The Junior School Certificate (JSC) and Junior Dakhil Certificate (JDC) examinations began across the country on Thursday.
Education ministry sources said the examinations began at countrywide centres around 10am and will end at 1pm without any break.
The JSC students are appearing for the English 1st paper while JDC students are appearing for the Arabic 2nd paper on the first day, reports UNB.
The examinations were originally scheduled to begin on Monday.
However the 60-hour countrywide hartal enforced by the BNP-led 18-party alliance on Sunday forced the authorities to reschedule the examinations.
As per the new timetable, Monday’s tests will be held at 2:15pm on Friday while those of Wednesday at 10am on Saturday.
This year, a total of 1,902,746 students — 1,587,313 from schools and 315,433 from madrasahs — are sitting the examinations from 27,748 institutions. The number of total examinees is lower by 5,619 than last year’s figure of 1,908,365. Of the total examinees, 895,091 are boys and 1,007,655 girls.
This year the number of female students is 112,564 more than their male counterparts. Some 134,371 students are irregular as they could not pass the previous examinations, while 119,227 others will take part in compartmental examinations.
The examinations will be held at 2,420 centres across the country.
On November 3 Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said the JSC and JDC examinations will be held with identical question papers to standardise school and madrasah educations.
The examinations will end on November 20 and the results will be published by December. The students will be awarded scholarships based on their results.
