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Published : 21 Nov 2025, 10:14 AM
A total of 4,045 government and private schools in the country will admit new students through a central lottery in the new academic year.
This time, 686 government secondary schools across the country and 3,359 private schools in metropolitan and district Upazila Sadar areas are going to participate in the centralised admission process.
More than 1.188 million seats are available at these educational institutions for the new academic year.
Students from Class I to IX can submit applications for government schools and private schools in metropolitan as well as district and Upazila Sadar areas from Friday.
However, not all private schools in these areas have finalised their participation in the central lottery.
As over the past few years, a central process has been set up for admission of students to these schools through a digital lottery.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Admission Committee is organising the central lottery process under the supervision of the Ministry of Education and the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, with state-owned mobile operator Teletalk providing overall support as well.
120,000 SEATS IN GOVT SCHOOLS, 1.07 MILLION IN PRIVATE
Yunus Faruki, member secretary of the admission committee and deputy director of the department, said that 120,258 seats are available at 686 government schools, and 1,067,811 seats at 3,359 private schools for admission to students from Class I to IX through the central lottery.
Stating that students can apply for admission from 11am on Friday to 5pm on Dec 5, he said, “All preparations have already been made to accept applications for admission through the online lottery.”
The head teachers at private and public schools gave information to the education authorities on the free seats at their schools from Nov 12 to Nov 19.
Applications can be submitted through the website https://gsa.teletalk.com.bd until 5pm on Dec 5. The online application fee was previously Tk 100, but this year it has been reduced to 10.
Dec 14 is the potential date for the lottery, with admissions being resolved between Dec 17-21.
There will be two waiting lists this year as well. The admission committee says that students will be admitted from the first waiting list from Dec 22-24 and from the second waiting list from Dec 27-30.
Students will have to apply separately for school applications. They can select five schools of their preference in the online application. For schools that have two shifts, selections of both shifts will count as two of the preferred schools.
In this year’s admission policy of government and private schools, the Ministry of Education has said that there will be 55 students in each class section of these schools. The admission policy has also instructed schools to follow the “National Education Policy 2010” in determining the age for admission to class I.
According to the policy, if a student is at least five years old and maximum seven years old on the first day of the academic year, they can apply for admission to class I. However, a certified copy of their online birth certificate must be submitted to determine the age. However, students with special needs also get a benefit that allows them to apply for an additional period up to five more years.
The Ministry of Education has said that 40 percent of the total vacant seats in schools in Dhaka Metropolitan City will be reserved for students from the adjacent “catchment areas”. However, this decision will not be applicable to government and private schools outside Dhaka Metropolitan City.
According to the policy, 5 percent of the seats in government and private schools will be reserved for the admission of children of freedom fighters and martyred freedom fighters. However, if no candidates are found, other students can be admitted to these seats. Two percent of the seats in both types of schools will be reserved for students with special needs.
The policy also reserves 1 percent of the seats in nearby private schools for admission to students staying in Lillah boarding schools.
The admission policy also reserves 10 percent of class VI seats in government schools for students who passed class V from government primary schools.
Children of officials and employees of the education ministry get reservations for 0.5 percent of the seats in government and private schools, while another 0.5 percent is reserved for the children of officials and employees of subordinate departments and agencies.
If an applying student has a twin brother, sister or sibling already studying at a government or private school, then seats will be reserved for the applicant to get admission to that same school. Two percent of seats will be reserved for the twin brother or sister of students already at schools and 3 percent of seats will be reserved for the siblings of students already at the same school.
Additional seats will also be reserved at government and private schools for the eligible children of working teachers and employees. Daughters of teachers and employees of boys' schools will get this benefit in case of admission in nearby girls' or co-educational schools and sons of teachers and employees working in girls' schools will get this benefit in case of admission to nearby boys' or co-educational schools.
