Many schools did not give cash memos for the extra fees charged
Several schools in the capital are illegally making money by holding ‘model tests’ on the plea of preparing the students of Classes V and VIII for the newly introduced public examinations.
The guardians and students of the schools said that the students were compelled to take the examinations since they had no idea of what the Primary School Terminal examination, begun last year, and the Junior Secondary Certificate examination which was introduced this year, would be like.
Mohammadpur Govt High School, for instance, charged Tk 300 and Tk 500 for the test exams of Classes V and VIII respectively, said the students.
‘We have no idea of what form the first-ever JSC exam or any other public examination will take,’ said a Class VIII student. ‘So we have no alternative but to pay the high fees for getting some idea.’
He alleged that the authorities had not given them any cash memos for the fees.
‘We arranged the tests in response to the guardians’ appeal,’ claimed HM Benjamin Ahmed, head teacher of the school. Around 300 students were taking the exams, he said.
Benjamin also argued that the extra fees were essential to meet the expenses of holding examinations and paying the teachers their remuneration for the extra work of checking the copies. They could not give any receipts for the test examination fees, he claimed, as they were not regular ones.
He said that another ‘model test’ would be arranged if the students of Class V agreed, as they had more than a month before the terminal examination which would begin on November 23.
SSC candidates of the school also complained that the authorities charged higher fees for the ‘test exams’ than for the regular exams of the school. ‘We had to pay Tk 1,300 as fee before the test exams though our monthly fee is Tk 15,’ said a student.
‘We charged only Tk 150 for the exam. The amount of fees rose to Tk 1,300 after adding session charge, meal fees and other annual dues,’ Benjamin said.
Authorities of the most of schools, where model tests are being taken, termed the exams ‘test exams’, and said they were like the conventional preparatory tests before the Secondary School Certificate examinations. They also rejected the allegation of charging extra fees for the purpose.
The Government Laboratory High School’s assistant head teacher, Mohammad Abdul Khaleque, said, ‘We are not holding any model tests, rather we are holding “test exams”, like the exams before SSC, for the JSC candidates.’ The test exams for Primary School Terminal examination candidates would begin soon, he said.
‘The fees we are charging for the test exams are equal to those of the annual exams,’ he said.
The Motijheel Model School and College’s principal, AAM Talibur Rahman, said that the school would hold the exams after the Durga Puja holidays. Though the fees have not yet been set, he said, the students would probably be charged regular fees for the test exams.
The director-general of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, Mohammad Noman-ur-Rashid, said that they had no ‘inspection wing’ to check such irregular activities.
‘As I have been informed of these irregular tests, I shall immediately assign assistant inspectors to visit the city schools to check whether the allegations are valid,’ said the DG on Wednesday.
The authorities will take tough action against the schools if the allegations of charging such high fees are proved right, he said.
