Parents, students worried as admission test nears

Guardians wait for their children during the admission test at Ispahani Public School and College on Friday. Around 2,056 children sat for the test against 100 seats this year.Photo: STAR

Anxiety and tension have gripped the parents and guardians as well as the students, with the beginning of admission process ahead of the new academic year at different schools in the port city.
Some changes have been made in the admission process this year to make it transparent at the secondary level at nine government high schools.
Besides, double shift will be introduced in five government schools to reduce the admission crisis, sources said.
With the increasing number of students day by day, competition for admission has become much more harder as the nine schools have capacity to enroll only 2200 students a year.
Students are to face intense competition due to seat crisis while many of them go for special coaching under the guidance of different government schoolteachers at a cost of a good amount of money to get benefit in admission.
Headmaster of Chittagong Collegiate School Md Aziz Uddin said guardians are more responsible for such a coaching than the teachers since they (guardians) usually request them for the special coaching.
Aziz said around 600 students participated in such a coaching conducted by a teacher of his school last year when only 17 of them got chance to get admitted to his school.
In such a situation, Chittagong District Administration will prepare the question papers this year instead of the school authorities to make the admission process transparent.
Two admission schedules for the nine schools have been divided into two groups. No student will be able to take part in the admission test in two schools under the same group since the tests will be held the same day, they said.
The first group comprises of four schools including Chittagong Collegiate School, Dr Khastagir Government Girls High School, Nasirabad Government Girls High School and Chittagong Government (Boys) High School.
Distribution of admission forms of the first group that started on December 13 will continue until December 27 and the last date for submitting forms is January 1, 2009. Admission test of class V and class VI will be held on January 4 and January 3 while admission test of class VIII and class IX will be held on January 5.
Government Muslim High School, Nasirabad Govt Boys High School, Bakalia Laboratory Government Boys High School, Government Mohsin High School and Chittagong Government City Girls High School are in the second group.
Distribution of admission forms for the second group started on December 13 and will continue until January 3 next year while the last date for submitting forms is January 5.
Admission test of class V, class VI and class IX will be held on January 10, January 8 and January 12.
A magistrate will be included in the admission committee of each school to avert any irregularity in the result of the admission test.
Guardians would be allowed to see the answer scripts at any time if they want, said an official at the district administration.
Deputy Commissioner (DC) Ashraf Shamim said such initiatives would help to remove the suspicion of the guardians.
Meanwhile, double shift will be introduced at five government high schools to solve the admission crisis. The schools are Chittagong Govt (Boys) High School, Bakalia Laboratory High School, City Girls High School, Nasirabad Govt Girls High School and Government Mohsin High School.
Education ministry approved the proposal for double shift in the schools on December 21, sources said.