944 pry schools to be merged

Staff Correspondent : There are 944 government primary schools with less than 50 students from 1st to 5th standard in 56 districts of the country are going to merge with neighboring schools. It is reported that such a decision was taken in a coordination meeting of the Department of Primary Education (DPE) recently.
On December 7, a letter signed by Manish Chakma, director of policy and operation wing of the department, has been sent to all divisional and district education offices of the country. According to the decision in the monthly coordination meeting of the department, recommendations have been sought from the departmental deputy directors regarding schools with less than 50 students, the letter said. It has been asked to take a decision at the local level and send the proposal by December 18 on whether it would be appropriate to consolidate schools and run schools with fewer students.
It is known that the then secretary Aminul Islam Khan ordered to list these schools in 2022. Then the Department of Primary Education started listing those schools. According to the latest data, 994 schools in 56 districts of the country do not have 50 students. Based on that list, these institutions will now be merged with the neighboring schools.

Those concerned say that this number will increase if the year 2023 is listed.
In this regard, DPE director Manish Chakma said, this is the list of 2022. Local level views have been sought to implement the decision to merge schools with less than 50 students with neighboring schools. He said, even though there are not 50 students in 5 classes, it is a waste of the state.
According to the sources of the Directorate, there are 944 government primary schools in 56 districts with not less than 50 students. The list also includes nationalized schools. DPE is also considering closing down such nationalized schools.
944 schools’ infosought
Deputy directors should send a proposal to the directorate stating the name of the school proposed for amalgamation, number of students, amount of land, name of the school to be amalgamated with, distance of the proposed school from the existing school, number of students of the proposed school.
Since 2013, more than 26,000 registered, unregistered and community schools under MPO have been governmentized step by step. Among them, about 21 thousand teachers were disqualified. They failed to qualify even after giving time again and again. Again, many schools had nominal students. Some teachers are running the schools by providing the information of the institutions. They are also getting salary.