M M Jasim :
The Education Ministry is in embarrassing situation as it faces countrywide criticism due to serious errors of online admission system in colleges under Higher Secondary courses, Ministry sources said.
Realizing the situation, the Ministry on Saturday held a meeting at Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid’s residence with senior Ministry’s officials to restore the image of the Ministry.
At the meeting the officials were asked to take initiatives to resolve all the problems in the admission process.
The Education Minister will hold a press conference in the Secretariat today (Sunday) to make the situation clear. He will also likely to give a solution in this regard, the meeting sources said.
An official of the Education Ministry, wishing anonymity, told The New Nation that the Minister blamed the Education Secretary for the ongoing situation.
Earlier, the Minister had directed to bring the colleges under online admission system which have 300 seats. But the secretary did not follow the Minister’s direction and applied the system for all the colleges. The Education Minister also asked the high officials, including secretary, to think more to resolve the crisis.
He also advised the officials to work closely with Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) to overcome the crisis. The sources said, the Ministry thinks that it will extend the time of admission process. The Minister is likely to assure the students and guardians that no problem will remain in future.
The sources further said that the Education Minister would ask the college authorities not to take extra fees in admission.
Education Secretary Nazrul Islam Khan said no problem in admission process would exit. He, however, also declined to say anything more. The much-advertised online admission system has carried a number of serious errors. As for example, science students have been given commerce subjects and many boys students have been sent to girls’ colleges. A good number of high-scoring students were not selected for admission in the first merit list. Again, hundreds of students have been selected for admission in such colleges to which they don’t have qualification marks.
The Education Boards published the first merit list for enrolment in colleges on Monday after missing three deadlines because of errors in the computerised data processing system. The failure had pushed the start of admissions to July 2 from June 30.
Following the new admission guidelines, students had named five colleges as preference in the online application and the Education Board made the final selection. This year, 11.57 lakh students applied for admission, and the government uploaded the first lists of over 10.93 lakh students on www.xiclassadmission.gov.bd late Sunday.
The second merit list is set to be announced on July 6, based on the availability of seats at colleges.
