Fairness and transparency in university admission policy: Are the public universities in Bangladesh making a shift?
An editorial piece

Submitted by Raihan Mahmood Kadery MARIHE-2 Beijing Normal University

Submitted to Prof. Lauren lla Misiazek Faculty of Education Beijing Normal University

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Fairness and transparency in university admission has recently become a burning issue in civil society, higher education community and even parliament in Bangladesh. Public universities in Bangladesh have been highly criticized for admitting students in different social sciences and arts departments who are not motivated enough to continue in those departments and later drop out themselves. Those departments i.e. political science, history, literature, philosophy and so on, which cannot create enough employment opportunity in the labor market of Bangladesh, therefore have to continue their programs with almost half of the empty seats students have dropped out. Admission policies in public universities have therefore been blamed as not to be transparent due to its failure to identify the most potential and motivated students, and not to be fair as well because the better motivated students may not get the admission by competing with those better performed students who take the admission but drop out later. Public universities are currently under pressure from stakeholders to make their admission process more transparent and fair by addressing the above mentioned issues.

One of the major reasons of this dropout is that university admission system is not centralized by either government or University Grant Commission (UGC). Every public university has its own admission system and asks students for its own admission test, and admission tests in different universities are usually held on different days. It has created a trend in Bangladesh that when a student gets admission chance in one university, does not matter in which subject; he/she admits himself/herself to that university and participates in other universities’ admission tests as an attempt to get better subject. Students, who get better subjects in other prestigious public universities, drop out themselves from their earlier admissions and move to the new one.

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Another reason is that all the public universities allow students to participate in admission tests for the second time in the next academic year, if they are not satisfied with their performance in the first time. This policy encourages the students to get admitted into any subject they get in the first time, and later taking preparation throughout the whole year for their desired subjects in the next university admission tests. Once they get the better subjects, they leave the current one; and universities can never fill up the gaps.

The current admission system is furthermore criticised for its creation of inequality in competition. Students, who participate second time in the university admission tests, can prepare themselves throughout the year and then compete with the fresh high school leavers in the test who can take preparation for only 2-3 months; and thus creates inequality in the competition.

As a consecutive action to minimise this dropout and inequality in competition, and making the admission policy more transparent and fair, two of the most prestigious public universities in Bangladesh (University of Dhaka and Jahangirnagar University) have very recently declared that only the fresh high school leavers can attend their university admission tests (Jahangirnagar University, 2014; University of Dhaka, 2014). This decision has been made in order to protect the students leaving their existing study programmes after one academic year, and resolving the inequality in competition among the students in terms of preparation time.

However, this decision may also not be convincing as fair to everyone as it does not allow the students to get into university who could not continue their academic education just after finishing high school and, thus discourages the continuing education and lifelong learning. Moreover, the whole decision making process also lacks transparency as the universities have circulated this decision just one month before their tests which stops many students to participate in the admission tests after taking one year of preparation for the tests.
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Furthermore, students, who did not even register for other universities’ admission tests except these two most prestigious universities, either have to wait one more year to participate in the admission tests of other public universities or go to the private universities. The decision, therefore, encourages establishment of private universities and thus privatization of higher education which is in fact one of the policy priorities of current government of Bangladesh. However, high tuition fees of private universities are hardly affordable for most of the students in Bangladesh considering its socio-economic context. The decision, as a consequence, may destroy higher education career of thousands of students in Bangladesh as Burke (2012) argues the cost of higher education as one of the most significant barriers to university access for the students from poorer economic background.

Rather than taking this quick and immature decision, the universities could concentrate on finding the issues why students are losing their interests and dropping out from several study programs. If the concerns of the students are true that graduating from several study programs will not be valued in the economy and labor market that necessarily demands cognitive and social interaction skills, university authority should then think about the validity of current curriculum and pedagogy of the related study programs considering the concern of Hooks (1994) that “the university was seen more as a haven for those who are smart in book knowledge but who might be otherwise unfit for social interaction” (p.16). Otherwise, the universities’ admission policy reform as an attempt of shifting towards fairness and transparency will remain questioned and may not bring the desired change.

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References
Burke, P. J. (2012). The right to higher education: beyond widening participation. New York: Routledge.

Hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge

Jahangirnagar University. (2014). Admission 2014-2015. [Online] Retrieved from: http://www.juniv.edu/admission

University of Dhaka. (2014). Dhaka University Admission 2014-2015. [Online] Retrieved from: http://dueisc37f2e36037e32042449b5fab0f4935d27c6c167933f0a917c84842d.eis.du.ac .bd/

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What makes an editorial piece unique than other pieces?
An editorial piece seems quite different from other pieces because writer gets the opportunity to directly focus on his/her argument, and thus convinces the audience on writer’s opinion within very short period of time. Arguments made in the editorial piece are so structured that it promotes critical thinking of the readers in the way the writer wants, and sometimes makes people to take action on the focused issues. Editorial piece usually focuses on current social, economic or cultural issues that can easily attract the attention of the readers, which may not be possible for traditional academic articles or other types of pieces. Moreover, it should be written in very thoughtful and professional way as it represents the opinion of the editorial board rather than just personal opinion. Another unique feature which makes a piece an editorial piece is the way of criticism made in the piece. The criticisms made in an editorial piece are constructive, and lead to thoughtful and convincing solutions to the problem. The editorial piece I have written for ‘Reforms in Higher Education’ course is related with a reform issue in higher education. I have been writing different articles and reports throughout my academic career; however this is my first time to write an editorial piece and I found it very much interesting and fruitful because convincing the readers to think the way I think seemed challenging to me.

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