Central lottery for secondary school admission

Admission to 3,391 secondary schools in the country's metropolitan cities and district towns will take place through a central lottery in the coming academic session.

Of them, 2,851 are non-government schools and 540 are government-run, Mohammad Aziz Uddin, deputy director of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE) told The Daily Star.

The DSHE set December 10 for central lottery for admission to all government schools and December 13 for non-government schools.

All schools have to complete the admission process within December 28.

Non-government schools in metropolitan areas and district Sadar upazilas will come under the central lottery.

Non-government schools in Dhaka will not be a part of the central lottery. However, they will also need to hold lotteries through committees approved by the education ministry, said Mohammad Belal Hossain, director of DSHE.

He added that non-government schools in others areas will also need to hold a lottery with approval from district admission committees.

"Lottery has been arranged centrally in the schools where the competition is high. The rest of the schools will be gradually brought under the central lottery. If any school does not hold a lottery, action will be taken against them," Belal said.

According to Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics, there are 18,874 secondary schools in the country. Of them, 621 are government-run.

The online application process for admissions to all government and non-government secondary schools for the upcoming academic session started on November 16.

The deadline for the submission of forms is 5:00pm on December 6.

Applications for both government and non-government schools will have to be submitted on the website "gsa.teletalk.com.bd".

The DSHE's objective of introducing the lottery system was to lessen the hassle of students and guardians, who previously had to go from one school to another seeking admissions. Another goal was to mitigate the "allegations of irregularities and corruption" regarding the admission process at non-government schools, top officials of the directorate told The Daily Star.