Solve cluster admission crisis soon: UGC

Bangladesh University Grants Commission (UGC) on Wednesday stressed the need for a quick solution to the ongoing crisis over the cluster-based admission tests of 22 general and science & technology (GST) public universities.

The call came from a daylong workshop held at the UGC office to face the challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

The Innovation Wing of UGC arranged the workshop titled "Knowledge Dominates the Period of 4IR and IoT Business Applications," said a press release.

"An unexpected crisis regarding the cluster admission test has created. The authorities of the 22 universities will have to find an effective solution to this crisis," said UGC member Prof Muhammad Alamgir while addressing the event as the chief guest.

He said the ongoing crisis can be solved if the admission process includes student-friendly aspects and the proper use of modern technology.

Dr Alamgir requested the committee concerned to take appropriate steps to complete the entire admission process smoothly soon so that the students do not suffer any untoward suffering.

He suggested the vice-chancellors of the universities for making efforts to ensure that a good system like such admission test won't face question.

Talking about the 4th industrial revolution, the UGC member urged the university teachers to produce graduates suitable for the 4th industrial revolution as now it is the time for frontier technology.

He said the officers and employees of higher education institutes should be trained to be adapted to the technology. "In the 4IR era, skilled people will replace unskilled people and there will be a massive change in the type of jobs," said Dr Alamgir.

Director of the IMCT Department of the Commission Mohammad Maksudur Rahman Bhuiyan presided over the workshop, while Dean of Science and Engineering School of Canadian University of Bangladesh Prof Syed Akhtar Hossain was the resource person in the event.

The admission seekers fell into a trouble as the authorities have stopped the migration process from the sixth merit list of the cluster-based test.

Since the migration process continued till the fifth merit list, the students who got chances in more than one university now have fallen into troubles to migrate to upper tier universities even though the seats are vacant.

The High Court has recently issued a rule upon the authorities concerned to explain within 10 days as to why the decision of stopping migration process should not be declared illegal.