SANGSAD BHABAN, June 26, 2019 (BSS) – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said at present there is no village in Bangladesh without at least one primary school.
“We’ve constructed 1,495 primary schools in the areas where there was no school in the past. At present, no village is found without primary school in Bangladesh,” she said while responding to a starred question placed by ruling party lawmaker Didarul Alam (Chattogram-4) in the Jatiya Sangsad here.
The prime minister said the Awami League government recruited a total of 1,79,717 assistant teachers in government primary schools across the country in the last 10 years.
The government has created posts for 5,625 teachers, including head teachers, in the newly established 1,125 primary schools, she said, adding that the post of the primary head teachers was upgraded to the second class in 2013, while the salary of assistant teachers was improved two notches.
Currently, Sheikh Hasina said, works continues to bring over 65,000 government primary schools, 3.93 lakh teachers, 2.2 crore students, 508 upazila primary education offices, 66 Primary Teacher’s Training Institutes, 508 upazila resources centres, 68 zila primary education offices and seven divisional primary education offices under digital activities.
Aiming to introduce primary students with digital devices, multimedia classrooms were introduced in 50,417 primary schools by providing 58,915 laptops, 22,175 multimedia projectors and 7,434 sound systems, she said.
The premier said the government has started the school feeding and midday meal progarmme to increase enrollment and attendance of children at primary schools, cut school dropout and meet their nutritional demand.
The government is running school feeding programme in the poverty-prone 82 upazila with its own finance, while 22 upazilas under the World Food Programme (WFP), she said.
Sheikh Hasina said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman nationalised 37,000 primary schools in 1973 for the overall development of the country’s primary education.
But, after assassination of Bangabandhu with most of his family members on August 15, 1975, primary schools were not nationalised for 21 years, she said, adding that assuming in state power in 1996, the Awami League government had taken massive progarmmes to develop the primary education.
The prime minister said when BNP-Jamaat government came to power in 2001, it postponed all the development initiatives the Awami League government took for the development of primary education during its era.
After forming the government for second time in 2009, the Awami League government nationalised 26,370 primary schools following the footsteps of the Father of the Nation, while the jobs of 1.4 lakh teachers of these schools were regularised, she said.
Sheikh Hasina said at present, about 3.44 lakh teachers are working in 65,327 government primary schools in the country.