A seat crisis at higher educational institutions looms over the country after 95% of students passed the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and equivalent examinations this year.
A total 1.31 million students passed the exams, including 189,169 who achieved the top score of grade point average (GPA) 5. However, public and private universities in the country have a total capacity of just 1.24 million, said the 2020 annual report of the University Grants Commission (UGC).
According to the UGC and the Ministry of Health, public universities have 47,171 seats for undergraduate students while medical and dental colleges — both public and private — can take in 10,408 students for MBBS.
Private universities across the country can accommodate 185,157 freshmen.
From the above figures, it can be seen that the total number of seats for undergraduate students at universities of the country is barely sufficient for all the GPA 5 achievers, let alone the over one million other students who passed.
Educationists lamented that the number of quality higher educational institutions had not been raised alongside the increasing number of GPA 5 achievers in the country, leading to the seat crisis.
They added that the hopes for higher education of many students lies abroad, considering the shortage of available seats
A total of 161,807 students achieved GPA 5 in 2021, as compared to 47,286 in 2019. The HSC exams were not held in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the significant increase in GPA 5 achievers in 2021 was attributed to the pandemic-induced auto-pass system.
Abdul Malek, father of student Tanjin Binte Khadija who passed the exams, expressed his fears about his daughter's future. “I don't know if she will be able to get admission at her desired institution and subject.”
Brac University Prof Emeritus Manzoor Ahmed feared that there would be problems while selecting students for higher education by taking students’ GPA into consideration.
Academician Prof Nazrul Islam said: “Before the pandemic, rural areas lagged behind urban areas in terms of quality of education. The pandemic closures put the students on more of an even footing, which has had an effect on the exams.”
Proper monitoring is needed to maintain the quality of education.
“It is difficult to raise the number of seats and still maintain quality,” he added.
