Students of Class V to sit in public exams

Cabinet abolishes pry scholarship exams
Students of class V will have to face a public examination like SSC exams from this year as the cabinet on Monday endorsed the plan to improve the quality of education right from the elementary level.
Centrally controlled by the Directorate of Primary Education, the public examination will mark the end to five years of formal schooling of nearly 20 lakh children, who will converge on exam centres across the country simultaneously with the same question papers.
This will eventually overtake Secondary School Certificate exams as the country’s biggest public examinations. More than 10.5 lakh students appear in the SSC and equivalent exams this year, education officials said.
The cabinet also decided to abolish primary scholarship exams introduced in 1952, prime minister’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad said after the cabinet meeting Monday.
At present, only 40 per cent Class V students of a school can appear in the 400-mark primary scholarship exams.
‘Teachers at primary schools take extra care for only those who take scholarship exams. By canceling the scholarship exams, the government wants to ensure equal care for all the students,’ primary and mass education secretary Badrul Alam Tarafdar said.
At present, primary schools need to arrange two exams for class V students —-primary completion exam and scholarship exam — which are considered as a burden on both teachers and students.
Students having high scores in the public exams will be chosen for Class V scholarship as in the cases for SSC and HSC examinees.
‘We are preparing to hold the largest public exams this year on November 22, 23 and 24. The Directorate of Primary Education will prepare question papers and results will be published simultaneously,’ the secretary added.
Another official in the primary and mass education ministry said nearly 20 lakh students are expected to take the first public exams for class V this year.
A government primary schoolteacher in Dhaka said the event would be too big for the authorities to manage and too stressful for under 12 children to bear.
He also expressed his doubt about the authorities’ ability to arrange the exams of such a massive scale and publish results of some 20 lakh students smoothly, since publication of results of primary scholarship involving less than 7 lakh students takes nearly four months now.
‘I think the students of Class V are to brace themselves for a bad experience this year. The admission process at class VI and start of classes may be delayed significantly this year,’ he feared.
M Saidur Rahman, publicity secretary of the Bangladesh Government Primary School Teachers’ Association on Monday welcomed the government’s decision to abolish separate exams for scholarship and introduce public exams for Class V students.
There are more than 1.62 crore students in 80,401 elementary schools offering education from Class I to V, according to government statistics.

Courtesy of NewAgebd