There must not be any admission test or even lottery for the children up to class three, let alone KG children. The guardians must take their children to the schools adjacent to their respective homes; may it be government or private. Of course, our government primary schools are not available in urban areas according to the thickness of population. Moreover, most guardians show their reluctance to send their wards to those schools for some valid reasons. However, private schools are available here and there. Without running after so-called reputed schools, guardians should send their children to the schools standing nearby their homes which will make their children's life easier and stress-free. Maybe, those schools are not upto their expected level, still guardians should do it. When they will get their children admitted in these institutions, schools will try to develop their situation further. Instead of doing that, almost all the guardians vie for enrolling their children in famous schools just to prove their status symbol ignoring children's physical and mental anxieties and trouble . They should not teach their children so much division and segregation of the society. It's true that the number of famous schools proves very few in urban areas particularly in metropolitan cities that has created an uncertain situation and this situation led the AL government to introduce 'lottery system' to avoid complexities regarding admission. The newly formed BNP government has announced to scrape lottery system to introduce admission for all sorts of students. I strongly protest this decision. Students from KG to class three must not sit for any admission test. However, that can be introduced from class four but questions should be suitable enough for the students according to their age and standard.
Education Minister ANM Ehsanul Hoque Milon argued that the lottery was not a rational approach and said the government intended to consult stakeholders, including parents, education experts, and lawmakers, before finalizing a new framework for admissions starting in January 2027.Yet within roughly 24 hours of this declaration, he announced that the government had decided to scrap the lottery system altogether. It seems to be a hasty decision indeed! We know that the lottery system wasintroduced in 2010 for first-grade admissions and was later expanded to other levels in response to long-standing demands from parents and educationists seeking relief from an increasingly stressful and inequitable admission process. Before the lottery system, the families had to face immense pressure. Determined to secure seats in reputed schools, many parents pushed their children some as young as four or five into coaching centers long before they were ready for formal education that must be quite unreasonable! In many cases, schoolteachers themselves ran these coaching businesses. The pressure surrounding school admissions became so intense that some guardians even manipulated official documents, deliberately changing their children's birth years to secure an extra year or two before entering the ruthless race for admission and thus the root of dishonesty planted in children's very initial stage of their education. Schools often admitted more students than the number of seats advertised, and many believed these additional places were secured through money.Parents queued for hours just to collect admission forms. Children sat for dozens of tests at different schools. Thus, childhood became trapped in a cycle of coaching centers, stress, and relentless competition. With the introduction of the lottery system this ordeal was largely ended.
We cannot fully claim that the lottery was the most perfect system to get children enrolled in schools as repeated failed attempts of some children led to disappointment, and some children even began to believe they were simply unlucky. Despite these flaws, the system was humane. It spared preschoolers from competing before they could even properly read or write. The system paved the way for relatively less bright children to enter schools by dint of sheer luck, while leaving out meritorious students.In urban areas, there is a larger number of students than the number of available seats at quality educational institutions and so the mad rush developed. However, significant number of schools don't see it. Even, many schools suffer the threat of closing the schools due to non-availability of required number of students. And in rural schools, this rush has yet to touch at all.
The COVID-19 pandemic also favoured to keep the means as entry to schools initially for class one before being expanded to all grades . What began as a temporary response to the health crisis gradually became the permanent method for student selection in government and private secondary schools. However, the system has faced mounting criticism from educators, who argue it has eliminated merit-based competition, resulting in classes where students of vastly different academic levels study together. Teachers have reported that this makes effective instruction extremely difficult. Parents have also expressed dissatisfaction, noting that unlike entrance exams, the lottery provides no feedback on their children's strengths and weaknesses, creating "mental stress" instead. The current government has taken these points as capital to scrape lottery system.
But we think 'Catchment area' approach could reduce family expenses on transportation and other out-of-pocket costs. Each and all towns and cities experience huge traffic jam that further gets complicated due to students' unnecessary move from one part of the town to another. This ' 'catchment area' solution must be compulsory till class three at least. Then simple admission tests can be conducted from grade four and upward, admission tests with intelligent questions can be introduced avoiding the bizarre questions that never test the real merit or rising talent of the children. The admission coaching centers began teaching those types of questions to the children as many schools used to set very unreasonable questions.
This discussion surfaces one important thing that tells us our deliberate negligence towards our rural schools which are surrounded by various problems constricting the facilities to make education available for most rural children. But in these schools' students' pressure does not seem so severe that lottery or admission test will be an option. These schools need to ensure congenial atmosphere for teaching-learning process, students regular attendance that does not happen in most schools as the children have to earn something or work with their parents without attending the classes regularly particularly those who belong to secondary schools. Our educational thoughts must be diverted towards these points. And the thought must come to our mind that it is the birth right of all children to have proper education from the society in which they are born and it is the solemn responsibility of the state to make proper arrangement of education for them without putting them into unnecessary complexities and pressure in the name of admission test in their childhood days. Let them face it when they grow up. What should we test when they have yet to start formal schooling ?
The writer is a President- English Teachers' Association of Bangladesh (ETAB)
