Primary schools in the country with less than 50 students in the last 10 years will be merged with neighbouring schools, while there will be no first and second terminal exams for students in classes I through III in the new curriculum.
Ministry of Primary and Mass Education secretary Farid Ahmed on Thursday said that primary schools in the country with less than 50 students in the last 10 years will be merged with neighbouring schools.
He said this at a briefing held at the conference room of the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education at the Secretariat on Thursday.
The secretary said, "We will look at the picture of the last 10 years. Schools with less than 50 students will be merged with neighboring schools. We have found about 300 such schools. We are verifying them. However, all schools will not be closed down indiscriminately. Decisions will be taken after considering all the circumstances including local realities."
He said there is an upazila called Belaichhari in Rangamati district, where there is a school with only 42 students and the number has been 42 for the last few years. “We will not merge that school. Because those 42 students come from a distance of about 7-8 kilometers. So we will consider that context. So we will not take an entirely general decision."
“Our policy decision is schools where there have been 5-7 students for the last few years will be merged,” he added.
No term exams up to class III
Meanwhile, primary and mass education ministry secretary Farid Ahmed announced on Thursday that the new curriculum will not include first and second terminal exams for students in classes I through III.
Farid Ahmed made this statement in response to a question at a press conference held by the Ministry. Shah Rezwan Hayat, the director general of the Primary Education Directorate, was also present at the press conference.
The secretary said, "The first temporary, the second temporary, up to the grade 3 —it will no longer exist." He explained that the method of evaluation will be different from continuous evaluation. Assessment will be, but not as traditional as before. There will be continuous evaluation.
In the primary and secondary levels, the new curriculum was first implemented in classes I, VI, and VII last year. Additionally, class II, class III, and class VIII instruction began this year using the revised curriculum. The new curriculum will be gradually introduced starting in class XII in 2027.
The press conference stated that a large percentage of the students' evaluations would be finished in class at the respective schools.
In the past, government primary school students were assessed through three exams per year.
According to the Annual Primary School Census (APSC) 2022 by the Directorate of Primary Education (DPE), there are currently 1,14,539 schools providing primary education in Bangladesh
Of them, a total of 17,162,365 students enrolled in primary schools (boys: 8,357,628 and girls: 8,804,737) from Grade 1 to Grade 5.
Besides, there are a total of 3,383,726 children enrolled in 2022 in the preprimary section