‘Govt cannot put children at risk’
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday acknowledged that staying at home had been increasingly difficult for students, but the government would not put children's lives at risk by reopening the educational institutions.
She was delivering the winding up speech in the first ever special session in parliament.
Before her speech, Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Jatiya Party Chairman GM Quader demanded that the government reopen all educational institutions.
The PM replied that the USA, different European countries, and the UK had reopened their educational institutions. "But amid rising cases of Covid-19, those countries were forced to shut their schools again," she said.
Hasina said she and the education minister had discussed reopening of schools when there were fewer daily new cases of cortonavirus.
"But there has been a second wave of Covid-19 in Europe. No treatment for this contagious disease has been invented. There are risks of infection if children go to school. Why would we take the risk?"
GM Quader in his speech criticised the government for promoting children to the next class without exams.
In reply, the premier said that it was not a big loss for the students and that England had done the same.
The PM again urged people to follow the hygiene rules and not to go outdoors without a mask as she warned about a possible second wave of coronavirus.
On November 9, the prime minister and leader of the House placed the resolution under rule 147 of the Rules of Procedure to pay solemn tributes to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman through a special session convened by President Abdul Hamid on the occasion of Mujib Borsho.
Seventy-nine MPs from treasury and opposition bench MPs took part in the 19-hour-long discussion on the resolution in five work days.
The House on November 15 unanimously adopted a resolution to pay tributes to Bangabandhu to mark the birth centenary of the father of the nation.
Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman "gave us a country. He wanted to build a… developed and prosperous country. But he got only three and a half years," she said.
"The name of the Father of the Nation was erased from history after his assassination. Many false rumors were spread about Bangabandhu and his family. But Bangabandhu… wanted to change the fate of the people of Bangladesh."
A total of nine bills, including the one on Women and Children Repression Amendment, had been passed in the special session in 10 work days.
On January 31 and June 18 in 1974, while the parliament was in session, special sittings were arranged, officials at parliament secretary told The Daily Star. Former Yugoslav President Marshal Josip Broz Tito and then Indian president VV Giri addressed parliament respectively on those occasions.
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