New provision by IBA breaks hearts

The recent circular advertised on IBA's website has shattered the hopes of many who have been preparing themselves to be admitted in this institution for a long time. The new directive states, “Foreign nationals with a score of 1900 or more in SAT Reasoning Test (with at least 600 in Critical Reading and Math and at least 550 in Writing) may be exempted from the Written Assessment, but must appear in the Communication Test.” While foreign students can get admission through SAT irrespective of age limit, why can't Bangladeshi students do the same? Even world famous universities like

MIT and Harvard allow students to attend examination more than once; then why can't IBA? 

The authority concerned said, “No Candidate is eligible to sit for this year's admission test, if he/she had appeared in any admission test of Dhaka University, including IBA in 2014 or before.” The authorities should have announced this one year ago so that the candidates who had been preparing since last year could search for other options in lieu of wasting one whole year.

One thing to be noted is that a three-month period right after HSC is not sufficient to study for IBA Admission Test as there is hardly any resemblance between the HSC syllabus and the subjects which applicants are tested on. The older directive allowing admission test to be taken more than once was much more realistic.

So here's a request to the authorities of IBA: Please reconsider your new rule and do hopeful students a favour.

Md. Mohin Uddin Mizan

Department of English Language and Literature

University of Chittagong