The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has decided to hold classes on Saturdays, cancelling the regular weekend holiday, to address learning deficits among primary school students. The Directorate of Primary Education has instructed the implementation of this decision for the 10 Saturdays following the reopening of primary schools on 29 March, after the Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr holidays.
Director General of the Directorate of Primary Education, Abu Noor Md Shamsuzzaman, confirmed this information to TIMES of Bangladesh on Tuesday.
He said, “We did not want to compromise students’ learning by reducing the syllabus. For this reason, meetings were held with teachers at the ministry. This decision was taken by consensus to address the students’ learning deficits.”
According to the academic calendar for the 2026 academic year, primary schools were originally scheduled to be closed from 8 March to 26 March for Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr. However, on 18 February, the government issued a notification stating that this holiday would begin from 19 February.
As a result, including Fridays and Saturdays, the total holiday period became 38 days. This added an additional 17 days to the holiday schedule. Excluding the regular Friday and Saturday holidays, the deficit in classes compared to the academic calendar amounted to 12 days.
Regarding this, the Director General of Primary Education, Abu Noor Md Shamsuzzaman, said that out of respect for religious sentiment, the government declared a full month holiday for Ramadan. However, as the academic calendar was prepared at the beginning of the year, the holidays indicated there were fewer.
Class schedules and lesson plans were created based on that. Subsequently, with the announcement of a full month holiday for Ramadan, there was a shortage of 12 days of classes compared to the academic calendar. To address this learning gap, teachers suggested keeping schools open for 10 Saturdays.
Based on their advice, the decision was made to keep schools open for the 10 Saturdays following the reopening of schools on March 29.
Letters have been sent to district and upazila education officers on Tuesday for the implementation of this decision.
