The University Grants Commission (UGC) may soon give decision on how and what way the upcoming university admission tests will be conducted.
In this regard, the commission will hold a meeting today (Saturday) with the Association of Universities of Bangladesh (AUB) and may announce a final decision, sources said.
“On Thursday, UGC held a series of meetings with the vice chancellors of public universities but no decision has been taken regarding the admission procedure. We will sit again on Saturday with them to finalize how to conduct the upcoming admission tests including giving marks in the admission tests,” UGC member Dil Afroza Begum told Bangladesh Post.
She said, “The VCs of the universities gave various proposals including admission of students to the universities on the basis of SSC, HSC, and equivalent examination results. They also discussed about online admission test or even not holding any admission examinations at the meeting. But, they did not come to an agreement on any of the proposals.” “Considering all the things, the UGC will sit again with the public university VCs to take a final decision on Saturday,” she added.
Earlier, on March, the UGC decided to use a cluster system admission test for the 2020-2021 academic year.
However, the five public universities including Dhaka University, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), University of Chittagong, Jahangirnagar University, and Rajshahi University refused to accept the proposed procedure.
“All public universities agreed to take admission tests under the cluster system except some universities. But we expect that the rest of the universities will agree to participate in a standardized test,” AUB President Prof Md Rafiqul Alam said.
About the meeting, UGC Member Sazzad Hossain told Bangladesh Post, “We have told the VCs to accelerate the ongoing online education activities to involve more students in the public universities in the curriculum.”
“The commission will continue to provide free smartphones and free internet bandwidth to the public university students,” he added.
“In the virtual meeting, no VCs of the universities have agreed to re-open the universities now,” he said, adding, “They gave examples of foreign universities where coronavirus transmission had intensified after the opening of universities.”
According to public university vice-chancellors, opening of student’s residence hall would be a suicidal decision.
UGC chairman Dr Kazi Shahidullah presided over the virtual meeting.
Among others, UGC Member Md Sajjad Hossain, UGC member Professor Md Alamgir, UGC Director of the Department of Public University Management Kamal Hossain, and vice-chancellors of 46 public universities were present at the virtual meeting.