Fight for university admission ahead of students pass HSC

The challenge of getting prepared for admission tests of universities is ahead of the students who just passed HSC and equivalents examinations. Those students will fight for getting admitted into their preferred universities.

A total of 13,57,915 students got passed in HSC, equivalent examinations this year. There’s no shortage of seats for their admission, but not all of them will be able to get chance in their preferred educational institutions due to limited number of seats available in those preferred ones. 92,595 students got GPA 5 this year, and their goal is to get chance in some medical colleges, engineering and public universities. However, as these institutions have only seats around 70,000, many of the GPA 5 holders won’t get chance to be admitted there. So, they have to get admitted into several public and private colleges under national university and Fazil madrasas, public universities under Arabic University.

According to the information of University Grant Commission (UGC), in all the public universities across the country, the total number of seats in the first year is only 57,099. The number of seats in MBBS courses in the medical colleges across the country has been increased by 1,030, which made the total seats 5,380. But, the students aspired to be admitted there have to face very hard competition. Besides, in the national university, the seats in the 1^st year of undergraduate courses are 12,69,948. Furthermore, in the open university, the seats are 1,31,610. So, seats are not the problem, the matter is to get chance in the preferred big institutions.

However, the government hasn’t decided yet in which system the admission tests of the universities will be held. At present, Bangladesh University of Engineering (BUET), Dhaka University, Jahangirnagar University, Rajshahi University and some other universities hold admission tests independently. 22 universities in general and science and technology institutions conduct a cluster entrance test. Agricultural universities take the exam in another way. Apart from this, Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET) and Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology (RUET) conduct another batch of admission tests. And students are admitted to government and private medical colleges across the country through a central admission process.

To reduce the suffering of students in the admission process, the President and Chancellor of the Universities expressed his intention to introduce a single admission process. The Ministry of Education and the University Grants Commission (UGC) said the students will be admitted to higher education institutions across the country through an admission test this year. The UGC had decided to conduct a single entrance examination this year through an ordinance issued by the President. But this process has not progressed much. The hope of university admission test to be held through single entrance examination has been extinguished.

Education Minister Dipu Moni told reporters on the day of the HSC result release on Sunday that discussions were still going on about the single admission process. We are trying to introduce single test. And if I can't then maybe the exam will be conducted this year like a batch exam. Single admission process will be started next year.

(The report was published on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on November 28 and rewritten in English by Lutful Hoque)