The Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and its equivalent examinations, including Dakhil and vocational, began on Sunday morning.
The examinations started at 10:00am while the duration of each exam has been reduced to one hour and a half.
The examinations are being held with shortened syllabuses on three elective subjects on a group basis.
The government held the major public exams this year after a delay of more than nine months due to the Covid-19 pandemic while the examinations are held in February generally.
Maintaining health guidelines, the tests will be held in two shifts and end on November 23.
This year, the number of examinees has increased by 8.76 per cent, with some 22,27,113 students expected to take the examinations.
Of them, about 18,00,998 candidates are under nine general education boards, 3,01,887 under the madrasah education board, and 1,24,228 under the technical education board.
The exams will be held at 3,679 centres across the country.
Besides, 429 students will take the examinations from abroad.
Earlier, Education Minister Dipu Moni said they would publish the results within 30 days after the examinations.
An uncertainty over holding the exams was created due to the prolonged Covid-19-forced closure of educational institutions since the beginning of the pandemic.
With the improvement in the Covid situation, the government finally reopened educational institutions on September 12.
On September 27, it announced plans to hold the SSC and Higher Secondary Certificate examinations with shortened syllabuses.
