Lottery-based school admissions to be reviewed before 2027 session: Milon

Education Minister ANM Ahsanul Haque Milon today said the government would review the existing lottery system for school admissions and gather public opinion before deciding on the policy for the January 2027 academic session.

The minister made the remarks in parliament on the second day of the first session of the Jatiya Sangsad following a question from Cumilla-4 lawmaker Hasnat Abdullah.

During the discussion, Hasnat raised concerns about the impact of replacing the merit-based admission process with a lottery system.

He argued that the shift had contributed to a decline in the quality of feeder institutions and ultimately hindered the progression of capable students to universities.

The MP asked whether the government had any plan to return to merit-based admissions in schools.

Responding to the question, Milon said he personally did not consider the lottery system to be a logical approach, adding that it had been introduced by the previous government to address admission complexities in densely populated urban centres such as Dhaka.

He explained that intense competition for seats in city schools had created difficulties that the lottery mechanism was intended to ease.

The minister noted that the situation in rural areas was different, as admission there tends to be far less competitive. As a result, problems associated with school entry are generally less significant outside major urban centres.

Meanwhile, while responding to a question from lawmaker SM Jahangir Hossain (Dhaka-18), Milon said the government has undertaken several projects to improve primary and mass education across Bangladesh, reports UNB.

The projects include the Fourth Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP-4), running from July 2018 to June 2026, and the Demand-Based Government Primary School Development Project (First Phase), which spans July 2016 to 2026.

He also mentioned a project for establishing and upgrading government primary schools, along with beautification initiatives in Dhaka Metropolitan Area and Purbachal, being implemented from January 2020 to June 2027.

Another initiative, titled “Pre-primary and Primary Education Development Project in Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban districts and Bhasan Char in Noakhali,” is being carried out from July 2024 to June 2027.

In addition, a school feeding programme in government primary schools across 150 upazilas is underway from January 2025 to December 2027, the minister added.

Milon further said the Bureau of Non-Formal Education is implementing a “Functional Literacy and Practical Skills Training (Pre-vocational Level)” course in 58 districts.

He also informed the House that an initiative titled “Alternative Learning Opportunity for Out-of-School Children (ALO)” will be implemented in one upazila in each of the country’s 64 districts. The project, approved at an ECNEC meeting on January 25, 2026, will run from January 2026 to December 2028.