In April 2024, Chuadanga temperatures exceeded 42°C. The government shut schools, reopened them under pressure, then closed them again on a High Court order. Two teachers died after classes resumed, leaving parents uncertain about their children's schooling.
Jashore, Kushtia and Rajshahi sweltered too, while weeks later Sylhet flooded. Unicef estimated that climate shocks disrupted schooling for about 35 million Bangladeshi children that year; many in Sylhet lost nearly two months of classes.
The heatwave coincided with a strong El Niño and long-term global warming. The El Niño now developing is forecast to be exceptionally strong. If past patterns offer any guide, Bangladesh could face severe heat in March and April 2027, just as roughly 1.8 million students prepare to sit their SSC examinations.
What El Niño is, and why it reaches us late
Across the tropical Pacific, trade winds normally push warm surface water west towards Indonesia and Australia, while cooler water wells up off South America. Every two to seven years, the winds slacken, warm water spreads east, and a vast stretch of ocean becomes hotter than usual. This is El Niño, which reshapes rainfall and wind across half the planet and releases stored heat into the atmosphere.
For Bangladesh, the story is less about rain than many assume. Our monsoon has only a loose link with El Niño's strength, and an El Niño year can still bring floods, as the southeast saw this July. The clearer threat is delayed heat. The Pacific peaks in our dry winter, but the Indian Ocean absorbs the extra warmth and releases it through the following spring and summer, like a capacitor storing and releasing energy.
What earlier El Niños did to our region
We have been here before. After the 1997—98 El Niño faded towards La Niña, about two-thirds of Bangladesh flooded for over two months, and children exposed to the floods remained more undernourished a year later. That year, a heatwave killed around 2,500 people in India.
The 2015—16 El Niño brought deadly heatwaves to India and Pakistan, killing over 2,500 and 1,100 people respectively. As it faded, Cyclone Roanu hit Bangladesh in May 2016.
The 2023—24 El Niño brought 65% below-normal rainfall in April 2023 and Bangladesh's worst dengue outbreak on record. Then came the April 2024 heatwave, Cyclone Remal in May, Sylhet floods in June and severe eastern floods in August. In Bangladesh, the worst impacts often came as El Niño faded—not at its peak. That is where we may be next spring.
Why this one is different
In early October, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put the odds at 83% that this El Niño will be the strongest since 1950, lasting until around May 2027. The UK Met Office considers 2027 very likely to be the warmest year on record. The strong El Niños of 1997—98, 2015—16 and 2023—24 each preceded a new global temperature record.
The calendar adds urgency. With Ramadan expected in February and SSC examinations scheduled from 14 March to 15 April, students could face rising temperatures during one of the most consequential periods of their schooling.
Where the risks are greatest, and what this year has already shown
In the northwest, heat comes on top of falling groundwater; in December 2025 the government declared 25 upazilas there water-stressed for ten years. The belt around Chuadanga, Jashore and Kushtia faces the most extreme heat.
On the southwest coast, widespread salinity already threatens farmland and drinking-water sources in Satkhira, Khulna and Bagerhat. Reduced dry-season river flows could intensify the problem, adding to pressures created by upstream water management and long-term environmental change.
Hotter school days reduce learning, especially in classrooms without cooling. In India, heat also lowers children's test scores by cutting farm incomes. Our children face classrooms too hot to think in and households too stretched to keep them there. Learning gaps widen; boys drop out to work, while girls face early marriage and pregnancy.
In the haor, pre-monsoon rain submerged more than 46,000 hectares of boro rice this year; April and May 2027 bring the same risk.
In July, flash floods and landslides across Chattogram, Cox's Bazar, the Hill Tracts and parts of Sylhet affected 1.28 million people and killed 59, and the Rohingya camps logged 286 weather-related incidents in under a week.
In the northern chars of Kurigram and Gaibandha, a fast swing to La Niña, as in 1998, could bring severe monsoon floods. Dhaka and Chattogram face heat, load-shedding and dengue together.
Health: children who start the race behind
Next year it will meet children who are already weakened. A measles outbreak since March has been linked to more than a thousand deaths, most of them children under five, after vaccine shortages in 2024 and 2025 left gaps in immunity.
By 23 October, 119,801 people had been admitted to hospital with dengue this year and 371 had died. That is already more admissions than in the whole of 2024 (101,214 admitted, 575 deaths) or 2025, with weeks of the season still to run. The record remains 2023, the year the last El Niño began, with 321,179 admissions and 1,705 deaths. Warmer weather speeds up both the mosquito and the virus it carries.
On the coast, researchers in Khulna have linked saline drinking water to dangerous high blood pressure in pregnancy. Food prices are the slowest threat. El Niño droughts in grain-exporting countries can raise the cost of wheat and edible oil through 2027, and across the tropics, El Niño years are followed by rises in child undernutrition.
When a family cuts the egg or the dal from a child's plate, the damage does not show for months, but it lasts for years.
Education: learning poverty meets the heat
The 2025 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey by BBS and Unicef found that nearly half of children aged 7–14 lacked foundational reading skills and six in ten lacked basic numeracy. By upper-secondary age, one in three was out of school. At a riverside school in Munshiganj where I worked this year, teachers told me that catching students up in reading leaves too little time to finish the syllabus.
Hotter school days reduce learning, especially in classrooms without cooling. In India, heat also lowers children's test scores by cutting farm incomes. Our children face classrooms too hot to think in and households too stretched to keep them there. Learning gaps widen; boys drop out to work, while girls face early marriage and pregnancy.
Bangladesh kept schools closed for 543 days during Covid-19. A Brac study found that 56% of students could not access online or recorded classes. A World Bank survey found that only half of Class 9 students who could watch government TV lessons did so, while just 2% with access to online programmes used them. If heat closes schools next April, telling children to switch on the television will not be enough.
Protection: the damage nobody declares
When prices rise and harvests fail, poor families cope by skipping meals, borrowing money, sending sons to brick kilns or marrying daughters early. None triggers a disaster declaration or early warning.
Bangladesh already has 1.78 million children in child labour, over a million in hazardous work. Brick kiln season coincides with the dry months, when El Niño-related heat and water stress may intensify, and migrating families often take their children along. Research links repeated climate losses to child marriage; Khulna and Rajshahi, highly exposed to salinity and drought, already have the country's highest rates. In Rohingya camps, funding cuts have also closed learning centres that provided safe spaces for children.
Moving lessons online again could leave children on phones for hours with little supervision, increasing their exposure to grooming, harassment and exploitation without adequate safeguards.
What must be done before March
We have four months to prepare. Another summer of improvised school closures is avoidable.
Before February, education authorities should introduce district-specific heat protocols linked to Bangladesh Meteorological Department alerts. Morning shifts, suspended assemblies, safe drinking water, ventilation, shaded spaces and first aid can help schools stay open safely. SSC boards need clear heat contingencies, including medical support, adjusted exam times and backup schedules.
Printed reading and maths packs should reach vulnerable districts before the heat arrives, alongside TV and radio lessons, teacher follow-ups and community learning groups in chars, haors and camps. Plans must include children with disabilities and safeguards for online learning.
Health facilities need trained staff, heat-emergency equipment, reliable electricity and emergency support. Authorities should also address missed measles vaccinations and malnutrition screening, clear mosquito breeding sites before the monsoon, and strengthen fire preparedness and accessible shelters in Rohingya camps.
Anticipatory action must extend beyond floods and cyclones. Early cash assistance can help heat- and drought-exposed families keep children in school. Child marriage prevention committees, labour inspectors and teachers must identify risks before children disappear from classrooms. Funding for Rohingya children's education and protection must be protected.
Longer term, reflective roofs, cross-ventilation, shade trees and drinking water facilities can make classrooms safer for years to come.
Elahi Rawshan is a climate educator and researcher, a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the founder of Climate60, a climate literacy initiative. He can be reached at [email protected].
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.