Siddiqur Rahman Khan Courtesy New Age 6/11/09
The government is thinking about reserving 10 per cent of the seats in all government secondary schools for children of the choice of lawmakers, education ministry officials told New Age on Thursday.
'Almost all the lawmakers receive requests from various quarters for admission to government schools every year, but neither heads of the schools nor education directorate officials heed their requests. The ministry is preparing an admission policy which will have a provision of reserving 10 per cent of the seats in every school for the children chosen by local lawmakers,' said an official of the ministry.
'As local peoples' representatives, we face requests for admission every year, but we fail to do anything in this regard. The officials involved in the admission process act according to their will,' said a lawmaker who is also a member of the parliamentary standing committee on the education ministry.
'Keeping 10 per cent or more seats reserved for lawmakers' chosen children has also been discussed in the parliamentary standing committee's meeting held in late September and October. We are preparing the admission policy in light of discussions of the standing committee,' he said.
Since 2001 a committee headed by the director-general of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education has been assigned to complete the admission process for the 24 schools located in the capital. In other places the admission committees are headed by the deputy commissioners.
'According to the proposed admission policy the admission committees will henceforth be headed by regional education officers instead of DCs,' said the official.
There are now 317 government secondary schools in only 191 upazilas across the country.
'By November 15 the admission policy will be completed and the schedule of selling admission forms and holding exams will be announced immediately after that,' said an official of the DSHE.
In Dhaka there are only 8,000 seats in different classes in 24 public schools, but as many as 45,000 students take part in admission tests every year.
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