A female student of Class-III died and four others were seriously injured when a portion of the ceiling of Chotbogi PK Government Primary School at Taltoli upazila in Barguna district collapsed in the classroom on April 6.
The building was built in 2002 and handed over in 2004. The Setu Enterprise, a construction firm, built the building.
Within the period of 15 years, the building had been repaired several times. The building’s longevity on paper is 50 year, but it has become a risky structure by this time.
Locals said that the construction firm used low-quality materials.
The two storied Agartarail Government Primary School’s construction work began in 2018 at Nagarpur upazila in Tangail. It was supposed to end by March 2019, but unfortunately the ceiling of the building collapsed in that month.
Later it was found that the construction firm used sub-standard materials in constructing the building. As a result, the roof of the school collapsed.
These are only two examples of the scenario of academic buildings of primary schools. But the real scenario is more disastrous.
The infrastructure of the country’s most of the primary schools has allegedly been built with sub-standard materials in absence of proper supervision of the Primary and Mass Education Ministry.
The ministry has already identified at least 10,000 risky buildings of primary schooks across the country.
The ministry officials said that the ministry has no separate engineering department like the Directorate of Education Engineering under the Education Ministry. It has to depend on the LGED department of each upazila.
The ministry pays the LGED department two per cent of the total fund for design and as supervision allowance. But the LGED officials consider the Primary Ministry’s duty as optional task. As a result, it is difficult to ensure quality of the buildings already constructed and under-construction.
Secretary of the Primary and Mass Education Ministry Md Akram Al Hossain told The New Nation that the ministry have received many allegations regarding the construction of schools’ academic buildings.
“We will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the LGED department so that we can oversee the construction activities with their assistance,” he said.
The Secretary said, “We have no engineers to supervise the construction activities. That is why we construct the academic and other buildings by LGED. The engineers of the LGED and local administration who have signatory power are responsible for every sub-standard work.”
Akram Al Hossain said they are going to form a monitoring committee comprising Assistant Thana Education Officer (ATEO), Thana Officer (TO), school headmaster and managing committee members to prevent all kinds of irregularities during construction of the buildings.
In truth, a separate engineering department is essential for the ministry’s development work. But now we are trying to form an engineering cell with one chief engineer, two executive engineers and some assistant engineers. They will supervise the development activities of the ministry, the secretary said.
A Deputy Secretary level official of the ministry mentioning on condition of anonymity told this correspondent that it would be easy to identify the quality of the buildings if we have our own engineers. We have nothing to do if an engineer of the LGED neglects duties and award us a low quality or risky building.”
He said that he had found many sub-standard buildings in many parts of the country. but, when asked, the engineers cannot give reply properly.
Even the local district level officials of the ministry said, most of the schools are in bad shape. But they cannot take any initiative due to absence of the technical resources.
M M Mizanur Rahman, DPEO of the Barguna district of the ministry, told The New Nation that most of the buildings of the district were constructed with low quality materials. At least 75 per cent of the building are in risky in his area.
The managing committee and the headmasters also said that they have to wait for long time and maintain huge proceedings if it demands to repair a building or a room or some part of the room.
They said they are used to taking classes almost everyday except Friday. It is impossible for them to move with file from door to door of the LGED engineers.
They are very busy with their regular and other activities. It is rare that they respond to the school team cordially. They just directly say, ‘wait’ and the waiting time never ends. It takes sometimes one week to several months.
It is very lengthy and disgusting process, they said.
Chotbogi PK Government Primary School Headmistress Sakirin Jahan told The New Nation that she has a little knowledge about the school’s construction as she joined the institution on February 28 this year.
“The building condition is not good at all. Environment does not permit to take classes. It is very sad,” she added.
President of the school committee Abul Kalam Azad told this correspondent that government invited tender in 2002 to construct the building. The building was handed over in 2004. It was built with low quality of materials at all.
“The building is vulnerable. We went to upazila education offices several times to construct another building as the existing building has no environment to run a school. But they told us that the building has the 50 years longevity. How we will write for another new building?,” Abul Kalam Azad said.
