The government will soon start the process of bringing more non-government educational institutions under the monthly pay order (MPO) with an allocation of Tk 112 crore for this, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said yesterday.
"We have taken preparations to include the highest possible number of educational institutions under monthly pay order with the budgetary allocation of Tk 112 crore, and the process is expected to start soon," he said.
Briefing journalists about his ministry's development activities, Nahid said a large number of educational institutions are waiting to be placed under the MPO as the process of doing this stopped in 2004.
The MPO policy formulation committee has suggested reforming the 1995 organogram of non-government educational institutions which cannot be fully implemented with the limited fund right now, he said. "That is why the education ministry has sent a proposal in this regard to the finance ministry since it will require a huge amount ofmoney."
He however said his ministry took some suggestions into consideration. Pay scales of headmasters of junior schools, assistant headmasters of secondary schools and superintends of Dakhil madrasas have been increased.
Nahid said they have received 4,000 applications directly and another 1,410 online seeking inclusion in the MPO list. Steps in this regard will be taken gradually after scrutiny of the applications.
He mentioned that 26,340 educational institutions are now on the MPO list. These include 2,386 colleges, 15,515 secondary schools, 7,344
madrasas and 1,095 technical institutes. And 4,693 educational institutions are out of the list.
About the terminal examinations for class-VIII students, Nahid said the examinations will be held in the first week of November with uniform question papers, replacing the junior scholarship system.
He said poor and brilliant students sitting for SSC and HSC examinations from next year will get government financial support to pay their examination fees.
On education policy, the minister said they have almost completed the process, and the policy will soon be placed before thecabinet