Bangladesh to fix date for SSC exams after assessing flood damage

The government is yet to decide on a new schedule for the SSC and equivalent exams after postponing the tests in the wake of the devastating floods in the country's northeast.

A decision will be made after the authorities assess the extent of damage caused to educational materials in the region, Education Minister Dipu Moni said on Wednesday.

"Many of our students have had their books damaged in the floods," she told reporters at the Secretariat on Wednesday.

"They may need new books. We are assessing the situation. If necessary, new books will be printed and handed over to them.”

After getting their hands on new books, students will require at least two weeks to prepare for the exams, according to the minister.

The SSC tests were scheduled to start on Jun 19 after a four-month delay due to the pandemic.

But the government decided to suspend the tests after Sylhet, Sunamganj, and several other districts experienced serious flooding in June.

Over 2 million students are preparing to take the exams this year. Among them, 23,752 are in the flood-hit district of Sunamganj and 43,844 in Sylhet.

RELIGIOUS LESSONS TO STAY

Dipu Moni said the government was not removing religious lessons from curricula, as she brushed aside social media posts on the matter as “utterly false propaganda”.

She noted that an opposition MP, the Jatiya Party’s Fakhrul Imam, had alleged in parliament recently that the government was planning to end the religious lessons.

He later informed Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury that the information was incorrect and based on old textbooks, urging her to expunge that part of his speech.

“We should always speak about the country’s education system only after obtaining the correct information. And we expect more from a responsible person. I however thank him for requesting the expunction after checking the information,” Dipu Moni said.  

A section of society that “always tries to stop Bangladesh’s progress by using religion as an excuse” spread the MP’s false claim even though he had withdrawn his speech, she said.

“We noticed the propaganda that religious lessons were being removed from our new curricula had already been there on social media even before he gave his speech. It’s utterly false. Religious lessons were always there, and we still have them. There’s no reason for removing them.”

The education minister said the government made new curricula in such a way so that the students do not only read the books on religion, but they can also practice those.

“Those who are spreading the false information on religious lessons actually want to destabilise the country by using religion as an excuse, not to protect religion.”