WITHOUT citing the reason, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid on Thursday told reporters that the government has suspended the order issued on Wednesday. Education Ministry officials said they received negative reaction from the authorities of universities, especially those in the capital, about the decision, as per a report of a local daily.The directive that came out Wednesday night, signed by the Education Ministry senior assistant secretary Fatema Jahan, said the decision was taken as admission seekers spend a huge amount of money and face hassles because of the entry test system. ‘If the admission procedure is completed on the basis of the results of SSC and HSC examinations, it will help expedite the commencement of the academic session and help lessen the troubles faced by parents,’ said the circular.Earlier, the government failed to introduce the cluster admission system for public universities, for the fifth year in a row, as some reputed universities continued to oppose it on grounds of losing a source of income. The Education Ministry in 2010 decided in principle to reduce the number of admission tests by taking one test for a cluster of universities, to cut down on the cost of holding exams, reduce the burden on students, and negate the influence of coaching centres.It is obviously essential to simplify the huge burden that admission tests put on parents and children — physically they have to travel long distances, mentally they remain under tremendous pressure which may be severe enough for some to commit suicide, economically they have to spend separate amounts which add upto a big total — both in terms of test fees and coaching centre preparations.So in principle abolishing admission tests is quite a good idea. However the main drawback remains not in theory but in practice — namely the standard of HSC exams which make it impossible for universities to judge students purely on merit. A student may get GPA-5 yet fail admission tests to a particular university — as happened in the past. Thus it becomes impractical for the universities to rely on HSC exam results as a guideline.Thus the simple solution for removing the hassles to parents and children remain quite simple — improve the standards of the HSC exams and thus make it possible for universities to judge candidates based solely on merit. However, the solution remains quite complicated to operate based on practice — improving the infrastructure of thousands of secondary medium schools remains very difficult to implement — the political willpower to implement it does not exist. Unless that happens, admission tests remain the yardstick by which to judge students in an imperfect world.
