Students in Kishoreganj’s Sadar and Tarail upazila are allegedly being made to pay fees more than what the board has set for sitting secondary school certificate examinations next year.
This correspondent found such allegations at different schools in the district’s Tarail upazila and Sadar upazila , but he focused on one school only since the allegations are not much different among students and their guardians from school to school.
Sources said the Purura High School, which falls under 2 No Rauti Union Parishad, held preliminary exams to see how prepared its 216 students this year. Only 10 students passed the examinations.
Of 206 students, some 190 passed in less than five subjects while some 20 others passed in five subjects in the qualifying examinations. However, none was being left out of the next year exams, they said.
Guardians termed this result frustrating and said this result was made up and the school teachers and managing committee might have made it up only to earn money illegally by charging fees from students who had failed in the exams.
Guardian Khokon Uddin Bhuiyana said his daughter Reshma Akhter from arts group had failed in four subjects and so she had to pay Tk1800 to fill up her form while other students had paid more than her ranging from Tk2500 to 2800.”
Student Tamanna Akhter from commerce group said she had to pay Tk2500 to fill up her form because she had failed in more than one subjects in the exams.
Guardian Jahirul Islam, who does business in the Pururha bazar, said his son had to pay extra fees for filling up his form because he had failed in three subjects in the examinations.
Former teacher of the school Sojatullah Sujon said he had heard from quite a number of students that they had to pay the total fees ranging from Tk2800 to 2900 to fill up their forms. However, none could show any receipt for it.
The Dhaka Education Board has fixed Tk1085 as board fee for a student from science group and Tk995 for a student from commerce or arts group. It has set Tk300 as centre fee and Tk100 as late fee for any SSC candidate.
The board fee and centre fee all-inclusively must not cross Tk1400 on any excuse for coaching or anything else, according to a notice found on the board’s website yesterday.
Teacher Mohiuddin of the school said there were only 10 teachers for 1808 students at the school. There were six teacher vacancies in the school but they could not be being filled up for lack of cooperation from locals.
To make up the teacher crisis, ten teachers had been appointed and just for paying them some salary, the school was charging some extra fees from students, he added.
When asked, Pururha High School Headmaster Md Mujibur Rahman admitted that they were charging extra fees, adding: We are also charging no fees or not more than Tk300 from students who are poor, such as no fees have been charged from three students.”
SV Government Girls’ School, Hashmat Uddin High School, Azim Uddin High School and Zilla Smarani Girls’ School are also allegedly Tk2500 to4500 as form fill-up fees in the district’s Sadar upazila.
