NUPSSP Blueprint › Delivery › Risk Register (24)
Part 14 · Risks and safeguards
Risk Register — 24 Registered Risks
Sixteen Phase-3 risks and eight Phase-4 risks with likelihood, impact and mitigations — and the five that shaped the design itself.
Method
Risks are registered, not narrated: 16 in Phase 3 and 8 added in Phase 4, each with likelihood, impact, mitigation and safeguards, and a monitoring hook in the M&E framework. Likelihood and impact are qualitative ratings (High/Medium/Low) — the research does not fabricate probabilities it cannot support.
The 24-risk register
Phase 3 register (RSK-01…16)
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| ID | Category | Risk | Likelihood | Impact | Mitigation & safeguards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RSK-01 | Education disruption | Adding a semester or field term displaces coursework, worsens session jam (already multi-year in some programs - SRC-97), and delays graduation | High | High | Mandatory SUBSTITUTE-not-add design: service credits replace existing elective/practicum credits; program duration neutral by design; per-program academic council sign-off; monitor time-to-degree as a core M&E indicator |
| RSK-02 | Graduation delay | Even a neutral design can delay students if placements are scarce or scheduling conflicts with exams | Medium | High | Two placement windows per year; guaranteed-placement rule (university cannot require service without confirmed placement); summer-window flexibility |
| RSK-03 | Unequal burden on low-income students | Stipend below real costs blocks poorer students; away-from-home placements cost more | High | High | Needs-based top-up stipends; placement near home college as default (NU college model); transport/accommodation support lines; fee-waiver equivalents |
| RSK-04 | Exploitation of unpaid/underpaid student labor | Hosts may treat students as free clerical labor with no learning value; a 300,000-student cohort at sub-minimum stipends is a labor-market distortion | High | High | Task catalogues defined by MOU (no routine backlog clearing); learning-outcome requirements per placement; host-quality scoring; stipend floors indexed to minimum wage (BDT 12,500/month garment floor - SRC-92); university audits of placement quality |
| RSK-05 | Political interference in placements | Placement allocation could be captured politically; ruling-party pressure on host offices | Medium | High | Algorithmic allocation with published rules; oversight committee with opposition/civil-society representation; appeal channel; allocation-log transparency |
| RSK-06 | Favoritism in assignments | Desirable placements sold or granted to connected students | Medium | Medium | Central matching system; conflict-of-interest declarations; randomized audit of allocation outcomes |
| RSK-07 | Student harassment or retaliation | Power asymmetry inside offices; retaliation against students who log irregularities | Medium | High | PIDA 2011 mapping (SG-01); protection officer; anonymous grievance channel; fast transfer mechanism; zero-tolerance protocol |
| RSK-08 | Misuse of personal information | Students handling citizen data could leak or misuse it; hosts could misuse student personal data | Medium | High | Data MOUs; de-identified tasks; data-handling oaths; breach protocol (SG-02) |
| RSK-09 | Inadequate supervision | 1:20-1:30 ratios collapse into no supervision; supervisors lack time/skills; 15,000 trained supervisors is a system-building effort in itself | High | High | Supervisor certification + workload recognition in ACRs; ratio floors by task risk; program inspectors; phase gates that do not expand faster than supervisor pipeline |
| RSK-10 | Administrative overload of host institutions | Government offices already carry 521,922 vacant posts (SRC-09); absorbing students without dedicated support degrades both service and placement quality | High | Medium | Dedicated program liaison posts; no-placement-without-liaison rule; batching with academic calendars; realistic scenario sizing (the 100,000 path before 300,000) |
| RSK-11 | Duplicate or fabricated service records | Paper-based completion verification invites fraud (NYSC certificate fraud precedent - SRC-65) | Medium | High | Digital completion records with QR verification; biometric/digital attendance; independent spot audits (SG-06) |
| RSK-12 | Corruption within the program itself | Stipend skimming, ghost participants, placement-selling, equipment theft | Medium | High | Treasury-direct stipend payments to student mobile accounts; published participant statistics; external audit; ACC referral pathway; whistleblower protection for program staff too |
| RSK-13 | Excessive public expenditure | Costs above estimates; program persists despite failing evaluation | Medium | Medium | Phase gates with pre-registered kill/continue criteria; independent evaluation BEFORE each expansion; sunset clauses for funding |
| RSK-14 | Poor-quality or meaningless placements | Quantity targets (300,000) drive fake placements - students present but unused; reputational collapse | High | High | Output-based completion standards; host-institution satisfaction + student experience surveys; publish placement-quality indices; penalize hosts with quality scores below floor |
| RSK-15 | Constitutional/legal challenge | A compulsory requirement enacted weakly (e.g., relying on the dormant 1970 Ordinance) could be struck down | Medium | High | Clean new primary legislation for any compulsory element; pilots on voluntary/credit-elective basis under existing university autonomy; Ministry of Law vetting at design stage |
| RSK-16 | Retaliation-driven misreporting | Hosts under monitoring pressure could intimidate observers or falsify registers ahead of observation rounds | Medium | Medium | Unannounced observation windows; rotation; triangulation across offices; trends analyzed at aggregate level |
Phase 4 register (RSK-17…24)
| ID | Category | Risk | Likelihood | Impact | Mitigation & safeguards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RSK-17 | Financial (public) | Public university budget rigidity (fixed UGC allocation, no deficit spending) prevents cost absorption despite aggregate affordability | High | Medium | UGC budget-line circular authorizing service-program expenditure heads within existing block grants; treat as spending-authority change, not new money; pilot-phase cost reporting to UGC |
| RSK-18 | Financial (private) | Private-university enrollment crisis (53% seat occupancy) deepens; compulsory costs accelerate institutional distress or closures | Medium | High | Financial-capacity entry criteria (minimum enrollment or audited operating surplus); deferral or waiver pathway for distressed institutions; phase private participation after public pilot |
| RSK-19 | Financial (equity) | Universities shift costs to students disguised as service fees, transport charges, or mandatory materials | Medium | High | Statutory prohibition on new compulsory service-linked fees in the enabling instrument; UGC audit of fee schedules; grievance channel for fee complaints; annual fee-schedule publication requirement |
| RSK-20 | Equity (structural) | Excluding National University college students from compulsory scope creates a two-tier system covering only ~28% of graduates | High | Medium | Transparent publication of the structural funding finding; voluntary opt-in pathway for NU colleges with per-college readiness criteria; explicit decision point at Phase 3 review |
| RSK-21 | Quality (underfunding) | Universities underfund placements, producing make-work, unstructured placements with no learning value or public value | Medium | High | Minimum placement standards (work plan, named supervisor, task register); independent quality audits; suspension of institutions failing standards; placement quality in M&E framework (indicator EQ-5) |
| RSK-22 | Political | Government of the day is criticized for "unfunded mandate" on universities and students | Medium | Medium | Publish affordability analysis with the proposal; frame as reallocation within existing higher-education financing; independent review of the financial model before Phase 2 |
| RSK-23 | Financial (platform) | National placement platform cost overruns (e-governance projects in Bangladesh have exceeded budgets) | Medium | Medium | Fixed-price procurement with staged payments; open-source components; reuse of existing government infrastructure (a2i/NISE-style registries) where lawful; annual platform cost cap in program rules |
| RSK-24 | Demand | Universities cannot fill their seat allocations because students delay applications (placement procrastination), creating completion bottlenecks at graduation | Medium | Medium | Application windows from year 2 onward; graduation-linked reminders from year 3; two windows per year; guaranteed-placement rule preventing indefinite waiting |
Phase-4 additions cover the university-funded baseline's specific exposures: budget rigidity, the private enrollment crisis, cost-shifting to students, the NU two-tier equity question, underfunding, political framing, platform overruns, and demand-side procrastination.Source data: research CSV dataset (see Downloads)
The five design-shaping risks
RSK-01 · Education disruption High / High
Session jam already multiplies programme durations. The substitute-not-add design (service credits replace existing elective/practicum credits) is the mitigation — verified at Gate 1 through duration-neutrality testing against matched peers.
Session jam already multiplies programme durations. The substitute-not-add design (service credits replace existing elective/practicum credits) is the mitigation — verified at Gate 1 through duration-neutrality testing against matched peers.
RSK-04 · Exploitation of unpaid student labour High / High
Task catalogues, the 60% task-mix cap, hosting-density caps and the no-core-function rule; grievance analytics on exploitation patterns; host suspension for violations.
Task catalogues, the 60% task-mix cap, hosting-density caps and the no-core-function rule; grievance analytics on exploitation patterns; host suspension for violations.
RSK-07 · Harassment or retaliation Medium / High
Protection officer, confidential channels, PIDA interface, retaliation as a stand-alone offence, zero-unresolved-retaliation exit criterion at every gate.
Protection officer, confidential channels, PIDA interface, retaliation as a stand-alone offence, zero-unresolved-retaliation exit criterion at every gate.
RSK-09 · Supervision collapse High / High
The standing rule — scale never expands faster than the supervisor pipeline — plus the 1:20 default ratio, coordinator certification, and utilization-linked capacity re-validation.
The standing rule — scale never expands faster than the supervisor pipeline — plus the 1:20 default ratio, coordinator certification, and utilization-linked capacity re-validation.
RSK-19 · Cost-shifting to students Medium / High
The equity risk of the no-fee baseline: statutory prohibition on service-linked fees, UGC fee-schedule audits, and the need-based fund as the honest counterweight.
The equity risk of the no-fee baseline: statutory prohibition on service-linked fees, UGC fee-schedule audits, and the need-based fund as the honest counterweight.
RSK-20 · The NU two-tier question Medium / High
Excluding NU colleges from compulsory scope covers only ~28% of graduates. The mitigation is structural honesty: statute-level decision, published voluntary pathway, and the Gate-3 review of whether and how to include them.
Excluding NU colleges from compulsory scope covers only ~28% of graduates. The mitigation is structural honesty: statute-level decision, published voluntary pathway, and the Gate-3 review of whether and how to include them.