The government is considering options to promote SSC and HSC candidates this year as the chance of holding examinations is fading in the wake of surge in coronavirus cases.
The Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) candidates is unlikely to be promoted automatically. The education boards do not want to give 'auto pass' this time.
The government is mulling several options including evaluation based on assignments and short questions as well as some other ways.
The coronavirus situation is further deteriorating continuously and the on-going vacations of the educational institutions are being extended simultaneously.
Under the circumstances, the government is planning to form a national evaluation and advisory committee to take a decision regarding this issue.
Initially, there have been some discussions on different ways. Various shorts of proposals are being considered.
These include evaluating the students on the basis of short questions, JSC and SSC results and assignments for the HSC candidates and evaluation on the basis of JSC result and assignments for the SSC candidates.
Speaking to Prothom Alo on Sunday, Md Mahbub Hossain, secretary of the Secondary and Higher Education Division of the education ministry, said, “We are working on this issue with utmost importance. We will announce our decision soon.”
Two officials of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Dhaka said the situation is no longer suitable for taking exams on the basis of short syllabus as decided before.
Therefore, the government is planning to form a “national evaluation advisory committee” to take decisions in this regard.
Another official said the decision to take exams has not been cancelled as yet. No such decision has been taken as of now. However, the advisory committee would be asked to find alternative ways. Simply, they do not want to give auto pass as it will create psychological problems among the students.
The SSC and HSC exams used to be held in February and April respectively each year. However, the academic calendar has been disrupted due to the coronavirus pandemic since last year. All the educational institutions have been shut since 17 March 2020.
According to the latest declaration of the government, the vacation has been extended till 31 July. Officials of different education boards said they had plans to take SSC exams after taking classes for 60 days and HSC exams after taking classes for 84 days. However, this decision fully depends on the reopening of educational institutions.
But there is no scope of reopening educational institutions in the present circumstances of the country. Whether it can be opened in a few more months or not is a matter of debate. This is because the government's plan is to reopen educational institutions after a 'large number' of people get vaccinated and the coronavirus infection rate goes below 5 per cent.
In such a situation, an alternative plan has come to the fore instead of the plan of taking examinations as decided before.
Seeking anonymity two officials of Dhaka education board said there can be various alternative ways. For example, the candidates of HSC and equivalent exams may be evaluated on the basis of the average of their results in SSC and JSC. Assignments can be added to this.
There are also plans to consider a student’s performance in respective educational institutions. However, it would be difficult as there is no such record in the educational institutions of the country. However, there is an account of the assignments submitted by the students, which can be considered too.
Another official of the Dhaka board said 'auto pass' would not be given this year. There would be an evaluation this time, even if it is short. Evaluation of the students can be assignment-based too. That means there would be 'something' this time. There can be decisions to add the results of JSC and SSC and equivalent exams along with these for the evaluation of the students.
However, all these are still under consideration. So far no specific decision has been taken as yet. The ultimate decision would be taken by the education ministry. Education minister Dipu Moni would declare that.
When inquired who would be the examinee in this case, it has been learnt that any student, who had registered before, would be eligible for form fill up.
For example, As many as 630,000 students have registered for the SSC exam from Dhaka board. All of them would be eligible to fill up the forms.