Readers’ Voice

Admission method in public universities needs to be changed
Most of the aspirants of higher education in Bangladesh don’t have opportunity to study in public universities, be it general or technical though they have glorious results in PSC, JSC, SSC and HSC examinations. There are also thousands of examples of mediocre students who got admission in those reputed public universities. Why did it happened? The people concerned think that the one hour MCQ question based admission test, pattern and scope of questions are responsible for such undesired happening. I know a student who consistently stood first in her class from class III to X. She achieved GPA 5 in PSC, JSC, SSC and HSC. She got stipend from the merit group but failed to get admitted in BUET, DU and MIST. In fact, there is a problem in designing and scope in making questions for admission tests.
We know that knowledge is limitless. So the questions should be limited to the HSC syllabus. Besides, evaluation of merit through one hour examinations is not proper as it does not allow the candidates to depict ones knowledge base and merits. The examination time should be at least four hours. More numbers of questions and answering in four hours time provide good scope to show one’s ability. Another limitation of MCQ type questions and choosing answers from given four alternatives. Only choosing one from four given answers may lead to a 25 per cent chance of the being right. In China four hours extensive examination is taken for university admissions. We may follow that.
To have a more rational evaluation system some question needs a complete sentence to answer, a few may need three to four sentences to answer. Some questions should be such that they need a paragraph to answer. The written test for three hour duration may carry 60 marks each for group questions type, that is, a total 180 marks are here: SSC examination result should carry maximum 35 marks and HSC examination result should carry 35 marks maximum. That is, evaluation may be done within a grand total 250 marks. However, those who purchased costly coaching centers secured seats in high quality low cost public universities.
Recent news has drawn my attention. The Senate of University of Dhaka had made a decision that in the coming admission session they would put mark 60 for MCQ questions and 40 marks for written test. The decision needs review further as explained and suggested above.

Md Ashraf Hossain
Middle Bashabo, Dhaka