The education ministry has asked the authorities of the Rajshahi and Chittagong education boards to dissolve the management committee of 151 schools who have not returned the additional fees realised from students for taking the Secondary School Certificate examinations in 2015.
Education ministry joint secretary AKM Zakir Hossain Bhuiyan said the ministry had ordered the boards to dissolve the management committees or governing bodies of schools who had neither returned the additional fees nor informed the authorities concerned about the issue.
Education ministry officials said they on Wednesday ordered the chairman of the Rajshahi board to dissolve the committees of 148 schools and the chairman of Chittagong board to dissolve three committees who had failed to give a satisfactory response to the ‘show cause’ notices served to them on February 25 this year.
The ministry asked board chairmen to dissolve the committees in three days and inform the ministry, through separate orders issued on Wednesday.
The ministry issued ‘show cause’ notices to 1,209 schools who had not returned additional fees realised from students for taking the SSC examinations in 2015.
Education minister Nurul Islam Nahid on February 28 said that 3,038 schools had realised extra fees from SSC examinees in 2015 and the ministry on February 25 issued show cause notices to 1,209 schools.
On that day he said action would be taken in line with a High Court order relating to schools who fail to give a satisfactory reply to the notices in 30 days.
The Rajshahi board has the highest 1,311 institutions who charged higher exam fees, of which only 95 paid back the money. Some 896 institutions of Rajshahi board who did not return the money and did not communicate with the board over the matter, were handed the show causes notices, according to the ministry.
One hundred and forty eight schools out of the 896 did not respond to the show cause notices, officials said.
All but schools under the Dhaka education board had provided satisfactory answers to the show cause notices, said an official.
The ministry is yet to receive a report from the Dhaka education board regarding the response to show cause notices by 296 institutions under the board who did not refunded money.
We will get the report very soon, said Zakir Hossain, adding that necessary action will follow if the schools had failed to give satisfactory answers.
Nahid said that the High Court had asked the government to dissolve management committees or governing bodies of the schools who did not return the extra fees to the students.
The High Court in the last week of November 2015 asked the government to take appropriate action against the management committees of schools that realised extra fees from SSC candidates.
The court asked the government to force the schools in Dhaka to refund extra fees realised from SSC candidates.
