15 community schools closed within 25 years in Bhuapur

Bhuapur (Tangail) Correspondent :
At least 15 community schools have been closed in 25 years at Bashail upazila in Tangail .
 Locals alleged that since the activities in these schools are closed, the abandoned school buildings are being used by local people especially miscreants as club room and also for cattle sheds. Not only that gambling and various anti-social activities are going on in these school buildingsbald-headed.
According to Upazila Education Office, these schools were built in the fiscal year 1995-96 and at that time there was a provision to appoint locals qualified as teachers while starting the school as per the government rules. Appointments are also made accordingly but at that time qualified teachers were not found as the schools were located in the remote areas of the upazila. Those who were appointed coming from other districts left teaching and switched to other professions as the salary was comparatively low. Since then these schools have been converted into abandoned buildings.
The government took the initiative to establish these community schools two decades ago to trigger up primary education in areas where there are no public or private schools. For this purpose, the concerned authorities established 36 schools in different places of the upazila. Of these, 21 schools have enlisted with government facilitiesin various stages, but the remaining 15 schools have not seen the light of any government facilities at all. As they are closed, they cannot play any effective role in the development of education of the locality.
In this regard, Vijay Kanti Chowdhury, the landowner of the school in Palpara of Basail Sadar Upazila said that he has given the land with hope that if there is a school in our village,our children can study. But now these schools have no use. If they are open then our boys and girls can study. They no longer have to go to distant schools anymore.
Sadananda Paul, Basail Upazila Primary Education Officer said in this regard, I have already inquired about those 15 community schools and talked about with the concerned higher authorities in this issue. Right now there is no decision of the government to launch these schools. In future if I get any further instructions regarding this matter then I will work accordingly.
Confirming the issue Kazi Alid Islam, Chairman of Basail Upazila Parishad said that time 15 community schools could not be enlisted with government facilities because education programmes in those schools were not conducted properly. However, we have again taken the initiative to reopen 7 schools out of 15 and names of those 7 schools have already been sent to the ministry. Hope it will accomplish very soon.