Primary Education Terminal Examination, 2010 of both general and madrasa students will begin tomorrow with around 25 lakh participants.
The largest public examination in terms of number of examinees will start at 11:00am at 5,993 centres across the country and another seven in Riyadh, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Tripoli, Singapore and Berlin.
Class V students of ebtedai madrasa will take the exam for the first time. Earlier, only students of primary schools participated in the terminal examination introduced last year.
A change has been brought to the exam schedule this year with six exams to be held in six days whereas last year the exams were held in three days with two exams a day. The examinations will conclude on November 29.
Some 24,88,148 students– 21,57,015 from schools and 3,31,133 from madrasas– have registered for the examination this year. Like the previous year, girls outnumbered boys in both categories.
As many as 4,049 students from English version and 1,878 physically disabled students will also take the exam while the number of overseas students is 366.
At a pre-examination briefing at the secretariat yesterday, Primary and Mass Education Minister Asraful Ameen said the government has completed its preparation for holding the exam in a flawless and peaceful manner.
He urged the opposition political parties not to enforce any hartal during the examination period.
The students of class V must pass the terminal examination and collect their certificates before they enrol in class VI, he mentioned.
The minister also said the government will increase the number of scholarships in general category by 5,000 this year. Last year, total 50,000 students were awarded scholarships on the basis of their results in two categories, talent-pool and general. Of them, half were boys and half girls.
“We are trying to increase the scholarship by 20,000,” he said.
However, the Madrasa Education Board will separately arrange for scholarships for madrasa students as per their regular system.
The results will be published between December 22 and December 27.
Asraful said no money would be required to get the certificates and punitive actions will be taken if any institutions receive money.
The Ministry and Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) identified 166 examination centres as remote, and the question papers, which will be distributed to those centres, have been kept at secured nearby places.
Replying to a question, DPE Director General Shyamol Kanti Ghosh said the ministry has taken necessary steps to ensure that question papers are not leaked out in the remote areas.
Official sources said the answer papers would be evaluated at the upazila headquarters only.
Primary and Mass Education Secretary AKM Awal Majumder and other high officials were present at the briefing.
