessons in the world's hot spot
Schools in the US are also doing daily temperature checks to detect potential COVID-19 cases. Such measures are urgently needed in the country, which continues to see some of the world's highest infection rates. On August 13, Johns Hopkins University reported that more people had died within the past 24 hours than at any point since late May.
Image: picture-alliance/Newscom/P. C. James
Brazil: Gloves and a hug
Maura Silva (left) is a teacher at a public school in western Rio de Janeiro, near one of the city's largest slums. She makes an effort to visit her students at home, and brings along her "hug kit." Before taking them in her arms, Silva and her students put on masks and she helps them to put on plastic gloves.
Meanwhile, the Bangladeshi government has asked state-owned radio and television stations to broadcast live and recorded lectures in an effort to address the disruption of schooling due to the pandemic. Teachers are also giving students course-related advice via mobile phone, says Akram Al Hossain, senior secretary of Bangladesh's Primary and Mass Education Ministry.
While government efforts to reach students seem to have been successful in regard to urban areas, poor internet connections and a lack of digital devices continue to deny many rural students access to such programs.
Universities have also started delivering lectures via online platforms like Zoom but there, too, lack of technical infrastructure has been a hurdle for some students.
"We began delivering lectures online in the face of challenges like our students' limited access to digital equipment and technology," said Mohammad Sahid Ullah, a professor at the University of Chittagong, one of the country's largest universities, with more than 25,000 students.
Ullah says, "Many faculty members show no interest in delivering online lectures, exacerbating our limitations." He says another problem they have is that student attendance can never be confirmed.
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Dwindling finances
In a recent study, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), an NGO, found that 54% of Bangladesh’s rural households lacked internet access, while 59% did not have access to smartphones.
According to University of Chittagong's Sahid Ullah, the government will have to assess factors like access to technology, literacy and student capability before designing an online communication strategy.
In addition to limited infrastructure, people living in rural areas — like 9-year-old Subarna and her mother, Roksana — have been forced to grapple with lack of income since the lockdown began. Buying a smartphone for Subarna's schooling is definitely out of the question.
"My husband's income went down in recent months due the coronavirus pandemic. It has caused a great deal of suffering in our lives," Begum says, adding that buying a smartphone and data "in this crisis" would only worsen her family's economic woes.
