Dhaka Education Board has developed a software to prevent realizing extra fee for filling up various public examination forms.
An examinee will be able to fill up the form and pay all the fees of the educational institution using the software.
The student will be given an SMS to pay the dues through the software. All information will be digitally documented. If an institution charges extra fee, it will be recorded. Besides, no one will be able to collect additional fees by showing various non-institutional charges.
Although the Ministry of Education and education boards direct school and colleges to stop the collection of additional fees every year, many schools and colleges keep ignoring these instructions. Even amid corona pandemic, various educational institutions of the country have charged extra fee for filling up SSC and HSC examination forms.
According to the officials of the Board of Education, the form fill-up of HSC candidates, starting from August 12 this month, will begin through use of the newly introduced software. The concerned colleges will start the registration process with the mobile number of the examinee or his / her guardian through the software.
Institutional, board fees and centre fees will be set automatically in the software. The college will only enter the amount of money owed to the examinee in the software. An SMS will then be sent to the registered phone number of the examinee or guardian, stating the amount of money.
In this regard, the coordinator of the Inter-Education Board who is also the chairman of the Dhaka Education Board, Professor Nehal Ahmed told the media, “Until now, outside the board fees, educational institutions used to collect money by showing various excuses, which did not have any documents.”
He said, “Now it will be highly transparent to know how much the institution charges from individual examinee including tuition fees. Candidates will also be provided with documents. Therefore, an organization will not be able to collect additional fees if it wants to.”
In case of error in the entry of dues or mobile number in the software, the concerned examinee, by contacting the college, can correct the input by clicking on the edit button till the payment is made. In that case, after correcting, one must click on the 'Send SMS' button again.
If an examinee completes the payment, there will be no chance of correction. If any examinee fails to pay the fee within the stipulated time, his form will be deemed not completed. However, the institution will be able to show 'Paid' next to the names of the candidates who have confirmed the payment. The rest will show pending.
After filling the form, the student will get a link to pay in SMS. Using it or using Sonali Bank's Sonali e-service app, one can pay the total examination fees through the payment gateway. The examination fees can also be paid through the 'Sonali Seba' payment gateway from the student panel of the board's website.
In addition, they will be able to make the payment through mobile banking services including Nagad, bKash, Rocket, Upay and Sonali e-wallet. Besides, any fees can be paid using Visa Card, MasterCard, American Express, Dutch Bangla Bank's Nexuspay etc. In case of online payment, service charge will be deducted.
Due to corona situation, students will not take part in all subject's examination in this year's HSC. So, this time the fees for filling the form has been reduced compared to the previous years. If the situation gets better, the test will be taken in December this year.
This year, the fees for science group students has been set at Tk 1,160 and Tk 1,070 for humanities and business studies.
If a student or guardian finds any issue related to filling up HSC form or charging extra money, they have been asked to contact the following phone numbers in the control room of Dhaka Education Board. The numbers are- 02-9669815, 02-56110181, 02-58610248, 01610711307, 01625638508, 01722797963.
