Admission System
Lottery made must
The government has made lottery system mandatory for enrolling students in class I in all non-government junior secondary, secondary and higher secondary schools from next year.
The admission policy, formulated this week, says the lottery must be conducted in presence of the admission committee members to ensure transparency.
The system has already been mandatory for all public schools.
The non-government schools across the country are currently conducting their admission process according to their own rules due to the absence of a specific guideline which, the policy said, is creating many problems and chaos.
“We have asked all the schools to follow the policy in 2012 admissions,” Education Secretary Dr Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury told The Daily Star.
Students willing to get admission in classes II to IX in non-government schools will have to sit for a 100-mark two-hour written test on Bangla, English and Mathematics.
For written tests, the policy says, the admission committee will prepare question papers which must be appropriate for respective classes.
The age of the students desiring to get admitted in class I will have to be in between 5 and 7 years, and the student has to submit an attested copy of their birth registration certificate with the admission form.
According to the policy, institutions will have to follow a merit list and a waiting list.
The price of the admission forms will be Tk 100 at best.
It also says the schools in metropolitan areas, expect Dhaka, can not charge more than Tk 3,000 in admission fees and session charge while Dhaka’s schools will not charge more than Tk 5,000.
The admission fee and session charge for schools in suburban areas will be Tk 500 while municipality (upazila) areas Tk 1,000, and at district level it will be Tk 2,000.
No additional money beyond the government-fixed amount can be charged, the policy warns, adding that “otherwise the government will take legal action against the responsible institution including cancellation of MPO”.
For classes II to IX, the government keeps 5 percent quota for freedom fighters’ children and their children, and 2 percent for the disabled children.
The policy also allows a 2 percent quota for the children of education ministry officials in the schools under the Dhaka metropolis.
-With The Daily Star input
