Girl examinees outnumber boys in JSC, JDC exams
Girls keep outnumbering boys in the Junior School Certificate (JSC) and Junior Dakhil Certificate (JDC) examinations.
The number of class-VIII students taking the tests is also rising every year.
Disclosing the information at a pre-examination press briefing at the secretariat yesterday, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said such a rise in the number of female examinees plays an important role in women empowerment.
As many as 13,24,042 girls and 11,44,778 boys have registered from 28,628 educational institutions for this year's tests beginning on November 1.
Last year, the number of female examinees was 12,88,402 and male examinees 11,24,373.
Nahid said the number of total examinees has risen by 56,045 this year. Last year, the rise in student's number was 86,842.
The JSC examinees will take Bangla first paper tests on the first day, while the madrasa students or JDC examinees will sit for Quran Majid and Tazbid. The exams will end on November 18.
The examination, which replaced the scholarship tests, was introduced in 2010 when around 18.92 lakh students participated in the test across the country.
This year, over 20.90 lakh students would sit for the JSC exams under eight general education boards. Around 3.78 lakh students would take the JDC exams under the madrasa education board, the minister told journalists.
Of the total examinees, about 1.10 lakh are irregular, while some 99,467 students who had flunked up to three subjects will take improvement examinations, according to the statistics provided by the ministry.
Some 659 overseas students would sit for the tests at eight overseas centres. All but Bangla 2nd, English 1st and English 2nd exams would be held as per the creative question method, said Nahid.
He said the regular students will be sitting for the test on 10 papers including the fourth subject totalling 850 marks. Securing a total mark of 33 in MCQ and descriptive parts will be regarded as pass mark.
The minister said they were going to implement for the first time a decision that all candidates must enter examination halls half an hour before the exam begins.
"Those who might get late due to logical reasons or traffic jam in the city will be allowed in," Nahid said.
Education Secretary Sohorab Hossain said, "There is always an exception in every case. The officials present at the centre will consider the exception in order to allow them [the students] in, if they are late."
The minister said they made the decision to prevent question leak.
"We have found that question papers are most likely to be leaked when teachers get them in hands before the exam," he added.
Asked whether any teacher was held responsible for such question paper leak, the secretary said, "In some instances, teachers were found to be involved. But their number was very low."