Bangladesh’s Secretary Committee on Administrative Improvement has approved a proposal to raise Bangladesh government job viva marks by as much as 400 per cent for recruitment to grades 11 through 20, while simultaneously lowering the pass mark required on the written test. The committee, chaired by Cabinet Secretary Nasimul Ghani, approved the Ministry of Public Administration’s proposal at a meeting held at the Secretariat, though the decision was not gazetted until Monday.
How the Bangladesh government job viva marks Would Change
The committee agreed to raise viva marks from the current 10 to 25, 40, or 50 depending on the grade tier. For grades 11 and 12, the viva would jump from 10 marks to 50, a 400 per cent increase, while the written test would rise from 90 to 100 marks. The pass threshold for that written test would fall from 50 per cent to 35 per cent.
For grades 13 to 16, viva marks would rise from 10 to 40 and written marks would drop from 90 to 60. The written-test pass mark would fall from 50 per cent to 40 per cent. For grades 17 to 20, viva marks would go from 10 to 25 while written marks would fall from 40 to 25, keeping the two components equal for the first time in that tier.
Who Recruits These Grades
First- and second-class employees, covering grades 1 to 10, are recruited through the Public Service Commission. Third- and fourth-class employees, covering grades 11 to 20, are instead recruited under the separate rules of individual ministries, divisions, and subordinate bodies. The proposed changes apply only to this second group and do not touch PSC recruitment or hiring for the disciplined forces, which include police, Border Guard Bangladesh, Bangladesh Coast Guard, and Ansar.
There are close to 20 lakh government posts in the civil administration overall, with third- and fourth-class employees accounting for nearly 13.25 lakh of them, according to Ministry of Public Administration data. That means the new rules, if implemented, would affect roughly 65 per cent of all government recruitment.
Why Experts Are Worried
PSC-run recruitment is widely regarded as comparatively fair, while hiring carried out directly by ministries and their subordinate offices has long faced allegations of corruption. Public administration sources say raising viva weight specifically within this second, less-scrutinised track could make manipulating outcomes easier rather than harder, since interview scores are inherently more subjective than written test results.
Abdul Awal Mazumder, a former secretary and public administration researcher, said 10 marks, or at most 20, are already sufficient for a viva regardless of a post’s grade. He said departmental and agency recruitment already struggles with corruption allegations, and that raising viva marks further risks complicating the process rather than improving it. He added that the move could damage the current government’s image for years to come and described it as working against good governance.
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The Government’s Reasoning
The Ministry of Public Administration presented a different rationale to the secretaries’ committee. It said candidates for these posts have attempted to secure jobs through proxy examinees, artificial intelligence tools, and electronic devices during written tests, creating a risk that unqualified candidates get appointed over genuinely qualified ones. The ministry argued that revising the mark distribution for direct recruitment across ministries, divisions, directorates, and subordinate agencies was necessary to counter this.
Md Quamruzzaman Chowdhury, secretary to the Ministry of Public Administration, told reporters that the government is working toward establishing a meritocracy and that this initiative is part of that effort.
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What Comes Next
The proposal has cleared the secretaries’ committee, the highest administrative body for policy decisions of this kind, but formal rule amendments still need to follow before the changes take effect. Since PSC-administered recruitment and the disciplined forces are excluded, the practical impact will fall on the large pool of grade 11 to 20 positions filled directly by ministries and their subordinate offices across the country.
