The High Court has declared that passing the three parts of the Physics, Chemistry or Biology exams in the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examinations illegal.
The bench of Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and Justice ABM Altaf Hossain delivered the judgment on Wednersday in response to a writ petition lodged by Farah Tasnim Raisa, an HSC examinee from Dhaka City College.
Students can no longer pass the creative, objective and practical parts of the exams separately, the HC said.
Shah Mohammad Ahsanur Rahman, lawyer of the petitioner, told the Dhaka Tribune on March 18, that he procured a certified copy of the full text of the judgment given on January 29.
In her plea, Raisa said though she obtained A plus in three subjects, and an A grade in two, she did not pass in Chemistry as the new system provisioned for passing the three parts separately was already in effect during exam. The Dhaka Board also denied her application for re-evaluation of her Chemistry exam paper.
The High Court directed the board to re-evaluate her chemistry exam paper in its judgment and observed that the board had not any authority to destroy the career of students.
The three parts are: 35 marks based on objectivity, 40 marks based on creativity and 25 marks based on practical applications.
Though the ruling was passed following a writ plea, the authorities concerned will not be able to continue this examination system in the future as the system was introduced in violation of The Intermediate and Secondary Education Board Ordinance, 1961,” Ahsanur Rahman said.
He said other students would get benefit of the judgment, if they come to the court regarding other subjects where the conditions were the same as no gazette notification was issued on the matter.
Earlier, on October 7, 2013, the HC issued a rule asking why dividing the science papers—Physics, Chemistry and Biology—into three parts in the HSC examination-2013 and imposing undeclared conditions to pass in each of the three parts separately in violation of the said law should not be held illegal.
In the rule, the HC also wanted to know that as to why the respondents concerned should not be directed to re-examine the petitioner’s scripts and accordingly intimate the re-evaluated result to the petitioner.
The education secretary, the chairman of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, the board’s secretary and its controller of examinations were the respondents in the rule.
The HC made the rule ‘absolute’, according to the full text of the ruling.