School During Bangladesh Liberation War

HobbitTon

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My story revolves around a teacher who comes from the USA and teaches in Bangladesh before the BLW breaks out and maybe into it. Was school still open during the War?
 

Quentin Nokov

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Where is the school located, particularly? I think it would depends highly on where the battles are taking place and where the school is.
 
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Purple Rose

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If this is the 1971 war, then you need to be clear that the teacher was working in East Pakistan at the time the war broke out. It was that war, I believe, that resulted in the formation of an independent country called Bangladesh. Quentin's point about location is important considering most of the killings took place in Dhaka.
 

HobbitTon

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A little bit outside Dhaka. Would there still be school?
 

Keyan

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A little bit outside Dhaka. Would there still be school?

I think if you want it for the purposes of the story, you could have the school trying to keep going while everything around was a complete mess. If it's a low-profile school. The East Pakistanis (later Bangladeshis) didn't necessarily have anywhere to run -- though there was an influx of refugees into India. So it would make sense that they'd try to preserve some normalcy. In a poor country, except in the areas where there actually was fighting, the tasks of everyday living would tend to be overwhelming. But more of production would be localized (food etc) so it would be possible to carry on. Disruption of supply chains wouldn't be as problematic.
 

Purple Rose

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The other thing to consider is the plausibility of an American school teacher in East pakistan during the war. Was English taught in village schools ("outisde Dhaka" would mean a village or small town) at the time? The war was a slow build-up; would foreigners not have been evacuated? I know there were foreign nurses there during and after the war but not sure about teachers.
 

Keyan

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The other thing to consider is the plausibility of an American school teacher in East pakistan during the war. Was English taught in village schools ("outisde Dhaka" would mean a village or small town) at the time? The war was a slow build-up; would foreigners not have been evacuated? I know there were foreign nurses there during and after the war but not sure about teachers.

I was thinking of someone maybe volunteering (Peace Corps kind of thing) - and working in Bangla. Not sure what the Original Poster had in mind.