20 lakh sit today for primary final exams

Primary Education Terminal Examination, the newly introduced public exam, begins today for the first time in the country with the participation of around 20 lakh students of class V.
The examination, which is considered the largest public examination, will start around 10:00am at 5,343 centres across the country and another five overseas.
Examinations of six subjects will be held in three days on November 21, 22 and 24. A total of 1,98,01,80 students -- 9,09,984 boys and 10,70,196 girls -- will take the examination.
The steering committee headed by the Primary and Mass Education Minister Afsarul Amin is monitoring all activities related to the examination. Question papers prepared centrally have already been sent to the upazilas.
The Primary and Mass Education Ministry and Directorate of Primary Education set up two separate control rooms yesterday, which will remain open till November 24.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) imposed restriction on public access within 200 yards of the exam centres. It will remain in force till November 24, said a DMP announcement.
The Awami League government introduced the new public exam in place of primary scholarship examination with a view to imparting equal education to all students.
From now on, there will be no separate scholarship examination, said ministry sources.
The students must pass the terminal exam to get enrolled in class VI. Scholarships will be awarded on the basis of their results in two categories -- talent-pool and general-- half to boys and half to girls.
Earlier, only 40 percent of primary school students across the country used to sit for the scholarship exam. Teachers had to remain busy with an exam that was for selected pupils.
The ministry issued a circular on September 13 saying examinations of six subjects -- Bangla, English, Paribesh Parichiti Somaj (social science), Paribesh Parichiti Bigyan (science) and Religion will be held in three days.
Students will sit for two exams every day. Today they will start with Bangla around 10:00am and then Science around 2:00pm. The time limit for each exam is two hours.
According to the ministry sources, the highest number of examinees is from Dhaka Division where the number of participants is about six lakh.
The result of the examination will be announced on December 25 and the list of scholarship recipients will be published on January 25.
The telephone number of ministry's control room is 7160292 while directorate's control room can be reached through 8018123 and 9012920.
However, many grassroots level officials and teachers say sitting for two subjects each day is a big challenge for the children who had limited amount of time to get prepare.