Bangladesh school lottery rescheduled to Dec 17

The lottery is scheduled to be held at the International Mother Language Institute

The date for lottery admission to government and private schools in Bangladesh has been rescheduled.

The Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education has proposed to defer the lottery to Dec 17 at the International Mother Language Institute.

Initially, the lottery was supposed to be held on Dec 12.

Prof Khan Moinuddin Al Mahmud Sohel, director of the department's secondary wing, told bdnews24.com: "The matter of organising the admission lottery on Dec 17 instead of Dec 12 is ongoing."

According to SM Ziaul Haider Henry, assistant director of the secondary branch, a proposal to organise the school admission lottery on Dec 17 at the International Mother Language Institute has been sent to the Ministry of Education.

However, the officials did not want to comment on the reason behind the change in the lottery date.

This year, students across Bangladesh had the opportunity to apply for school admissions online from Nov 12 to Nov 30. In 18 days, a total of 983,539 students, from both government and private institutions applied for admission.

Nearly 635,072 students applied for admission to government schools, while 348,467 applied for private schools.

This time, there are a total of 1,116,389 vacant seats in 5,625 government and private schools.

According to the admission committee, as many as 635,072 people applied for 108,716 seats in 680 government schools. At least 964,850 applicants stated their preference for government schools.

Meanwhile, there are nearly 1,007,673 vacant seats in 4,945 private schools. However, only 348,467 students have applied for admission to them. As such, even after admissions are complete, seats in private schools will remain vacant.