The government has made a fresh move to extend primary education up to class-VIII, six years after missing the original deadline set in the National Education Policy.

During a joint meeting yesterday, the education, and primary and mass education ministries decided that they would work together to make education up to class-VIII compulsory and free of cost.

Officials of the primary and mass education ministry in the meeting said they would start the initiative with 10,000 government primary schools in the next three years.

The Directorate of Primary Education asked all district primary education officers to send the names of such primary schools.

After the meeting, Farid Ahmed, secretary of primary and mass education ministry, told The Daily Star that they talked about coordination between the two ministries regarding the elevation of the elementary education up to class-VIII from class-V.

He said this extension was a recommendation of the National Education Policy-2010.

The National Education Commission-2010 recommended making primary education compulsory up to class-VIII by 2018.

The government in 2013 started the process of the extension on an experimental basis. In May 2016, the education, and primary and mass education ministries took a step to increase the primary education level to class-VIII, but it did not see the light of day due to infrastructure problems at primary schools.

However, Farid said the recommendation could not be fully implemented due to "indecision over some issues".

Currently, 695 government primary schools offer education up to class-VIII.

He said they could start the process with 154 more primary schools right now.

"Now we need to collect information from the field level and then we will move forward," he said getting 10,000 schools up to class-VIII in three years.

It is possible to run the initiative at non-government junior secondary schools that teach students from sixth grade to eighth grade, with a minimum investment, said an education ministry official at the meeting.

There are 2,369 junior secondary schools where 4,15,719 students study and 65,565 government primary schools where 1.20 crore students take lessons.

Secretary Farid said that to take all students under this initiative, it is not necessary to expand primary education up to class-VIII in all government primary schools.

He added that it would be enough to ensure primary education of all students up to class-VIII if they could bring a quarter of the government primary schools up to class-VIII alongside non-government junior secondary schools.

Around 30-35 lakh students complete class-V each year.

Farid said infrastructure and manpower are the two major challenges to implementing the decision of making primary education up to class-VIII but they will try to overcome the challenges.

Education Minister Mohibul Hassan Chowdhoury chaired the meeting that was attended by State Minister for Education Shamsun Nahar, State Minister for Primary and Mass Education Rumana Ali, secretaries, and top officials of the ministries.