M M Jasim :
About 1,500 colleges are in fear of closure as they have failed to fulfil the condition of the Education Ministry in terms of students’ admission in Higher Secondary level, ministry sources said.
The Education Ministry has already started to know the reasons behind the failure of the colleges for not admitting any student or poor number of students.
The ministry will take stern action, including shut up the colleges and others punishment, the sources said.
No student was admitted to a total of 135 colleges in Higher Secondary level under 2017-18 session. Of them, 66 institutions are madrasas. As many as 1,383 institutions got poor number of students and most of them obtained only 5 students. As per the rule of the ministry, an institution must have 25 students in Secondary level for getting MPO (Monthly Payment Order). If the number falls the ministry has the right to close the institution.
Deputy Secretary of the Education Ministry Dr Srikanto Kumar Chanda said, the ministry gives approval of an institution if there is no college in six kilometers away. Sometimes, the ministry relaxed it on the basis of density of the population, which is not fair.
It is alleged that some officials of the ministry helped the owners of the colleges to become MPO and get approval of establishment by underhand dealings. In most of the cases, the institutions got approval by some unscrupulous officials. As a result, they did not get sufficient students and some of them have lost approval.
An official of the ministry wishing anonymity told this correspondent that some officials tried to save the institutions with poor performance last year. “They are active this year also,” he said.
No student has been admitted to 19 colleges in the city while 18 colleges got 1-2 students. Mirpur Prime Scholars College has 300 seats, but it did not get any student this year.
The same scenario has been found at all the education boards in the country.
Secretary (Secondary and Higher Education Division) of the Education Ministry Sohrab Hossain said, it is true that the students are reluctant to admit in substandard colleges. “We have no second option but closure of the institutions. We also closed many colleges last year due to their poor performance,” the secretary said.
“It is obvious that the government’s fund is being wasted as many of the colleges’ performance are not satisfactory. The founders of these institutions are also in frustration,” Sohrab Hossain said. Chairman of Dhaka Education Board Professor Mahabubur Rahman said, “The Education Ministry has asked us to identify the causes behind the poor performance of these institutions.
“We are working as per the ministry’s direction,” he said.
