Only a few months ago, education was a luxury to many children of the exclaves inside Bangladesh territory. The erstwhile exclaves never had any schools, and the children still have to walk several kilometres every day to sit in classrooms – where they were only able to gain admission if their parents could produce fake identity cards to school authorities.
But as soon as the Land Boundary Agreement between Bangladesh and India was implemented, signboards have been popping up like mushrooms in those areas announcing the imminent arrival of new primary and secondary schools and madrasas.
Signboards have been erected in unlikely areas: in the middle of crop fields, on the open spaces adjacent to roads, and even on mosque premises, the Dhaka Tribune found during a recent visit to Dashiyar Chhara, the largest of the former exclaves at Phulbari upazila in Kurigram.
There, the Dhaka Tribune found 27 signboards have been erected proposing 15 primary schools, eight secondary schools, a high school and a madrasa.
Despite having no confirmation on whether the schools would even be approved, influential people in the areas have been busy placing signboards in hopes that the schools would eventually be funded.
In some places, the opportunity seekers even went as far as to erect signboards for two schools at the same site.
It was learnt that the influential people were convincing land owners to donate their land for educational institutions with the promise that the owner’s children or relatives would get jobs once the school was established.
Locals said members of the local exclave exchange committees were made presidents of the proposed school managing committees as it raised the possibilities of government approval.
When asked, Altaf Hossain, president of Dashiyar Chhara unit of the now-defunct Bangladesh-India Enclave Exchange Committee, said he has so far been offered to head managing committees of different proposed institutions including three primary schools, a junior secondary school, and a madrasa.
“Many are still offering me similar posts. But my involvement is voluntary and I am not taking any benefit for the posts,” he said.
Dhaka Tribune has also confirmed that the president of the now-defunct India-Bangladesh Enclave Exchange Coordination Committee (Bangladesh chapter), Moinul Haque, and its secretary Golam Mostafa have also been made heads of many managing committees.
With so many schools now fighting for approval, locals fear that disputes may flare up among different stakeholders.
Moniruzzaman Monir, a local who has four children including two schoolgoing ones, said the competition for getting approval for the schools might trigger disputes in the area as some greedy people are involved in setting up the institutions without having any proper authorisation.
“Our children have to walk four or five kilometres every day to attend school. If the government helps setting up schools by this year, our children can be educated in their own village. We expect that the new schools will become functional from the start of next year,” he added.
The actual possibilities of approval
Despite the promises of 27 schools in a single place, district education officials said Dashiyar Chhara may at best get three primary schools, a high school, a girl’s high school and a madrasa.
Officials from district education office and district primary education office told the Dhaka Tribune that an area needs to have a population of 2,000 to get a primary school.
For a secondary school, an area needs a population of 10,000 while no school of the same category can be set up in a 3km radius of one school, according to government rules.
Altaf, the president of the defunct enclave exchange committee, said government figures showed that Dashiyar Chhara had a population of around 7,000 people; but according to the committee’s estimates, there were 10,293 living in the area.
Asked about the issue, Phulbari Upazila Nirbahi Officer Nasir Uddin Mahmood said the schools will be set up in accordance with the existing government policy.
The official, however, could not confirm whether the schools would be able start operation from the start of next year.
“We will soon send proposals to the government for the establishment of educational institutions after a survey is completed on setting up primary schools in the area. At the minimum, we might approve a high school, a girl’s high school and some primary schools for this area,” he said.
Regarding the fate of the 27 proposed institutions that have put up signboards in Dashiyar Chhara, the UNO said: “Everything will be done as per government policy.”
