Mohammad Hasnain, who is 14, is studying in class five. He lives in Madanpur, an isolated island off the coast of Bangladesh. “I was going to school at the beginning of the year. [Bangladesh follows the January-December calendar for schools] We had new books, new classes, new classmates. I had such a great time,” he narrated to Gaon Connection. “Then, a disease came. I stopped going to school. There are online classes, but where can I get a smartphone, where can I get the Internet on this island? I stopped studying,” he said.

Madanpur is an island union in Daulatkhan Upazila of Bhola district. “Before this disease, I would go to school every day, study at home and play during break time. The pandemic took away my education. I miss school. I miss the playground, my classmates,” Hasnain told Gaon Connection.

Bangladesh closed down schools on March 16 due to the deteriorating global COVID-19 crisis. They continue to remain shut.

Hasnain’s father Shafiq Mal, is 45 years old. “My children are not getting an education because school is closed. The government is conducting classes online. But children on this island cannot study online as the Internet is hard to come by in many parts. Very few of us have smartphones,” he told Gaon Connection.

Out of the 19 coastal districts of Bangladesh, a large part of 16 districts lies adjacent to the sea. About 50 million people live on the coast in Bangladesh. These districts are prone to frequent natural disasters. Climate change has increased the natural hazards in the region. Additionally, coastal islands are inhabited by relatively economically underprivileged people, who are into agriculture and fishing or run small businesses. Many of them do not have electricity, and therefore no television, in their homes or even a space for reading. Despite this, they send their children to school.

Bangladesh’s ministry of primary and mass education has been conducting online classes for primary school due to COVID-19. Under this, video classes run on Sangsad TV. The 20-minute classes are also uploaded on YouTube. The director general of the department Mohammad Fasiullah announced on the channel that students would be able to learn thematic lessons through this. But these have not made any waves on the coast.

Owing to a combination of factors such as shortage of teachers and communication and network issues, island children lag behind those in urban areas. These children are unable to make use of classes beamed on television by the government. “Students in rural areas and island unions do not have this opportunity, widening the gap between them and urban children. The pandemic-induced lockdown would adversely affect children living in the margins. There will be big problems in maintaining the continuity of their education,” Mohammad Jamaluddin, headmaster of Dhalchar government primary school in Dhalchar island union, told Gaon Connection. 

Internet and inequity

According to a new report by UNICEF and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), released in Geneva on December 1, about 42 million children in Bangladesh have been affected by the closure of schools due to the pandemic.

The report cites the number of children without the internet in seven regions worldwide. South Asia and East and Southern Africa are joint second on the list — 88 per cent of children in these two regions do not have Internet access.

According to a multi-indicator cluster survey conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics in 2019, 62 per cent of households in Bangladesh do not have access to the Internet. Only 7.8 per cent of the poorest 20 per cent of households do. Among the richest 20 per cent, the rate is 75.3 per cent.

Television is another major medium of distance education —  51 per cent of households own a television, nationally. However, this dwindles to 4.6 per cent among the poorest 20 per cent of households, compared to 90.2 per cent in the top 20 per cent.

Tomoo Hozumi, UNICEF Representative in Bangladesh, told Gaon Connection that “children without access to these means of distance learning are bearing the brunt of the digital divide and inequity. They have less access to learning opportunities during the pandemic, putting their education and future in jeopardy. This divide exacerbates pre-existing inequalities. It can perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty and disparity from one generation to the next, with children becoming its transmission belt.”

If lack of access to online classes was not enough, there is the damage caused by Cyclone Amphan, which lashed the coast on May 20. Hundreds of thousands of people were flooded in and their homes submerged on the west coast of Bangladesh. Online classes are being run by the government, but many children in coastal areas are cut off from this source of education.

The toll on girl students

Rubina Akhter, a teenager from Madanpur is in class six. She’s a familiar face, a happy child. Besides school, she sometimes plays in the field, fishes for a sport. Her father, farmer Mosharraf Hossain, told Gaon Connection her school closed due to COVID-19. Studying at home is not progressing very well, either. Since she’s at home, Akhter also has to do housework. The childhood of these children has been cut short. The new normal has taken a huge toll on them.

Before the pandemic, the children would head to the local market after school. Before coming home after the school bell struck, they would play on the grounds of the Telirchar government primary school, Charpadma government primary school in Madanpur or the ground of Dhalchar government primary school. These are out of bounds for children now. They would hop, skip and jump on their way home, after playing various sports. Suddenly, their colourful childhood has taken on shades of grey and black.

Children’s familiar haunts in Telirchar in Char Abdullah island union of Laxmipur coastal district — Chairman’s Bazaar, Kamal’s Bazaar and Janata Bazaar — are no longer running at full steam. No one speaks unless there’s a need.

This new normal is painful even for these children, who are used to living a difficult life, since they live by the coast and are at the mercy of Nature. Saiful Haque Haji, who is 70 years old and a resident of Dhalchar island union in Bhola district, told Gaon Connection: “They’ve seen tidal waters, tidal waves, fierce cyclones, river erosion. But, COVID has hit them hard,” he said. 

Nasir Uddin Nannu, chairperson of Madanpur, told Gaon Connection that life as they knew it has changed. “Educational institutions have closed. There is no transportation in many places. When even adults are affected, children suffer too. They can’t move as freely as before. They may not be as confined as children in urban areas, because the landscape is vast, but they panic.”

Increasing school dropouts  

How useful is the government-run TV class for students? Sana Ullah Sanu, a teacher-journalist of Kamalnagar Upazila of Laxmipur district said most families in coastal areas do not own a television set, and so they miss out on this mode of education too. “Moreover, there is a big difference in learning face-to-face and from a television screen,” he said.

Alauddin Master of Telirchar said prolonged school closures can have a negative impact on children living in isolated islands. “Even during pre-pandemic times, children would often help with household chores and skip school. Now that schools have been closed for a very long time, children will move away from books,” he told Gaon Connection.

Sanu feared that many children “will begin working to help their families who have been hit hard financially by COVID-19. This crisis will increase the number of children dropping out of school”, he added.

Several district and Upazila education officers in coastal areas said they have instructed educational institutions to continue classes during the holidays too. However, it is difficult to implement those guidelines in the coastal areas, mainly because of Internet woes, they conceded.

Even if children do manage access to study at home, many do not have a conducive environment. Teachers, and physical schools have been their passport to education. What they learn, they learn in schools. Many working-class families in the islands send their children to school only on a seasonal basis.

Muhammad Kamruzzaman Majumder, chairperson, Department of Clinical Psychology, Dhaka University, told Gaon Connection that children now feel they are under “house arrest” due to the pandemic. “Since elders in the family are also at home, the disciplining may be in excess too,” he added.

Clinical psychologist Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman Hridoy said the world is going through an unusual situation and there is an increase in general anxiety disorder. “Children must be given a pleasant environment to grow up in. Parents should try to keep their children happy. Children should be given at least minimal opportunities to play some sport,” he told Gaon Connection.

While the elders and experts try to make sense of the pandemic and its effect on education, children ask simple, but searing questions. “When will I go to school again?” asked Ismail Hossain, who is in class four. His eyes almost mist over as he remembers his school. He misses his “Dear Sir and his class”, his best friend who used to sit next to him at school, the vast school grounds, the chatting sessions in the classroom. And then, with all the innocence of childhood, he said: “I miss coming up with the false excuse of a stomach ache and skipping class for a day or two.”