All schools, colleges to reopen on March 30: Minister

Classes in all the primary, secondary and higher secondary-level educational institutions will resume on March 30, said Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni on Saturday.

She came up with the announcement after an inter-ministerial meeting at the secretariat in the evening.

Dr Dipu Moni also said all the teachers will get vaccinated before the classes resume. “Letters have been sent to the authorities of all universities over the vaccination of teachers and students. Hope, all the residential university students will get vaccinated before May 17.”

Earlier on Monday, the Education Minister said classes in all the public and private universities will resume on May 24.

The residential halls of the universities will be reopened on May 17, said the minister while addressing a virtual press briefing.

However, the online classes will continue but no examination will be held before the reopening of the universities, the minister added.

Closure of educational institutions

The government shut all the educational institutions on March 17 last year after the country confirmed its first Covid-19 cases on March 8. The closure was extended several times, most recently until February 28 this year, to protect the students from the virus infections.

Covid-19 situation in Bangladesh

Bangladesh recorded 407 more Covid-19 infections until early Saturday, meaning 545,831 people have now tested positive for the virus in the country since the start of the pandemic, and the daily infection rate rose to 3.30%, which was 3.13% on Friday.

Also, the country saw five new Covid-19 deaths, taking the national tally to 8,400, and the fatality rate stood at 1.54%, said the Directorate General of Health Services.

The overall infection rate stood at 13.54%. However, 496,107 patients – 90.89% – have recovered so far.

Some 4,030,616 tests, including 12,348 new ones, have been carried out since the first cases were reported on March 8.

Covid-19 vaccination drive in Bangladesh

Bangladesh launched a countrywide coronavirus vaccination drive on February 7.

By Saturday, 2,984,773 people received the first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The second dose has to be taken between 8 and 12 weeks of the first one.

The government is providing the vaccine for free. It signed an agreement with India's Serum Institute for 30 million doses of the vaccine. The institute will provide five million doses every month between January and June.

The people, who are 40 or above, can register for the vaccine at www.surokkha.gov.bd. The on-spot registration system has been scrapped.

Health experts and the government have urged people to get registered and follow safety guidelines even after getting vaccinated.