Bankers’ Selection Committee scraps eight banks’ job tests

The Bankers' Selection Committee of Bangladesh Bank has scrapped professional recruitment tests for eight state-owned banks. The tests were held on Friday.

New dates will be announced soon, said Abul Kalam Azad, a general manager of Bangladesh Bank after a meeting of the committee on Tuesday.

The Jan 12 tests ended in disarray in one centre after a large number of candidates could not find a place to sit in the centre in Dhaka’s Mirpur.

Over 5,500 aspirants could not take the tests. The candidates agitated on the street outside the exam halls and damaged the centres to vent their anger.

Later, the committee set Jan 20 as the exam date for job-seekers who failed to enter the crammed centres, but on Tuesday, the authorities scrapped the tests held in 61 centres across Dhaka.

Azad told the media that an inquiry has been opened over the seating fiasco.

The panel led by the central bank’s Executive Director Ahmed Jamal has been told to file its findings in two weeks, he said.

The probe body consists of representatives from state-owned Sonali, Janata, Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan banks and the finance ministry, said Azad. A Bangladesh Bank general manager will serve as its member secretary.

The Dhaka University’s management department had been tasked with conducting the combined entry tests in which over a million job-seekers vied for 1,665 vacant posts in eight banks.