Manipulation of scripts alleged

DU Correspondent :
Just before two days of announcement of results of the National University’s admission tests for the 2013-14 session, allegation of manipulation of answer scripts has surfaced.
A member of the admission committee said an official of the University’s Computer Department had made considerable changes in the answer sheets attached to the question papers making a difference of at least 30 marks.
As a result, the member of the admission committee apprehended that many undeserving candidates would unduly get admission to the university.
The member of the admission committee also who spoke on condition of anonymity alleged that the official concerned had been trying to convince the University administration in this regard.
He said, “In some answer scripts the differences were 30 to 40 marks. The manipulation was most evident in case of English. Those who might have scored as little as four marks were later found to have secured 20 marks.”
He said that preparations have already been made to announce the results of the National University’s admission tests today (Monday).
 “Generally information of the aspiring students are stored in two parts in the computer. However, this year the manipulation was done after the admission tests, with the connivance of the Computer Department, whereby many undeserving candidates will get admission,” he said.
He said, “There are two segments on the OMR Sheet of the admission tests. One is answer script
segment while the other contains information pertaining to the examinees. On the answer script segment, there is no scope for any revision.”
He, however, stated that revision could be made if any examinee commits any mistake in writing his information.
He alleged, “This year many discrepancies were noticed, when the two segments were scanned at the University’s Computer Department.”
He informed that to avert malpractices in admission tests, for last several years information were collected through outsourcing.
 “This year BUET’s Institute of Information and Computer Technology (IICT) was given the responsibilities. After discharging its responsibilities, it prepared a CD. After that information of the Computer Department of the Gazipur National University were surveyed and at that time the anomalies occurred.”
The admission tests were held in three Departments-Science, Humanities and Commerce. Chemistry and Physics are compulsory subjects for the students of Science stream, while they can opt for anyone from Biology and Maths.
For Humanities, English, Bengali and General Knowledge are compulsory subjects while a candidate needs to take examination in any of the four out of the 12 Humanities subjects. On the other hand, students of Commerce need to take examinations in all the Commerce subjects.
As per the National University’s data, 426000 forms were collected online this year, of which 414000 took part the admission tests.
The admission committee said that changes were made in around 1500 answer scripts. And for this he held Director of the Computer Department of the National University Mominul Islam responsible.
 “Along with Mominul, some student leaders are also involved in this. This racket is very influential. It had allegedly tried to convince the University administration about the discrepancies,” he said.
 “When we took up the matter with the Vice-Chancellor and the Pro-Vice Chancellor, they got angry with us for seeing the raw data.”
Associate Professor of the BUET’s IICT Shah Alam said, “It will not be appropriate for us to comment on this since it is a matter of the National University.”
When head of the Computer Department of the University Mominul Islam could not be reached for this comment while Vice-Chancellor Professor Harun-or-Rashid did not receive call.