bdnews24.com :
Education Minister Dipu Moni is set to unveil the government’s plan about this year’s SSC and HSC examinations as the educational institutions have remained closed amid a record surge in coronavirus cases and deaths.
The education ministry said in a statement on Wednesday she will brief the media virtually at 11am today.
The educational institutions have been closed
since March last year. The government had announced a schedule for the reopening earlier this year when the number of COVID-19 cases dropped, but a second wave of infections forced the authorities to scrap the plan.
It is not clear when the situation will improve, thus allowing the government to plan another schedule for the restart.
Bangladesh is experiencing the worst bout of the pandemic now, posting more than 1,000 deaths in just five days.
The government on Wednesday reported 210 new COVID deaths in the daily count, taking the toll to 17,052. The caseload has surged by 12,383 to 1,059,538.
The authorities usually held the SSC exams in February and the HSC tests in April every year before the pandemic.
Last year, at the onset of the pandemic, the SSC tests were completed, but the HSC exams were postponed.
As the institutions remained shut, the students were promoted automatically to the next classes without exams after holding classes online.
The HSC results were published by averaging the grades in JSC and SSC.
The argument in favour of scrapping the HSC tests was that the students had finished study through in-person classes and exams.
Things are different this time. The students relied on remote learning to follow the lessons of classes 10 and 12, the final years before SSC and HSC exams, respectively.
Officials insisted that automatic pass will not be an option this year for the SSC and HSC candidates.
Dipu Moni had said in June the government was exploring alternatives to the SSC and HSC assessments in case the examinations cannot be held in 2021 due to the Covid-19 crisis.
The education authorities were thinking about holding exams on a brief syllabus, she had said.
