<i>Where schools shut, exams shifted for Eid cattle market</i>

25 November 2009, 17:00 PM

Rafiqul Islam, from Pirojpur

Arrangement of regular cattle market on the common ground of two schools in Shutiakati union of Swarupkathi upazila under Pirojpur district has become a nuisance for teachers, students and guardians. This time the two schools -- Shutiakati Union High School and Shutiakati Government Primary School -- were closed, the class five public examinations centre was shifted and early examinations of other classes were taken to facilitate a special cattle market for the Eid-ul-Azha. The high school was established on the bank of Sugandha River in 1909 and the primary school after the independence of Bangladesh, locals said. Several decades ago, a regular twice a week cattle market started on the high school ground. The market, arranged every Sunday and Thursday, causes suspension of classes after first half of the two days, students said. "Many people in the area are about to forget the actual name of the school. Sometimes people jeered at us saying that we studied in a 'gorur hat' [cattle market]," Al-Imran, an ex-student of the school, told this correspondent. "Men employed by the market authorities remove excreta of the cattle but the remains does us a lot of trouble," said Nur Hossain, a student of Class-VII. "Vested quarters always bar shifting of the cattle market, whenever attempted," said Mohammad Ali, a local youth. Nasrin Jahan, headmaster of Shutiakati Government Primary School, said the cattle market has led to suspending closing the school and shifting the centre for public examination of class five to adjoining Shutiakati Pilot Girls High School. "The upazila education office and the committee concerned may shift the venue of public examination centre, but the District Primary Education Office should be informed of it. It was not done," District Primary Education Officer Parvin Jahan said. Enayet Hossian, president of Shutiakati Union High School managing committee, and Md Abdus Salam, headmaster of the school, said the administration had been assuring them of shifting the market for long but to no effect. Gaus Talukder, president of Shutiakati union unit of Awami League (AL) and a member of the cattle market advisory committee, said the 55-member advisory committee for managing the cattle market has been formed by the local AL lawmaker and they had no problem in shifting the market to another place if the administration arranges it. "Arranging the Eid cattle market on the school ground is illegal as the deputy commissioner's office did not permit it," said Swarupkati Upazila Nirbahi Officer Nuruzzaman.