Public and private secondary schools (lower secondary and secondary) have increased in the country in a span of one year. However, the total number of students in these schools has decreased. At the same time, the number of madrasas decreased slightly but the number of students increased.

This figure emerged in the latest education statistics report of the Bangladesh Bureau of Education Information and Statistics (BANBAIS), which deals with the country’s education data. The report, based on 2021 data, was recently published. By reviewing the data of the previous year i.e. 2020 with the data of this report, this data of increase and decrease of institutions and students has been found.

According to the new data of Banbase, there are 18 thousand 874 public and private secondary schools in the country. 89 lakh 30 thousand 245 students study in these schools. Compared to 2020, students have decreased by 86 thousand 524 people. The total number of students that year was 90 lakh 16 thousand 773. However, the total number of secondary school and college secondary students is now more than one crore.

Banbase only provides the number of students and institutions. Because, analysis does not. As a result, nothing is known from their report about why the number of students decreased in secondary schools and increased in madrasas. However, according to people associated with education, there is an impact of Corona here.

The last two years were corona times. During this time there is a severe impact on studies. Due to the outbreak of Corona, Sasari’s class-examination was stopped from March 17, 2020 in the educational institution. Sasari’s classes started in September last year after about 18 consecutive months. A recent report by the Department of Secondary and Higher Education (MAUSI) showed that during the Corona epidemic, about 481,000 students in more than half of the country’s secondary schools were absent from the annual examination last year. Among them, more than 47,000 girls have had child marriages. And about 78 thousand students are involved in child labor. The exact reason for the absence of the rest is not known. The monitoring and evaluation wing of Maushi collected the data of 2021 from 11,679 secondary schools in the country and got that information.