A WORKSHOP held in 2013 at the University Grants Commission recommended adopting a unified admission policy for public universities of Bangladesh. The workshop discussed the findings of a study report commissioned by the Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP). The workshop recommended clustered admission tests for general, agricultural and engineering faculties of the public universities. It also recommended that the education boards should consider having unified set of question papers and ensure a unified evaluation system so that Secondary and Higher Secondary results could eventually become the basis for admissions.
Earlier, in 2011, the educationists said that a unified admission test will ease enrolment of the freshmen at all universities in the country. They opined that the unitary action will relieve pressure of the authorities of all universities and exempt future students from the psychologically exhausting admissions race that they have to undergo needlessly every year. A prospective graduate goes in for admission tests of various universities of the country to qualify, thus undergoing serious mental pressure, the experts observed.
Introduction of an unified admission system for the public universities still remains a far cry as the authorities of the highest seats of studies stand in the way of the government’s move taken four years ago. The Education Ministry in 2010 took an initiative to introduce a unified admission test at the public universities aiming to put an end to the hassles of the current intake system. In the same year, the Ministry at a meeting with the Vice-Chancellors of the public universities decided to arrange unified admission tests at the public universities. Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), however, was kept outside the purview of the decision. It was also decided at the meeting that country’s four engineering universities, DUET, RUET, CUET and KUET would intake students through a central admission test.
But later, the syndicate bodies of the public universities opposed the Ministry’s decision thinking that once introduced, an unified admission system would boomerang on them. Ministry sources said the authorities of the universities opposed the decision as an unified admission system if introduced would cut down their earnings from separate intake tests.
Every year, public universities earn a handsome amount of money from admission seekers by arranging separate intake tests, and they do not want to lose it, reported various sources. Besides, the tendency of ‘admission business’ of the party in power’s student wing is now an open secret. They are not ready to lose their business. It is our viewpoint that our public universities administrations should not merely think about getting extra revenue from students, exposing them to tremendous psychological pressure. It is not the way public universities should behave.
