BANGLADESH

Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and equivalent examinations began on Wednesday across the country.

On the first day, students under general education board are sitting for Bengali (compulsory) first paper, those under Dakhil board are sitting for Easy Bengali first paper and those under Vocational board are sitting for Bengali Language and Bangladeshi Culture first paper.

This year, all the papers will see creative questions except Bengali second paper, English first and second paper and mathematics.

The tests commenced simultaneously in 2,464 centres under eight general education boards, Dakhil and vocational board.

Practical tests will go on until March 4.

An estimated 1,420,057 students of 26,855 educational institutions will sit SSC and equivalent tests. Among them, 735,229 are boys and 684,828 girls.

This year, among 1,052,969 students sitting SSC tests, 532,818 are girls and 520,115 are boys. For the first time, girls have outnumbered boys by 12,667.

In addition, 275,930 students are taking Dakhil tests and another 91,158 students are taking SSC (Vocational) tests.

The education ministry had said the examination results will be published within 60 days like the previous year. Information will be exchanged online among the education board control rooms and related examination centres.

This year, the number of total students taking part from abroad is 274. They are sitting for the tests at Jeddah, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha, Bahrain and Tripoli centres under Dhaka Education Board.

This year, the physically challenged students are getting 20 minutes of extra time instead of 15 minutes.

Moreover, students with disabilities, who cannot see or hear or are suffering from cerebral palsy or who cannot write, will be allowed to take transcribers with them.