Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and equivalent exams slated for Thursday (Feb 26) have been shifted to Mar 7 with the BNP-led alliance extending its current shutdown programme. The exams will start at 10am that day, Education Secretary Nazrul Islam Khan told the media on Wednesday. “We cannot lead the students into uncertainty. They will not be able to do well amidst worries. That’s why the rescheduling,” he said. Though Bangladesh observes anniversaries of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s epoch-making address to the nation on the historic March 7, 1971 every year, the education secretary said they had no alternative to holding the exams on that day. Through February so far, the exams were held on five days only, on weekly holidays on Fridays and Saturdays. Like the past three weeks, the BNP issued a statement on Tuesday, extending the 72-hour shutdown from Sunday to 6am on Friday. Around 1.5 million students from 27,808 educational institutions are taking this year’s SSC exams. The BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami coalition has been ignoring appeals from the government, teachers, students and parents to refrain from enforcing blockade or shutdown during exams. Instead, it has called general strikes on every working day this month. Public examinations in the past two years had also been deferred due to agitations by the BNP-Jamaat alliance. – bdnews24.com
