Admission seekers struggling for accommodation

We are concerned about the prospect of an acute accommodation crisis facing admission seekers at the Rajshahi University (RU). Every year, during RU's admission tests, students from different parts of the country find refuge in the university's halls. These dormitories usually house around 50 percent of admission seekers, particularly those from non-affluent families or coming from faraway places. This year, however, admission seekers are already facing difficulties in finding accommodation, as the university authorities have decided to keep their campus halls shut due to the pandemic.

Other than accommodating students in rooms, the university authorities generally allow admission seekers to stay in auditoriums, mosques, dining rooms, and sometimes other open spaces, including verandas of the halls. Students also stay in the Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology, Rajshahi Medical College and other educational institutions, which are all closed this time around. As a result, private dorms are already almost fully occupied, as well as the city's residential hotels. Students have also alleged that some hotels have been taking advantage of the crisis and charging exorbitant fees for rooms.

Although the current crisis is largely a product of the pandemic, we believe that it is, in fact, part of a bigger problem. The fact that students have had to travel long distances just to sit for each university's separate admission exam has taken a huge toll on students and their guardians over the years—in terms of time, energy and financial cost. The university authorities should have taken some steps to reduce such stress from admission seekers. The UGC, one may recall, had proposed that universities should follow a cluster admission test system—something that the RU authorities, along with other major public university authorities, didn't agree with—which could have potentially eased students' sufferings. Aside from that, the RU authorities could have arranged for alternative exam locations so that students didn't have to travel far to sit for their admission exam; for example, Dhaka University has done for its admission seekers from Rajshahi.

The fact that the RU authorities have been caught off-guard by the situation is proof of the current state of mismanagement and poor planning on the part of public university administrations. RU authorities should have pre-empted these problems and formulated some strategies that would have allowed students to sit for their exams without going into so much trouble. Having to worry about accommodation and other related health and safety issues in the middle of a pandemic is not something that students should have been put through. Therefore, even though the admission exams are only days away, we call on the RU authorities to urgently find some alternatives that can ease the suffering of admission seekers.