How will university admission tests be held this year?

Although this year’s HSC candidates will be evaluated without any final examinations due to coronavirus, the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh (UGC) is in favour of taking cluster-based admission tests for the public universities.

Following the decision of not taking HSC examinations, all of more than 1.3 million students are going to pass this year, raising a question whether such a large number of students will be able to get admission into higher education institutions.

This year's HSC and equivalent examinations were scheduled to be held on 1 April. Due to the coronavirus situation, the government suspended the examinations on 22 March just before the test. After a long impasse, earlier on Monday the government declared that this year's Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and equivalent examinations will not be held. The HSC candidates will be evaluated on the basis of their average results of JSC and SSC and equivalent examinations. As a result, all of 13,65,789 candidates will pass this year.

There are 39 public universities in the country. Of these, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and four autonomous universities (Dhaka University, Jahangirnagar University, Rajshahi University and Chittagong University) will take separate admission tests.

The UGC has planned to conduct admission tests in three clusters for 34 other universities.

Professor Muhammed Alamgir, a member of UGC, told Prothom Alo yesterday (Saturday) that it has so far been decided to take admission tests in three clusters -- one for agricultural universities, another for general and science and technology universities, while other for engineering and technology universities.

According to UGC sources, the vice-chancellors of the universities will have a meeting on 15 October over online education activities.

The sources also said the admission tests in the universities usually start from October, but it will be pushed ahead this year.