There must be no admission test or even a lottery for children up to class three, let alone KG children. The guardians must take their children to the schools adjacent to their respective homes, whether government or private.
Of course, our government primary schools are not available in urban areas according to the population. Moreover, most guardians show their reluctance to send their wards to those schools for some valid reasons.
However, private schools are available here and there. Without running after so-called reputable schools, guardians should send their children to schools near their homes, which will make their children’s lives easier and less stressful.
Maybe those schools are not up to their expected level, but guardians should still do it. When they get their children admitted to these institutions, schools will try to develop their situation further. Instead of doing that, almost all the guardians vie to enrol their children in famous schools to prove their status symbol, ignoring children’s physical and mental anxieties and troubles.
They should not teach their children so much division and segregation in society. The number of famous schools is indeed very few in urban areas, particularly in metropolitan cities, which has created an uncertain situation, and this situation led the AL government to introduce a ‘lottery system’ to avoid complexities regarding admission.
The newly formed BNP government has announced plans to scrap the lottery system and introduce admission for all types of students. I strongly protest this decision. Students from KG to class three must not sit for any admission test. However, that can be introduced in class four, but the questions should be suitable for students according to their age and standard.
Education Minister ANM Ehsanul Hoque Milon argued that the lottery was not a rational approach and said the government intended to consult stakeholders, including parents, education experts, and lawmakers, before finalising a new admissions framework starting in January 2027.
Yet within roughly 24 hours of this declaration, he announced that the government had decided to scrap the lottery system altogether. It seems to be a hasty decision indeed! We know that the lottery system was introduced in 2010 for first-grade admissions and was later expanded to other levels in response to long-standing demands from parents and educationists seeking relief from an increasingly stressful and inequitable admission process.
Before the lottery system, the families had to face immense pressure. Determined to secure seats in reputed schools, many parents pushed their children, as young as four or five, into coaching centres long before they were ready for formal education, which must be quite unreasonable!
In many cases, schoolteachers themselves ran these coaching businesses. The pressure surrounding school admissions became so intense that some guardians even manipulated official documents, deliberately changing their children’s birth years to secure an extra year or two before entering the ruthless race for admission, thereby planting the root of dishonesty in children’s very early stage of education.
Schools often admitted more students than the number of seats advertised, and many believed these additional places were secured through money. Parents queued for hours to collect admission forms. Children sat for dozens of tests at different schools. Thus, childhood became trapped in a cycle of coaching centres, stress, and relentless competition. With the introduction of the lottery system, this ordeal was largely ended.
We cannot say the lottery was the most perfect system for getting children enrolled in school, as repeated failed attempts led to disappointment, and some children even began to believe they were simply unlucky.
Despite these flaws, the system was humane. It spared preschoolers from competing before they could even read or write properly. The system paved the way for relatively less bright children to enter schools by dint of sheer luck, while leaving out meritorious students. In urban areas, there are more students than available seats at quality educational institutions, so a mad rush developed. However, many schools do not see it.
Many schools face the threat of closure due to the lack of the required number of students. Moreover, in rural schools, this rush has yet to touch at all.
The COVID-19 pandemic also favoured keeping the means as entry to schools initially for class one, before being expanded to all grades. What began as a temporary response to the health crisis gradually became the permanent method for student selection in government and private secondary schools.
However, the system has faced mounting criticism from educators, who argue it has eliminated merit-based competition, resulting in classes where students of vastly different academic levels study together. Teachers have reported that this makes effective instruction extremely difficult.
Parents have also expressed dissatisfaction, noting that, unlike entrance exams, the lottery provides no feedback on their children’s strengths and weaknesses, leaving them with “mental stress” instead. The current government has taken these points as capital to scrap the lottery system.
However, we think the ‘Catchment area’ approach could reduce family expenses on transportation and other out-of-pocket costs. Every town and city experiences heavy traffic jams, further complicated by students’ unnecessary movement from one part of town to another. This ‘catchment area’ solution must be compulsory till at least class three.
Then simple admission tests can be conducted from grade four and upward, admission tests with intelligent questions can be introduced, avoiding the bizarre questions that never test the real merit or rising talent of the children. The admission coaching centres began teaching children these types of questions, as many schools used to set very unreasonable questions.
This discussion highlights one important point: our deliberate negligence towards our rural schools, which are surrounded by various problems that constrict the facilities needed to make education available to most rural children.
But in these schools, students’ pressure does not seem severe enough that a lottery or an admission test would be an option. These schools need to ensure a congenial atmosphere for the teaching-learning process and students’ regular attendance, which is not the case in most schools, as children have to earn money or work with their parents without attending classes regularly, particularly in secondary schools.
Our educational thoughts must be diverted towards these points. Furthermore, the thought must come to our mind that it is the birthright of all children to have proper education from the society in which they are born, and it is the solemn responsibility of the state to make proper arrangements for education for them without putting them into unnecessary complexities and pressure in the name of admission tests in their childhood days.
Let them face it when they grow up. What should we test when they have not yet started formal schooling?
About the Author
Masum Billah works as a President of the English Teachers' Association of Bangladesh (ETAB), Dhaka, Bangladesh. He previously worked as an Education Specialist at BRAC, an international NGO in Bangladesh.