Transparency in Cadet College Admission Test

Transparency in Cadet College Admission Test
Now is the season of collecting and submitting cadet college admission forms leaving and making the guardians curious enough to learn the ins and outs of admission procedure. This write-up may satisfy some of their principal queries. Every year fresher are taken in class seven in all the twelve cadet colleges which have the capacity to accommodate six hundred cadets. Applications are invited through advertisement in the national Bengali and English dailies. Every year application forms are distributed usually in November and December and admission test is held in the month of January. Admission seekers of 2010 will have to sit for the admission test on 22 January, 2010. Examination will be held in English for 80 marks, Mathematics 60, Bengali 40 and General knowledge 20. It means they will have to sit for tests for 200 marks. It is obvious that more emphasis has been put on English keeping pace with the changing situation of the globe. It is also because the medium of instruction in cadet colleges is English. Candidates are selected through written, viva voce and medical tests. Each candidate will have to undergo this series of testing procedure to prove him/her worthy of being a cadet. Finally selected candidates need to submit relevant papers and documents as required by the college.
Several changes have been brought to collect admission forms, subliming them, appearing in the test, distribution of marks, choosing test venue and colleges which were long overdue. During my stay at Cadet College I tried to bring these things into the notice of the higher authorities through direct proposal, written proposal and producing articles in dailies. Though immediate response was very thin or poor, now changes have been made in the required places. The authorities deserve thanks for it. Admission test questions are prepared following the syllabus and curriculum of class six or its equivalent. The questions for the admission test will be set both in Bangla and English. Candidates can answer either in Bangla or in English. But they have to indicate their choice at the time of submitting the application form. The applicant must be a Bangladeshi national. He/she must be between 12 and 14years of age on 1st January of the year he/she is going to apply and have passed class six. A candidate can sit for the cadet college admission test once. If anyone appearing for the second time, he/she will be withdrawn with full compensation when detected and legal actions may be taken if occasion demands.
Cadet College authorities are judicious enough to lessen the burden of intended guardians. They are conscious enough to really test the originality of the candidates. This is why they have brought changes in the required places. The prospectus and syllabus of intake and the admit cards are given instantly when the candidates /guardians take the form to avoid the unnecessary harassment and tension to get the admit card either through postal order or courier service. Cadet coaching centers enjoy a thriving business at the cost of poor or middle class guardians’ worrying about their children’s admission. Again, they cram the young brains of the candidates with much unnecessary information. To avoid this bizarre thing, the full syllabuses are given to the candidates to have a guideline on which areas they will be tested. All the questions will be from NCTB textbooks. No bizarre or abnormal things will be in the test. So, the candidates and guardians should be conscious enough not to depend on coaching centres. If they remain sincere and regular in their classes and a little bit more care is taken at home, it’s enough to sit for cadet college admission test and qualify. Admission question will seek mainly the creativity of the students; no memorization will be tested which the coaching centers emphasize. If they enter into the college by means of so-called magic power of the coaching centers, it becomes detected through various internal screening processes. So, young candidates should try to exercise the basic things, not abnormal or bizarre things as the coaching centers suggest.
Candidates can collect form from any places mentioned in the advertisement and sit for the examination from any places he/she mentions in the form. Again, a quite new thing has been introduced which I must mention here in the greater interest of all stakeholders. It was a common practice that a candidate had to choose one college. If he/she failed to prove his/her worth for that college, his/her dream to read in a cadet college was shattered completely. Now each candidate has two choices besides a third option in case he/she fails to qualify for his/her two chosen colleges. Third option gives him/her the scope to read any cadet college if the authority finds it possible. This is quite a good thing. Again, there is a waiting list and the vacant seats are filled up from the list. This practice was unknown in the previous time. I witnessed that one year about fifty percent cadets were out from Comilla Cadet college because of identifying their seating for the test for the second time and those seats remained vacant throughout the whole six years. It was a great wastage for our poor country. Now the system proves quite reasonable.
As test items will be selected and set from English for today grade six, candidates need no worry unnecessarily. All the traditional grammars such as sentence, subject and predicate, parts of speech, gender, number, tenses, verbal, (infinitives, participle, gerund)Auxiliaries and Modals), synonyms, homophone, transformation of sentences, question tag, phrases and phrases and idioms, re-arrange the jumbled words to make sentences, correct form of verbs, spelling, translation will be set in the admission test. Paragraph, story writing from given outlines, comprehension will be given to see their capacity of creative writing Bengali all prose and poems of NCTB book. Bengal grammar will also be as of class six standard and they items mentioned in the syllabus. General knowledge will be mainly from NCTB approved social science, general science, history, geography, literature, science and technology. Only current sporting events will be as question items. A group of highly qualified and expertise team prepares admission test questions marinating all possible sorts of secrecy.
To prevent the least possibility of manipulation in one of the important tiers of admission procedure i.e. viva-voce , the board chairmen( the principal of a cadet college, members – senior English teacher, adjutant and medial officer) is kept in the dark about which board he is going to chair. He does not know even one hour before the viva-voce begins in which board he will be the head. If anybody wants to influence the board chairman, it becomes awfully difficult because in that case one is to convince all the 12 chairmen. Virtually it is not possible. Thus utmost transparency is maintained in the whole admission process.
Md. Masum Billah
Senior Manager: BRAC Education Programme, PACE
Cell: 01714-091431
Email: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com