2-hr SSC exams from 11am

This year’s Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and its equivalent examinations will start from 11am instead of 10am considering the suffering students may face due to traffic jams.

The exams will start on September 15 and continue until October 1, Education Minister Dipu Moni told a press briefing held at the secretariat in Dhaka on Monday.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the authorities have cut down exam time and the numbers of subjects and assessments, and the tests will be held on a restructured short syllabus, she said.

The exams, under 11 education boards across the country, will be held for two hours instead of three. The duration of the exam’s MCQ part will be 20 minutes and the written part will be held for 1 hour and 40 minutes, added the minister.

She said all coaching centres will remain closed from September 12 till October 2 to prevent question leaks during the exams.

A total of 20,21,868 students are expected to sit for the SSC and equivalent exams this year, which is 2,21,386 lower than last year’s 22,43,254 examinees.

About 15,99,711 candidates will sit for SSC exams under nine general education boards, 2,68,495 for Dakhil exams under the Madrasa Education Board and 1,53,662 for vocational exams under Bangladesh Technical Education Board, the minister said.

This year, the exams will be held at 3,790 centres in 29,591 educational institutions around the country.

All examinees will have to enter exam halls 30 minutes before the starting time and no one except the exam secretary will be allowed to carry mobile phones.

Students with different types of disabilities will have extra 20 minutes and examinees with autism, Down syndrome and cerebral palsy extra 30 minutes. All students with disabilities will be allowed to sit for the exams with the help of scribes. Earlier, the exams were scheduled to start on June 19 but it was postponed due to the devastating floods in Sylhet, Mymensingh and northern areas of the country.

Usually, the SSC exams take place in February every year. This year the exams were deferred for about four months at first because of the pandemic.

Monday’s briefing was held after a meeting between Education Ministry officials and the National Monitoring and Law and Order Committee for ensuring a smooth environment for the upcoming SSC exams.