M M Jasim :
The guardians, the students and the teachers have expressed their concern over call for hartal during the Junior School Certificate (JSC) and equivalent Junior Dakhil Certificate (JDC) examinations, which was scheduled to begin from November 2.
Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami on October 29 gave call for three days hartal on October 30, November 2 and 3 in protest against judgment awarding death sentence to their Party chief Maulana Matiur Rahman Nizami for crime against humanity by the ICT-1
As such, the Education Ministry had been forced to shift the dates of the first two days’ examinations.
The Education Ministry Secretary Nazrul Islam Khan said that the examination, scheduled for November 2, will now be held on November 7 and the examination, for November 3, will take place on November 14. Meanwhile, the examinees, the guardians and the teachers have expressed their deep frustration at the planned hartal and urged the political parties to refrain from announcing such programme during examination.
“We are in a state of great uncertainty as to whether our examinations will end on time. We do not know what to do now ,” said an examinee of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College.
Guardians say, they are unhappy with the political situation and fear it will affect the academic life of millions of students.
“Our children had suffered a lot due to the hartals in the past. Their examinations were postponed one after another, off course a bad sign. We don’t want repetition,” said Nizam Uddin, a guardian from Mirpur.
He said it was difficult to go out of home on hartal days as violence, arson and bomb explosions were seen almost everywhere during shutdown. Such scenes affect children’s psychology, he added.
“We would make a fervent appeal to the politicians to reconsider their programme,” Nizam said.
“How can we take preparation when we are not certain if examinations will be held or not?” said Sanjida Afrin, a student of Class VIII of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College.
A total of 2,090,692 students (1,764,595 from schools and 3, 26,097 from Madrasah ) will sit for the examinations from 27,925 institutions all over the country.
Siddiqur Rahman, former director of the Institute of Education Research of Dhaka University said, hartals and violent politics put huge psychological pressure on students.
“When students are uncertain whether examinations will be held or not, it puts a lot of psychological pressure on them. Most importantly, when the classes are not held, students learn nothing on that day.” he said.
