No Admission Test in Medical Colleges This Year

There will be no admission tests for public and private medical colleges this year as students will be enrolled on the basis of their SSC and HSC results.

This was decided at a meeting at the health ministry yesterday with Health and Family Welfare Minister AFM Ruhal Haque in the chair.

The meeting decided that the candidates must have at least a combined GPA of 8 in Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) to apply for admission, said an official who attended the meeting.

The official, however, said the authorities were yet to decide on the minimum individual GPA required in SSC and HSC or outline the technical details of how to fill up the limited seats with students from amongst thousands of top-graders applying for admission to medical colleges.

"For foreign students, their GPA-7 will be equivalent to our GPA-8," the official added.

Sources in the ministry said the decision was made to prevent irregularities centering around admission tests. Besides, holding the admission tests is a huge task, and the risk of question papers leaking out always remains, they added.

Earlier, students were enrolled in the medical colleges through admission tests. The government last year took a combined medical and dental admission test for both public and private medical colleges.

Health Secretary Humayun Kabir, senior officers of the ministry, representatives of Bangladesh Medical Association and representatives of private medical colleges were present at the meeting.

There are 22 government medical colleges that can accommodate around 2,811 students while 53 private medical colleges have 4,245 seats. Last year, around 40,000 candidates applied for admission.

There will be no admission test in government and private medical colleges this year as the authorities are going to enroll students based on their SSC and HSC results.

The candidates, who have combined GPA of 8 in Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC), can apply for the admission, Bangla daily Prothom Alo reports.

Health and family welfare ministry took the decision at a meeting on Sunday.