Dhaka, June 17 (UNB) – Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said Sunday in Parliament that some 8,000 cases are pending in the High Court for taking action against the MPO-listed schools for their alleged involvement in irregularities while spending the government fund.
 
Taking part in the general discussion on the proposed national budget for the next fiscal (2012-13), Nahid said that time has come to take a tough decision. “We’ve to increase allocation for the MPO-listed educational institutions or find out a way to stop the irregularities.”
 
In this connection, he mentioned that the Education Ministry has found that in one school there is only one student and for that precious student eight teachers are engaged. “This should be stopped,” he said.
 
The Education Minister said that the allocation for his Ministry has been decreased for the next fiscal. In the outgoing 2011-12 fiscal, the allocation for the Education Ministry was 12 percent of the budget or 2.23 percent of the GDP. “But the amount is 11 percent in the proposed budget, which is 2.2 percent of the GDP.”
 
Mentioning that the allocation is small compared to the need, he said it is the standard of the world to allocate 6 percent of the GDP for the education sector. Some countries of the African continent allocate more than 6 percent of the GDP.
 
Nahid said that considering the budget constrains, he thinks that the use of the money has to be strict and more result oriented. “We’ve to derive the result of two taka from investing one taka.”
 
He also described in detail the achievements of the government in the last three and half years.