The education ministry is set to introduce online application system for school admission to reduce harassment of admission-seekers and their guardians, ministry officials said. Thousands of children of school-going age and their guardians need to face harassment during collection and submission of admission forms every year.

There are 18,500 secondary schools in Bangladesh, but none of the government or non-governmental agencies have any estimate of the number of students who seek admission a year. ‘Admission forms for the academic session 2010 will be made available online to reduce harassment of guardians. Anyone can download the form and send it to the schools by e-mail or post,’ said an official. ‘Keeping in the mind the large number of guardians who cannot afford internet facilities, we will keep a provision for the distribution of printed admission forms from schools,’ the official said.

‘After a meeting with the ministry officials, we will make a formal announcement of the online admission form distribution process. We have no account on how many schools in the country have internet connections,’ said an official of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education. ‘Admission process in secondary schools will begin a bit earlier than it did in the past year as the ministry a few days ago asked all the schools to complete admission process by December and begin classes as the academic session begins on January 1,’ the said.

In August, the ministry also asked authorities of all the 317 government secondary schools to set up internet connection by September 15. The headmaster of a government secondary school in Dhaka welcomed the plan and said it would be of great help for guardians. ‘The vision of the present government is to build up a digital Bangladesh. Introduction of online distribution and submission of forms for the admission to schools, colleges and universities is part of the plan,’ the headmaster said. The ministry in September asked all the 31 autonomous and public universities to initiate a move to introduce online admission process.

-New Age