No students, yet four teachers getting salary

Visiting the Badlagari Purbopara Independent Ebtedayee Madrasa in Sadullapur upazila one will find no student, but surprisingly all the four teachers of the institution are getting regular salaries under government's grant.

The situation came to light after local people submitted a complaint to the upazila nirbahi officer (UNO), urging him to take necessary measures against the madrasa managing committee.

According to the upazila secondary education office, Badlagari Purbopara Independent Ebtedayee Madrasa was set up in 1990 and it was enrolled under government grant in 1994.

The institution has 124 students in Class I to Class V on paper, but virtually there is not a single learner, and its four teachers--headmaster Tajul Islam and three assistant teachers Tokabbar Hossain, Afroza Begum and Mominul Islam-- occasionally attend it.

In order to keep its existence, teachers of the madrasa lured or hired students from neighbouring schools every year to appear in examinations on behalf of the madrasa.

In recently concluded examinations, eight students from other institutions filled up their forms to appear at the examination on behalf of the madrasa but only three of them appeared.

Of the eight, Rimon Mia, a student of Idrakpur High School, said “Teachers of the madrasa forced me to fill up forms, but when I heard fake examinees will be jailed I declined to appear from there.”

One of Rimon's classmates Shihab Mia said the same.

During a visit on Tuesday, this correspondent noticed in first look the madrasa house look like an abandoned structure without any student or teacher.

A rain tree, which fell on its tin-roof days ago, is still lying there, but the madrasa authority did not even care to remove it.

One of the land donors Rahimuddin, 70, of Badlagari village, said such a situation has been prevailing in the madrasa for the last five years or so.

A visiting form allegedly signed by Sadullapur Upazila Secondary Education Officer Syed Monirul Hasan on September 18, highlighted that out of 124 students he found 90 of them present.

Monirul Hasan said he joined the office recently and does not know how the paper was signed as he never went to the said institution.

When asked, Headmaster Tajul Islam could not give satisfactory answers to the questions.