Staff Reporter :
Higher Secondary Certificate and its equivalent examinations began across the country on Monday.
No report of question paper leakage was found on the first day of the examinations.
A total of 13,719 students were absent under the 10 education boards.
As many as 89 students and seven teachers have been expelled for irregularities in the examination’ halls.
However, the examinations were held in a peaceful atmosphere in 2,541 centres all over the country.
Question sets were selected by lottery, 25 minutes before the tests. The centre secretary was informed about the question set via SMS. After that, question papers are taken out of a sealed packet.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid visited Siddeswari Girls College centre in the morning and hoped that no question papers would leak in the HSC examinations this year.
“New problems are arising every day. We have taken all possible preventive measures based on the information we have received so far,” the minister said.
“I hope that this time there would be no question leaks. In case it happens, we will penalise the perpetrators, whoever he is,” said Nahid as he visited the Siddeswari centre around 9:30am.
“We do not know how far the criminals can go. But it is highly unlikely to happen given our preventive measures.”
When asked why the Facebook pages and groups are not being closed, the minister said BRTC was aware of the matter. “Intelligence agencies are handling them. We do not know much.”
The Education Ministry had announced that it would not let coaching centres operate during the HSC examinations but that has not happened in reality.
To this, Nurul Islam Nahid said: “We are not the agency that is accountable for the task. Multiple ministries are involved here. The home minister is responsible for implementing the law and arresting the criminals.”
Over debates on multiple-choice questions, he said, “We must take into account the opinions of educationists and guardians. The guardians, who I have consulted so far, are against the removal of MCQs.”
Students had to enter the halls 30 minutes ahead of the exams, as part of the new rule set by the government after question leaks in public exams turned endemic.
Teachers note down the name, roll number and registration number of any student entering the hall later than that. Their reasons for being late are also noted down.
This year, around 13.11 lakh examinees will take the HSC and its equivalent tests from 8,943 educational institutions.
Of them, 10.92 lakh will take HSC exams under eight general education boards, 1 lakh will appear for Alim exams under madrassah education board and 1.17 lakh will sit for HSC vocational exams under technical education board.
General stream students will take Bangla first paper, while madrassah students will take Quran Majid and technical students will sit for Bangla exam on the first day.
The number of examinees this year has increased by 1.27 lakh from previous year’s 11.84 lakh students.
Theoretical exams will continue till May 13, while practical exams will be held between May 14 and 23. Exams of 56 papers on 28 subjects will be held under creative question method this year.
