Virtual Classrooms in Bangladesh: Assessing Child Vulnerability in the Light of International Law
3. Child Vulnerabilities in Virtual Classroom
International law is primarily concerned with number of key aspects of child rights. Looking at the aspects in the context of virtual classroom in Bangladesh,
5 ibid; Martin Weller, Virtual Learning Environments: Using, Choosing and Developing Your VLE (Routledge 2007), p 3.
6 Helena Gillespie (ed), Learning and Teaching with Virtual Learning Environments (Learning Matters 2007) 1.
7 ‘Internet Subscribers in Bangladesh June, 2020. | BTRC’ <http://www.btrc.gov.bd/content/ internet- subscribers-bangladesh-june-2020> accessed 21 August 2020.
along with opening up the concept ‘vulnerability’ may provide a good sense of assessing the vulnerabilities of children.
The term ‘vulnerable’ is rooted to Latin terms vulnerare and vulnus which means
‘to wound’ or ‘wound.’ Dictionary meaning of vulnerable suggests ‘capable of being physically or emotionally wounded’ or ‘open to attack or damage’.8 While, the concept ‘vulnerability’ indicates such a condition whereby a person is affected or can potentially be affected by physical, mental or emotional harm.9 Whereas, scientific endeavour supports that vulnerable groups of people are disproportionally exposed to risk, but who is included in the groups can change dynamically.10
Vulnerability is a relative term, changes from circumstance to circumstance i.e., a person otherwise not considered vulnerable at the outset of a pandemic can become vulnerable depending on the policy response. For the purpose of this study, vulnerability would be understood as variability in physical and mental health, living standard and socioeconomic status. Amid the pandemic, a new class of vulnerable individuals has arisen – the students; while, the children among the students are experienced as more vulnerable in virtual classes. In fact, they are exposed to multi-dimensional damage under this complex situation which has led the government to a stagnant environment. The negative impacts of the vulnerabilities are likely to affect the learning capacity of the students and to cause other social risks for the children and vulnerabilities could be compared to a continuous vicious cycle of dis-advancements.11
Physical appearance of teachers and students in the classroom is the classical method of general teaching in Bangladesh. The teachers at all different levels (such as primary, secondary, higher secondary, graduation and post-graduation) directly guide the students being physically appeared in the classrooms and laboratories. Besides, classrooms equipped with modern instruments such as whiteboards, projectors, audio-visual display are also visible in urban areas and higher studies institutions. However, since the inception of the pandemic broken in, the entire schooling system has been interrupted and the government ordered to suspend the traditional learning system in April 2020 due the outbreak of the
8 ‘Definition of Vulnerable’ <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vulnerable> accessed 20 August 2020.
9 Ingrid Nifosi-Sutton, The Protection of Vulnerable Groups under International Human Rights Law (Routledge 2017); Marisa O Ensor and Elzbieta M Gozdziak (eds), Children and Migration: At the Crossroads of Resiliency and Vulnerability (Palgrave Macmillan 2010).
10 The Lancet, ‘Redefining Vulnerability in the Era of COVID-19’ (2020) 395 Lancet (London, England) 1089.
11 Catherine Drane, Lynette Vernon and Sarah O’Shea, The Impact of ‘Learning at Home’ on the Educational Outcomes of Vulnerable Children in Australia during the COVID-19 Pandemic (National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, Curtin University 2020).
pandemic. 12 Subsequently, different educational institutions have started delivering lectures in virtual classrooms, in particular LMS and VLE, which is fairly a new method in Bangladesh vastly introduced and practised throughout the country due to COVID -19.
The government has made primary education compulsory for all citizens, which starts from elementary level when a child becomes five years old. In addition, other parallel curriculums include madrasa and vocational education along with English medium schooling system. The nature of each curriculum is different and thus the vulnerabilities appeared throughout the system are diversified.
Moreover, a number of socio-economic components and other factors affect the overall scenario of online teaching. Thus, the child students are exposed to multi- level vulnerabilities in the online schooling system.
a) Unequal access to digital technologies
Access to digital technologies considers not only the access to internet facilities but also connects a wide number of issues such as encompassing physical, digital, human and social resources and relationships.13 The Convention against Discrimination in Education (CADE) primarily focuses on depriving or limiting any person or group of persons to education of an inferior standard.14 In fact, the right to education has not yet been a justifiable right under the legal regime of Bangladesh although the Constitution pledges for adopting effective measures in order to provide the appropriate education in the light of societal needs.15 Given the urgency in the pedagogical transformation, the government of Bangladesh had to start online method quickly which suffers from numbers of limitations in both capacity and planning. On top, the sudden downturn in the health situation and a rapid transformation in the pedagogical way have left both teachers and students puzzled. Moreover, access to distance learning through digital technologies observed distinctly unequal among the child students in many respects.16
b) Socio-economic disruption
The pandemic has created economic disruption, layoff from part-time job and employment at private sectors has squeezed the financial strength of significant
12 Sir John Daniel, ‘Education and the COVID-19 Pandemic’ [2020] PROSPECTS <http://link. springer.
com/10.1007/s11125-020-09464-3> accessed 20 August 2020.
13 Mark Warschauer, Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003) 7.
14 Convention against Discrimination in Education 1960, Article 1.
15 The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Article 17.
16 See Richard Armitage and Laura B Nellums, ‘Considering Inequalities in the School Closure Response to COVID-19’ (2020) 8 The Lancet Global Health 644.
number of guardians caused challenges to afford their children to online study.17 Further, a few floods18 along with the recent cyclone named ‘Amphan’19 have caused a lot of sufferings to human lives and properties, also destroyed lot of infrastructures in Bangladesh which has impacted on online studies as well. In addition to available internet connection, there are other resources necessary to take part in virtual classes, like electricity, requisite devices and accessories etc.
which in turn needs to pay extra money. The desired expectation to the school authorities is that they would pay special attention to the children considering the factors harmful to them in the changed environment due to the pandemic. For instance, a recent rule issued by the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh includes to formulate a scheme of fixing the amount of tuition fees of private schools during COVID-19 outbreak and how to collect the fees, while two English medium schools claim the regular fees for conducting only virtual classes.20
Moreover, Natural disasters such as cyclone and flood are common phenomena in Bangladesh which negatively impact on the livelihoods of the coastal and rural people, wreaking havoc on their economy. A significant number of children in the country come from the villages and they are unable to get access into online learning activities in the emerging situation.
As Bowles has pointed out that “against potential alterations to social contract is the fact that the gap between rich and poor is likely to be exacerbated by the pandemic.”21 Thus, the post pandemic world will become more unequal and less healthy in terms of economic trends, also will cause financial infirmity to the children, which might affect the whole education system of Bangladesh once again.
c) Physical and psychological disruption
Previous studies support that the children are physically less active during their vacation period, get longer screen time, irregular sleep patterns and less
17 For instance, see, Devin C Bowles and Marguerite C Sendall, ‘COVID-19: The Elephant in the Virtual Classroom’ (2020) 6 Pedagogy in Health Promotion 156.
18 ‘3 Lakh Flood-Hit People Face Drinking Water Crisis in Kurigram’ (The Daily Star, 18 July 2020)
<https://www.thedailystar.net/flood-in-bangaladesh-2020-3-lakh-people-face-drinking-water- crisis-1932229> accessed 21 August 2020.
19 Aljazeera, ‘Cyclone Amphan Kills Dozens, Destroys Homes in India, Bangladesh’ <https://www.
aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/cyclone-amphan-leaves-trail-destruction-bangladesh-india- 200521035745307.html> accessed 21 August 2020.
20 ‘Why Usual Fee for Online Classes, HC Asks’ The Daily New Age (25 August 2020) <https://www.
newagebd.net/article/114468/why-usual-fee-for-online-classes-hc-asks> accessed 30 August 2020.
21 Bowles and Sendall (n 15); Lenore Manderson and Susan Levine, ‘COVID-19, Risk, Fear, and Fall- Out’ (2020) 39 Medical Anthropology 367; Xudong Zhu and Jing Liu, ‘Education in and After Covid-19: Immediate Responses and Long-Term Visions’ [2020] Postdigital Science and Education s42438.
favourable diets which may result to weight gain and loss of cardiorespiratory fitness.22 This scenario is true for the children attached to digital technologies during the pandemic situation in Bangladesh, also victims of the pandemic.23 Whereas, engaging to virtual classrooms may exert adverse influences on lifestyle of the children during the pandemic, likely to be worse when they are confined in homes.24 For example, psychological disruption may cause a child to be drug- addicted, mentally retarded, or even committing suicide.25 In fact, this is a new situation that the world is currently going through where the children are exposed to a high risk of psychological breakdown. While, according to Sprang and Silman, the mean result of post-traumatic scores were four times higher among the children who had been quarantined than in those who were not.26
Under the challenging circumstances, the physical and psychological condition of the children in particular the students of elementary grade will adversely elevate when the whole learning process is confined into internet and device-based technology. Article 31 of the CRC27 urges for ensuring the right to relax and play.
While, the National Education Policy 2010 suggests creating a frolic and creative environment for the students at primary and secondary levels.28 However, the Policy suffers from having any guideline in order to develop a sustainable and healthy environment during any adverse condition occurred due to any natural calamity or a pandemic as such. As a result, virtual classroom compels the children to be exposed to screen for a long period of time which may cause several medical conditions including blurry eyes, myopia, tiredness, etc. Subsequently, the situation gets worsen when private coaching of the children takes extra screen
22 Keith Brazendale and others, ‘Understanding Differences between Summer vs. School Obesogenic Behaviors of Children: The Structured Days Hypothesis’ (2017) 14 International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 100.
23 Shahnaz Parvin, ‘Coronavirus: How the Children are the Silent Victim of this Pandemic’ BBC News Bangla <https://www.bbc.com/bengali/news-53098344> accessed 9 November 2020.
24 Guanghai Wang and others, ‘Mitigate the Effects of Home Confinement on Children during the COVID-19 Outbreak’ (2020) 395 The Lancet 945.
25 For instance, a student and his mother jointly committed suicide in Bogra as result of a family quarrel caused from mental depression of the family members generated from managing internet connection for online classes. The reported suicide is different compared to usual causes for committing suicides in Bangladesh in a sense of following the typical pattern of self-harm. See Mohammed A Mamun, Rubaiya Matin Chandrima and Mark D Griffiths, ‘Mother and Son Suicide Pact Due to COVID-19-Related Online Learning Issues in Bangladesh: An Unusual Case Report’
[2020] International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction <http://link.springer. com/ 10.1007/
s11469-020-00362-5> accessed 24 August 2020.
26 Ginny Sprang and Miriam Silman, ‘Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Parents and Youth After Health-Related Disasters’ (2013) 7 Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness 105.
27 The Convention on the Rights of the Child 1990 (General Assembly Resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989).
28 Ministry of Education, The People’s Republic of Bangladesh, ‘National Education Policy’ (2010)
<https://moedu.gov.bd/site/page/318a22d2-b400-48a7-8222-303ab11cc205/National-Education- Policy-2010-> accessed 20 August 2020.
time. Furthermore, a large number of children depend on digital devices for entertainment - watching movies, playing video games. Lack of parental supervision and extreme pressure of tuition reversely affect the children. Thus, their right to entertainment moves to a different stream.29
d) Infrastructural obstacle
Lack of proper internet connection with stable speed is a common problem in developing states which causes difficulty to the children in order to continue uninterrupted online classes.30 Dearth of network coverage, unstable speed of internet and cost for mobile data discourage poor children to participate in virtual classes. In fact, the infrastructural weakness regarding online classrooms hampers the overall quality of remote learning; eventually, many children face trouble getting high-speed broadband connection or adequate digital devices in Bangladesh since they are mainly from low and middle-income families.31 Moreover, many school children do not even have a computer or smart mobile phone set which is an absolute essential for LMS and VLEs.
e) Adaptation challenge
In fact, the decision of introducing virtual class for child education has been taken within a short period of time and without having enough preparation and training for both the teachers and students. However, Children are naturally vulnerable to adapt to new environment; and the conflict between habit and transformation results to anxiety and loss of motivation on one hand.32 While, limited technological skill of teachers hinders the ability of the children to grasp perfectly the topics discussed in virtual classes, on the other hand.33 Besides, additional workload, strict time limitation, technical difficulties, scarcity of hard copies of materials frustrate the children.
29 Daniel Kardefelt Winther and Jasmine Byrne, ‘Rethinking Screen-Time in the Time of COVID-19’
[2020] UNICEF Global Insight & Policy <https://www.unicef.org/globalinsight/stories/rethinking- screen-time-time-covid-19> accessed 28 August 2020.
30 Md Golam Ramij and Afrin Sultana, ‘Preparedness of Online Classes in Developing Countries amid COVID-19 Outbreak: A Perspective from Bangladesh’ [2020] SSRN Electronic Journal
<https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3638718> accessed 20 August 2020.
31 The World Bank Education Global Practice, ‘Guidance Note: Remote Learning & COVID-19’
<http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/531681585957264427/pdf/Guidance-Note-on- Remote-Learning-and-COVID-19.pdf> accessed 27 August 2020.
32 Bibi Eshrat Zamani, Azam Esfijani and Syed Majid Abdellahi Damaneh, ‘Major Barriers for Participating in Online Teaching in Developing Countries from Iranian Faculty Members’
Perspectives’ (2016) 32 Australasian Journal of Educational Technology.
33 Peter Reed, ‘Staff Experience and Attitudes towards Technology Enhanced Learning Initiatives in One Faculty of Health & Life Sciences’ (2014) 22 Research in Learning Technology
<https://journal.alt.ac.uk/index.php/rlt/article/view/1490> accessed 21 August 2020.