Nahid questions DU admission system
Amid an uproar over shocking results of a Dhaka University entry test, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid yesterday put the blame squarely on the test method.
Terming the admission test "faulty" and "unacceptable", he said the university authorities intentionally set harder questions so that only a few students could get through.
"Questions were so difficult that only two students passed the test [for enrolment in English department]. This was done deliberately. Has the quality of education suddenly plummeted so much that only two out of 11 lakh students passed the test?" he told reporters at his secretariat office.
Nahid said such tests would ruin the students' future, make them feel depressed and destroy the country's "acceptability" abroad. "The destructive [entry test] system they [the DU] has adopted cannot be acceptable."
His comments came hot on the heels of widespread criticisms after only two students qualified to be enrolled in the university's English department for the 2014-15 session.
DU Vice Chancellor Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique, however, disagreed with the minister saying, "The admission system is completely transparent".
He also said the minister could give proof, if any, to back his claim that the admission test was faulty.
This year, 40,565 students took the 'Kha' unit test, seeking admission to the departments under arts and social sciences faculties. Of them, 1,364 took Elective English, a section mandatory for candidates aspiring to enrol in the English department, but only two crossed the hurdle.
Commenting on the incident, the minister said there is no need for entrance exams. Students achieve a certain level of competence after completing the SSC and the HSC exams and, therefore, they can be admitted to universities on the basis of their results, he argued.
Admission tests help coaching centres make money. The size of this business is worth Tk 32,000 crore, he said, adding that aspirants also know which coaching centres can get them admitted to universities through the back door.
Shockingly, 22,000 of the 'Kha' unit candidates failed in General English, raising questions over the quality of education they received in the preceding stages.
Though Nahid insisted that the quality of education improved over the years, the trend of DU admission test results shows a dismal picture.
According to DU sources, around 80 percent candidates on an average failed to get pass mark (48 out of 120) in the entry tests in the last four years. Interestingly, both the pass rates and the numbers of GPA-5 achievers kept increasing over the years.
This year, 84 percent of 1,66,914 applicants failed to secure pass mark in the admission tests of 'Ka', 'Kha' and 'Ga' units. The failure rate was 83 percent in 2012-13 and 81 percent in 2011-12.
The results also show that most of the students failed in Bangla and General English sections in 'Ga', 'Gha' and 'Kha' unit tests.
Educationists believe due to flawed curriculums, students here fail to achieve competence even after completing a certain level of education.
"Our teaching system does not encourage creativity of students. Rather, it emphasises learning by rote and this is one of the reasons behind this sad state of affairs," said Prof Syed Manzoorul Islam of DU.
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