Syed Atik: The opportunity for only government primary school students to participate in the primary stage of Class V scholarship exam, excluding kindergartens and private educational institutions, is nothing but a big conspiracy and discrimination against innocent and tender children.

Such a stubborn and discriminatory decision will not be accepted in any way. The leaders of private and kindergarten educational institutions have strongly demanded that the primary scholarship exam be canceled immediately and the scholarship exam of Class V be taken with the participation of students from all government and private educational institutions as before.

They made this demand at a press conference organized by the Bangladesh Kindergarten Oikya Parishad at the National Press Club auditorium on Wednesday afternoon. Bangladesh Kindergarten Oikya Parishad Secretary General Md. Rezaul Haque read out a written statement at the press conference presided over by the organization`s chairman Iskandar Ali Howlader. He said that more than 10 million students are studying in more than 50,000 kindergartens in the country. These private institutions are playing a leading role in the expansion of primary education. In this situation, this decision to conduct the scholarship test only for students of government primary schools, excluding a large part of the students of the country, is not reasonable in any way. It is nothing but disappointing and cheating other students. The speakers also said that the authorities should move away from such discriminatory decisions and give everyone the opportunity to take this government scholarship test, otherwise a larger movement will be called for by teachers, students and guardians of all private educational institutions across the country. Among the leaders of various organizations present at the conference were Alhaj Nuruzzaman Kayes, Lion Tajul Islam Nazrul, Abul Kalam Azad, Shariful Islam Akand, Dr. Md. Hasan Ali, Md. Hasanuzzaman Khasru, Md. Ishrafil Hossain and Alhaj Abdul Matin.