The coronavirus pandemic has affected the education of children but at the same time it also created so many possibilities, said Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni on Tuesday.

“Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the whole world has been affected, including us. It has had an impact on education. However, it will take time to fill in the learning loss or gap. It won't be filled in one or two academic years,” she said at a city hotel.

“We have been able to engage 93 percent of the students in education through assignments during Covid-19. Due to the pandemic, our students have been able to learn by trying on their own. They learned to use technology.  There's a lot of potential, too,” she added.

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The minister was speaking as the chief guest at the release of a research report of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board in collaboration with the European Union on “Learning Loss”.

The research was funded by the European Union and under the overall supervision of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board. The research was conducted on 18,838 primary students.

State Minister for Primary and Mass Education Md Zakir Hossain spoke at the programme, among others.

The education minister said, “The budget for education and human resources is close to 3 percent. It needs to be expanded. In the last year of the BNP-Jamaat regime in 2007, the budget of the whole country was Tk 60,000 crore. Now the budget for our education and human resource development is about Tk 90,000 crore.  The investment in that case  is very high.”

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“More money will be injected in the budget. It's a good curriculum now. We are working to recruit teachers and develop them.  Once the work we are doing now is completed, the budget will increase. I am saying that there will be a mega project in education,” she also said

"We now want to set up more clubs in educational institutions. Why not a chess club, a science club, a debating club?” She asked.

“Now there's a robotics club, and a lot of things are happening. Our students are doing well and we have to give them a little bit more.  We are trying to make the education recruitment process much better.  The better we can do for the social and physical safety of teachers. The further we can go,” said the minister.