More than a day into starting the online application process for undergraduate courses at Dhaka University (DU) in the 2020-21 academic session, the website designated is not functioning properly.

Even the website was down for several hours, before finally resuming. But it has been below par, causing the admission-seekers to suffer immensely.   

Soon after its official launch at 5pm on Monday, the technical glitch surfaced and caused the website to remain out of operation, thus halting the application process until it was fixed.

As of 6:30pm on Tuesday, students were struggling to fill in the online application forms as it was taking too long to upload the information required.

The problem does not just stop there: many were facing the connection timeout error even without accessing the website.

Some students alleged that they failed to access it overnight.

Ashik Khan from Mymensingh said he started trying to access the website around 10pm on Monday at a local shop, and found several others standing in a queue with the same purpose as his.

“It shouldn’t have taken more than 10 minutes to fill in each application form. Unfortunately, I failed to do so even after one and a half hours,” he said.

The applicant feared the problem might drag on for some time.

Sources said the website, which has been in use for the last one decade, had been facing similar issues. But this time around, the technical error appeared in no time, weighing on the students quite early.

Md Mostafizur Rahman, convener of the DU undergraduate admission committee, attested to the problem, however, claiming it to have already been “sorted out”.

“We’re sorry about that. The technical glitch no longer exists today (Tuesday). The problem that appeared today is due to a mad rush by applicants to fill in online forms,” he said.

Numerous traffic to the website simultaneously is behind it all, he said, adding that the existing problem would be addressed soon.