The percentage is 20 among students who came from madrassahs, sources at the district education office said.

The present government introduced the test at the beginning of secondary (SSC) level to evaluate the standard of education at primary level.

The test, based on the syllabus for Class V, was held on February 16.

A total of 28,089 students of class six at different high schools in the district, who crossed primary schools and madrassahs, took part in the test.

Among them, 15,756 passed and only 5 per cent got 60 per cent and above marks. Some examinees got zero.

Over 31 per cent got up to 19 marks, 21.11 per cent got 20-29, 27 per cent got 30-40 and 13.78 per cent got 45-59 marks.

The result has been sent to the Directorate of Primary Education.

Of the students, 5,542 were from 82 schools and madrassahs in the Sadar upazila.

Many of the students who failed were from some reputed government and non-government schools in Barisal city.

They include six from Government Zila School, 71 from Government Sadar Girls School, 30 from Udayan Missionary School, 35 from BM School, 19 from Jagadis Swarashati Girls School. These high schools have primary sections also.

When contacted, Barisal District Primary Education Officer A B M Iqbal Bashri, however claimed that the bad result in the evaluation test was due to the fact that children were not in touch with books for about three months after their annual examination in class five, held in November.

The standards of questions were also higher those in their respective schools and madrassahs, he said.

He claimed that the question for students coming from primary schools was tougher than that for students coming from madrasshas.

But Barisal District Education Officer Mokammel Huq differed with him. Huq said the questions were easy and any examinee could easily get at least 33 to 40 marks.

The questions for both school and madrassah students were set by the same persons.

"How a student gets zero after spending five years at schiool?" he posed the question.