Govt to help students caught in exam fiasco
20,000 nervously await results of investigation
- Published: 10/02/2009 at 12:00 AM
- Newspaper section: News
Deputy Education Minister Chaiwuth Bannawat has confirmed assistance for students who missed the deadline to pay for university entrance exam applications.
Deputy Education Minister Chaiwuth Bannawat shows A-net application documents while listening to complaints from students who missed the deadline for payment. The students said the online application system was unclear about the payment schedule. KOSOL NAKACHOL
The students will be able to sit the the Advanced National Educational Test (A-Net) test if the system run by the Education Ministry was found to be at fault.
Mr Chaiwuth said it is up to a central committee on university admission, which comprises representatives from all universities, to decide whether to allow the students to take the tests.
Mr Chaiwuth said checks have found no errors in the online A-Net application system on the website run by the Education Ministry's Office of Higher Education Commission (OHEC).
He insisted even though the online application form did not show the deadline for payment, the details of the deadline were displayed on other parts of the website.
About 20,000 students have complained they could not enrol to take the A-Net test, which measures a student's skills to meet a faculty's particular requirements.
They said they missed the deadline to pay the fees as the website was unclear about the schedule.
Most students applied for the test through the website. They said the website did not say when to pay the application fee to sit the test, which will be held from Feb 28 to March 1. Almost 200,000 students will sit the test this year.
Applicants were supposed to make payments at banks or post offices between Dec 22 and Jan 14.
"Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has made it clear that if the system is at fault, the students will be allowed to sit the test," Mr Chaiwuth said.
But if it was not so, the government will do all it can to help those students and at the same time ensure fairness for students who submitted their applications on time, he said.
OHEC secretary-general Sumeth Yaemnoon said most students had no problem making payments at banks using computer printouts.
This was because the banks did not scan the bar code on the printed application documents but keyed in the reference numbers, Mr Sumeth said.
Students have until Friday to file complaints to the OHEC.
