According to the new rules, student selection must be carried out and the information submitted to the Directorate of Primary Education using a prescribed format. Any deviation from the rules could result in action against class teachers and head teachers. Rather than using the first term exam as the benchmark, a separate selection test could have been arranged. This year, in many schools, the first term ended before all textbooks were delivered.

The directorate claims that through the 2025 primary scholarship examination, a transparent and well-defined system is being established for assessing and evaluating students’ merit. Is this the system they speak of?

Private educational institutions across upazilas and districts are now organising themselves. Although their protests have so far remained limited to human chains, press releases and press conferences, their voices are gradually getting louder. On 23 July, at a press conference at the National Press Club, the Bangladesh Kindergarten Unity Council stated that more than 50,000 kindergartens across the country would not tolerate this discrimination. Private institutions have been playing a leading role in expanding primary education.

Under these circumstances, the decision to hold the scholarship exam solely for students of government primary schools excluding such a large section of students is entirely unjustifiable.

This country has no shortage of irresponsible individuals who would not hesitate to drag fourth and fifth graders into a movement, putting them on the streets to demand their right to sit for the exam. Therefore, in the interest of both protecting children and ensuring fairness, a resolution must be found. It is simply not right to deprive those institutions that are operating with state approval, following the official curriculum and teaching with government-printed textbooks. Allowing all selected students to sit for the scholarship exam would reduce inequality.

*Gawher Nayeem Wara is a writer and researcher