Technical education board: HSC Bangla 1st part test postponed

Bangladesh Technical Education Board yesterday postponed the first part of Bangla HSC exams for class XI students on both new and old syllabi due  to what officials said was a question paper mix-up.

The new date for the exam will be announced soon, said Prof Tapan Kumar Sarkar, chief of the inter-education board coordination committee and chairman of Dhaka Education Board.

The exams were set to be held from 2:00pm-4:00pm yesterday.

Education ministry officials said at many places across the country students who followed the old syllabus got questions on the new syllabus and those who followed the new syllabus got questions on the old one.

Ali Akbar Khan, chairman of the Technical Education Board, said the test was postponed amid complaints by the students at "many centres across the country".

About 1.7 lakh students were scheduled to sit for the test.

On the first day of the HSC exams, 15,255 students of the nine general education boards were absent and six others were expelled.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Dipu Moni told reporters at a college that the departments preparing and printing the question papers were on high alert against attempts of leaking the question papers.

A total of 12,03,407 students are expected to sit for the HSC exams at 2,649 centres in nine general, one madrasa and one technical education boards.

This year's HSC exams are delayed by almost seven months due to Covid-19.