The primary and mass education ministry has decided to appoint headmasters in primary schools from assistant teachers and not through direct appointment. “Assistant teachers feel that they would not get any promotion. It seems they have become paralysed. But we have decided to change this condition. We would provide promotion to headmasters from the existing teachers,” the state minister for primary and mass education, Zakir Hossain, said yesterday.

He was speaking at the inauguration of the “Innovation Fair and Showcasing 2019”, organised by the directorate of primary education (DPE), at Primary Teachers Institute in the city.

Hossain also said the monitoring system of primary education was poor and it needed improvement.

“It is quite difficult to monitor a good number of schools by one or two inspectors. This situation needs to be changed and strengthened to expedite the quality of education,” he added.

The secretary of primary and mass education, Akram Al Hossain, said: “The purpose of the innovation fair is to increase the quality of education through new ideas generated by the teachers to provide easy and mass oriented services.”

 “When we hear that a large portion of our students at the primary level cannot read Bangla, it hurts us. We have to improve the situation,” he added.

The DG of DPE, AFM Manjur Kadir, said: “If we want to do any innovation, we need to change our mindset from top to bottom. Only convention work will generate nothing. We have to think out of the box for improving the quality of education.”

 “For doing anything innovative, teachers and headmasters have to listen to the students and guardians. We receive allegations that many headmasters don’t listen to the grievances of the guardians,” he added.

The additional secretary of primary and mass education and chief innovation officer, Badrul Hasan Babul, said, “We have to come with innovative ideas so that it can bring changes in the quality of education.”

He also suggested that admission of students at the primary level can be done online and thereby create a database of all students.

The organisers said they were holding the fair for the second time after 2013. This fair will showcase 15 innovative ideas out of 115. Among others, the showcased ideas include “One Day, One Word”, “Kids Creative Class”, “Utilizing GeoDASH for Ensuring Quality Primary Education”, “Kids Self-Assessment” and “Kids Creative Class”.