Education Minister ANM Ehsanul Hoque Milon has said around 1.5 million seats are available across public and private universities in Bangladesh, while the estimated number of students seeking admission to higher education this year is around 600,000.

“Students aspiring to get into Dhaka University, medical colleges, Buet or other reputed universities have nothing to worry about. They can move forward with their admission plans, as I want to address the session backlog,” he said.

The minister made the remarks on Saturday (14 November) at an event marking the 42nd annual conference of the Bangladesh Chemical Society at the Nabab Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Bhaban of Dhaka University.

He said students who might be referred to other institutions by Dhaka University, Buet or medical colleges would not need to wait, as many seats remained vacant at other universities where they could secure admission.

Milon acknowledged that this year’s examination results had been unsatisfactory, with a pass rate of 52%. He said universities could proceed with their admission tests as soon as possible while the authorities awaited the results of answer script re-evaluation.

According to the minister, the re-evaluation process began on 7 November and is scheduled to conclude on 23 November, when the revised results are expected to be published.

He said Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor had decided to accept admission applications until 25 November. The minister said he would request the university to extend the deadline by a few days so that students whose results improve after re-evaluation could also apply for admission.

Recalling his tenure as education minister from 2001 to 2006, Milon said he had encountered irregularities in examination paper evaluation, including instances of answer scripts being replaced and inconsistencies in marking. However, he said the then-existing 1980 law did not authorise the authorities to re-evaluate examination scripts, limiting their ability to take action.

He said Parliament had amended the 1980 law and passed a new law in 2026, granting the authorities the power to re-evaluate examination scripts.

Referring to this year’s SSC results, the minister said the re-evaluation process had already changed the grades of around 45,000 students. Of them, approximately 5,000 students who had initially failed subsequently passed, while 3,079 students saw improvements in their GPA.

“I am now waiting for the re-evaluation results. I believe the results of many more students will change this time,” he said, adding that he wanted to ensure that those students could pursue higher education admission within the current academic year.

Speaking about his own experience at Dhaka University, Milon said he had spent much of his life at the institution, where completing a four-year degree had taken him more than eight years.

He said academic programmes should be completed within their designated durations, with four-year courses taking four years and five-year courses taking five years.

“Under no circumstances should they take longer. If they do, it is a failure of the administration,” he said, expressing hope that future students would not have to face similar delays.