It may seem unbelievable; one can get promoted to the upper class even though he failed to pass in five courses out of eight. It just happened at the National University of Bangladesh when the unsuccessful students of first year degree class were promoted to second year just because they barricaded roads in some parts of the country, including Dhaka. Once more it has been proved that any thing impossible can become possible in Bangladesh provided one knows the options. These students failed to secure 40 percent marks in each course and their total number were one hundred thousand, a staggering 46 percent of those appearing in the first year final examination.

The agitating students said that all this happened because of the university switching to grading system for their promotion and fixing 40 percent as the pass mark without informing them in advance. The university authorities denied the allegation and said that the students were appraised well in advance about the introduction of the new grading system and the bottom line of promoting them to the next class. Now all these students who should have continued their studies in the first year will be with their compatriots in the second year who managed to satisfy the needs of the university. Surprisingly, authorities have the excuse of such a preposterous act of promoting en-masse all the failed students. One said that this is done for the benefit of the students and the parents, failing to elaborate how this might happen. One said that this will hopefully put pressure on students to attend harder and get back to class. One was even more generous saying that they did not want the agitating students to jeopardise the normal activities of the common people in the holy month of Ramadan. One went a bit further and said the university had nothing to with the results. All these incidents took me to my university days back in 1972.

Before the Liberation War broke out the students of Dhaka University were in the midst of their final exams. In those days Honours exams would be held at the end of the third year and final year. When the war broke out in most of the departments the honours exams were either over or one or two papers were left to be completed in some departments. In the science faculty most departments were yet to hold their practical exams. Chittagong University was to begin its exams. After the war was over a handful of students at Dhaka University raised the demand that they would not sit for any more exam and all exams taken earlier should be cancelled and they should be given auto-promotion (automatic promotion) to the final year classes. Those in the science department said they will not sit for any practical examinations and results should be declared on the basis of the exams held before March 26th.

However the bulk of the students demanded that the exams should be completed and promotion to the next class should be given only to those who passed their exams. The demands of the students of Chittagong were even more bizarre. They declared that in an independent country the culture of examination should be dispensed with and certificates should be handed over to those attending the university regardless whether he qualifies or not. The two vice-chancellors of these two universities, Prof. Muzaffar Ahmed Chowdhury of Dhaka University and Professor Innas Ali of Chittagong University said those demanding auto-promotion will get them over their dead body. Those agitating for auto-promotion even beat up those demanding the completion of the exams in a normal process and also confined the Vice-chancellors in their offices for hours together. The students of the Chittagong University went a bit further and said that they will sit in their exams but the hours and examinations will be determined by them.

The teachers refused to conduct such farcical ‘examination’ but the examinees compelled the conptroller of examination to give them the question papers and the office had to oblige under duress. But both the vice-chancellors refused to budge from their position. Chittagong University cancelled the examinations and gave the students two options; they can either sit for a normal examination or face viva-voce examination for extended period of time for all courses.

This time the examinees had no option but to accept either of the two. The Dhaka University authorities made the science students take all the practical examinations and declared the results of the Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce based on their six or seven paper examinations taken earlier (out of eight) plus the normal viva-voce and tutorials marks added. The dignity and the image of both the students and the universities were protected by the two Vice-chancellors.

Many, including some in the government usually come down heavily on private universities regularly terming them as degree granting mills. There is no denying the fact that some are really degree granting mills and so far there has been frequent sabre-rattling by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Ministry of Education against these ‘mills’ but nothing worthwhile has ever been done to stop them from their errant behaviour. But it cannot be said that all private universities are in the same category. Some of the private universities have performed quite well and their students have done well in the job market or in the competition for higher education in universities of repute outside Bangladesh.

In these universities a regular student need to take at least three courses in each semester (23-24 weeks, three semesters a year) and has to get a minimum of ‘C’ grade in their final and if their grade point average drops below 2 they are put on probation. If the student is not able to improve in the next semester he or she automatically faces dismissal. Some students even are able to complete ten to twelve courses a year with good grades. In universities operating on a six month semester basis a students needs to take five courses in each semester. This is true both for public and private universities and their grade point average may not fall bellow two.

This will mean that the student will not be promoted to the next semester. The recent action by the National University, promoting students failing in five courses to the next year virtually has turned this university with the largest student population into a degree granting ‘mill.’ The UGC and Ministry of Education will do itself some good if it can fix the rot in the National University before it points its guns at others.

Good education is the backbone of a nation. Those passing from universities, whether public or private, will enter the job market. Some will enter the government bureaucracy. Recently students who did not pass in the BCS examination and demonstrated against the quota system and demanded that they should also be declared promoted saying that they are ‘meritorious’ as any other. The government yielded to their arm twisting tactics. In the revised list about two hundred plus originally passed examinees from the ethnic minority community were dropped causing immense frustration to them and to their families. Instead of disrupting public life to press home their demand that they be retained in the list of successful candidates they simply organised a peaceful human chain. But unfortunately in the recent past all governments seem to listen to the violent voices from the streets and not peaceful and logical arguments or peaceful demonstrations. These students who have been promoted en-masse to higher class in spite of the fact that they did not qualify to be promoted as such because they did not fulfil the requirements laid down by the National University have caused harm to the entire system and set a very bad precedent. The matter did not stop there. Once the National University yielded to their demand they came out with another one. This time they want they minimum grade point average for promotion should also be scrapped. Now it is 1.76, perhaps one of the lowest in the world. If National University continues to yield to such demands they will just be breaking the backbone of the nation into pieces and shooting at its own feet. The generation coming out of this process will simply become non-competitive and all sectors, including its bureaucracy will be full of incompetent bunch of people which become burden for the society. If there are some flaws in the process and procedure of the system, it is the duty of National University to rectify that and not let the entire system decompose and disintegrate. Let sanity prevail.

The writer is a former Vice-chancellor,

University of Chittagong. -