The Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams will start at 11 am instead of 10 am and the duration of the tests will be two hours instead of three, according to Education Minister Dipu Moni, report agencies.
"Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the authorities have reduced exam time, the number of assessments and the number of subjects. The exams are being held under an overhauled and abridged syllabus," the minister said at a media briefing on Monday.
Coaching centres will remain closed across the country from September 12 to October 2, she said.
This year, the duration of the MCQ exam is 20 minutes while that of the written exam is 1 hour and 40 minutes.
All examinees have been asked to enter their exam halls 30 minutes before the starting time and no one except the exam secretary will be allowed to carry cellular phone.
According to the schedule, the SSC and its equivalent examinations will end on October 18.
Some 20,21,868 students are expected to take the SSC and equivalent exams this year while last year this number was 22,43,254. The number of candidates has decreased by 2,21,386.
About 15,99,711 candidates will sit for the SSC exam under nine general education boards, 2,68,495 for Dakhil exams under Madrasa Education Board and 1,53,662 for vocational exam under Bangladesh Technical Education Board this year, the minister said.
Some 3,790 centers have been prepared for the SSC exams across the country.
The SSC and its equivalent examinations under all the education boards scheduled to begin on June 19 were postponed due to the flood situation in the country on June 17.
Earlier, it was deferred for about four months because of the coronavirus pandemic. Usually, the SSC exams take place in February.
The minister called for everyone's efforts to ensure fairness in the tests. "We firmly believe that all the exams will be held peacefully in a festive atmosphere and all the arrangements made for students, teachers and parents will be very satisfactory."
Delayed by the pandemic, the SSC and equivalent exams were supposed to be held in June, but the advent of floods right before the tests pushed it further back. The authorities came up with a fresh schedule in July.
