Staff Reporter :Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid on Thursday urged the BNP-led 20-party alliance to withdraw hartal and blockade programmes during the Secondary School Certificate [SSC] examination, , scheduled to start from February 2 under 10 educational boards in the country. “We urge the BNP and its allies to withdraw the blockade and hartal during the SSC examinations considering future of the examinees. Only three days are left, I hope, they’ll withdraw the blockade by this time considering the students’ interest,” the Education Minister made this appeal at a press briefing at the Secretariat.He said, “We urge all, be it Awami League [AL], BNP [Bangladesh Nationalist Party] or Jatiya Party [JP], not to put any obstacle to holding SSC and equivalent examinations for the sake of the future.””The law enforcers have been asked to take all kinds of preparation to ensure the security of students, especially both on their way to the examination centres and back home, so that they can sit for the examination safely….The ongoing blockade and hartal has been called as part of the evil design to destroy education life of the students and make the nation meritless,” he also said.”Such programmes made the examinees and their guardian anxious and putimmense mental pressure on the students that will reflect negatively in their examinations,” the minister opined.Urging BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia to be more humanitarian he said, “Don’t push the future of the students into risk calling blockade and hartal like programmes.””All necessary preparations have already been taken keeping the volatile situation in mind for holding the examinations smoothly,” he said, adding that more cautionary measures have been taken considering the previous experiences [leaking of question papers].Nahid also hoped that the question papers will not be leaked this year as enough preparations have been taken in this regrad. “The trend of uploading fake question papers on facebook and other sites of internet will be prevented this year. Legal action will be taken in case of uploading those,” he said.The written exams are schedule to begin from February 2 and end on March 10 with practical exams beginning next day. This year’s exams will be held on creative question papers except Bangla second paper and English first and second papers. Exams on Mathematics and Higher Mathematics will also be held on creative question papers.The number of regular examinees of this year is 13, 59,162 and irregular 1,18,817 while the special examinees are 90,386, who failed in one, two, three and four subjects in the previous year’s examinations.Differently able people such as examinees having no eyesight, no hand and cerebral palsy (nervous system developmental disease) patients, can take part in the tests with a scribe. Such kinds of examinees will get 20 more minutes to complete answer paper.Around 14, 79,266 examinees from 27,808 educational institutions across the country are expected to sit for the SCC and equivalent exams. Of them, 7,63,339 are male and 7, 15,927 female students. The numbers of exam centres are 3,116 this year. The increased number of students is 46,539 and increased number of exam centres is 174.A total of 297 overseas students will also sit for the tests in eight overseas centres under Dhaka Board. Of them, 132 are male and 157 female examinees.
