Students worried at limited seats, possible complexities

More than 14.31 lakh students and their parents have begun worrying as the admission to the colleges begins tomorrow through submission of applications via online or SMS.

This time, education boards will select one college for each of the admission seekers on the basis of his/her choice of institution and results of SSC examinations.

Like previous years, there will be no admission test, according to the admission guideline to eleventh standard for 2017-18 academic session.

A student can apply up to 10 institutions, of which one would be given to him or her on merit, said the guideline issued yesterday. The students will have the option to migrate to another college subject to vacancies.

The admission seekers and parents are worried over getting admitted to their first choice of institutions due to limited seats. The education ministry officials said there will be no crisis of seats in the colleges across the country.

"I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that I would be able to get enrolled at a college of my preference," said Niloy Ahmed, an admission seeker.

Some 14,31,722 students passed this year's SSC examination under 10 education boards. Of them, 1,04,761 students got GPA-5. The students and their parents fear of any possible complexities in the admission process like the one in 2015 when the government first introduced the online admission to all colleges.

But due to a lack of preparation on the government's part and technical glitches, the entire system turned out to be a nightmare for more than 11 lakh applicants and their parents. The major problem that the students faced was the wrong selection of colleges made by the boards.

However, the officials at Dhaka Education Board said learning lessons from previous years they have completed the process with the technical assistance from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.

According to the guideline, students can apply by logging on to www.xiclassadmission.gov.bd or sending SMS to Teletalk mobile.

After paying an online fee of Tk 150, students can apply for a minimum of five and a maximum of 10 colleges.

The board will issue instructions on how to apply online.

The applicants seeking to apply through sms will have to pay Tk 120, said the guideline.

The boards would publish a list of students in three phases specifying the colleges where they are to be enrolled.

The first list of selections will be published on June 5. Students in the first list will have to confirm selection of their colleges by SMS between June 6 and June 8.

Migration applications and new applications can be submitted on June 9 and June 10. The second list of admissions will be announced on May 13, the third one on May 18.

The admission of students selected in second round of admissions must be confirmed on May 14 and May 15, and their migration applications and new applications must be submitted on June 16 and June 17.

Students in the third list must confirm their college selections by June 19. Classes of the eleventh graders will begin July 1. The government also fixed the admission fees in the admission guideline.

Colleges in rural or municipal areas cannot charge more than Tk 1,000 in admission fees while the amount is Tk 2,000 for colleges at district towns. Colleges in metropolitan areas other than Dhaka cannot bill students more than Tk 3,000.

MPO-enlisted educational institutions in Dhaka metropolitan area can collect a maximum of Tk 5,000. However, partially MPO-enlisted institutions can charge a maximum of Tk 9,000 for Bangla medium and Tk 10,000 for English version, respectively.

No educational institution can realise over Tk 3,000 in the “development” sector, read the guideline.