Children cannot afford another year of school disruption, says UNICEF.

Suggestion for campus reopening is growing as students get exasperating for prolonged home-stay and the UN education agency now rings alarm that effects of another year of school closures will be felt for generations to come. The UNICEF worry reflects anxieties over the campus shutdown across the world, and some countries weighed the loss of education and risks of coronavirus infection and opted for classroom learning. Some, however, had to revert to shutdown amid raging winter waves of the pandemic. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said of late that "educational institutions will be reopened once the corona situation improves". Those who are pleading for campus reopening, including some students and student organizations, point out that all sectors are open and mass political and other gatherings are taking place save only education sector. Banglsdesh, belying grim predictions, averted such winter waves. Rather the incidence remained low, with the infection rate dropping to the lowest level at 5.0 percent and daily deaths at 16 on Tuesday by official count. UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore in a statement Tuesday said that the children cannot afford another year of school disruption due to the global pandemic coronavirus (COVID-19). 'As we enter the second year of the COVID- 19 pandemic, and as cases continue to soar around the world, no effort should be spared to keep schools open or prioritize them in reopening plans,' Fore said. She added: 'Despite overwhelming evidence of the impact of school closures on children, and despite increasing evidence that schools are not drivers of the pandemic, too many countries have opted to keep schools closed, some for nearly a year'. The cost of closing schools - which at the peak of pandemic lockdowns affected 90 per cent of students worldwide and left more than a third of schoolchildren with no access to remote education - has been devastating, the UNICEF executive director said. 'The number of out-of-school children is set to increase by 24 million, to a...