Examinations for the first two days of Junior School Certificate and equivalent Junior Dakhil Certificate scheduled for today and Wednesday have been deferred to November 8 and November 9 due to the BNP-led opposition alliance’s 60-hour general strike starting from this morning.
The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, made the announcement at a press conference at the ministry on Sunday.
Junior School Certificate examinees under the general education boards will
have to take the Bengali first paper exams at 2:15pm on November 8 and Bengali second paper at 10:00am on November 9.
Junior Dakhil Certificate examinees under the madrassah education board will have to sit for Quran and Tazbid test at 2.15pm on November 8 and Arabic first paper at 10:00am on November 9.
Nahid said that they rescheduled the examinations considering that ‘the lives of the students might be at risk during the general strike.’
He also urged all political parties not to call anymore hartal at least during the public examinations.
He termed the BNP-led opposition alliance’s general strike ‘against national interest, anti-education and unethical.’
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led opposition alliance has called a 60-hour countrywide general strike from this morning pressing for a non-party polls-time government for overseeing the next parliamentary elections.
Asked about whether the examinations including JSC exams would remain out of purview of the hartal, acting BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir at a briefing at BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office on Saturday had said if any decision over the matter was made that would be communicated later.
This year, the JSC exams are scheduled for November 20 to be completed with about 3.16 lakh students under general education boards dropped out.
About 17,91,500 students passed Primary Education Completion examination in 2010 who were supposed to take the JSC exams this year, while 15,87,313 students were registered to take the exams.
This year, 19,02,746 students — 10,07,655 female and 8,95,091male — are expected to take the examinations.
Of them 15,87,313 students are taking the JSC and 3,15,433 are taking JDC examinations.
Creative questions will be introduced for the subjects other than Bangla second paper, English first and second paper and mathematics.
Nahid, at a briefing at the ministry on October 30, had said that one of the main purposes of introducing the JSC and JDC exams was to standardise the education across the country.
He said such exams would help the students to increase their confidence and would thus decrease the drop-out rate at the level of the Secondary School Certificate exams. (source)