Question Goof-up: One SSC test deferred, another cancelled

Today's SSC exam on Career Education has been postponed and will now take place on March 2, as some MCQ questions of the subject were mistakenly printed in the question papers of ICT test held under Jashore Education Board yesterday, said officials.

The board cancelled the Information and Communications Technology exam and rescheduled a retake for February 28.

“The Career Education exam for irregular students of all eight general education boards has been deferred to March 2 due to the mistake,” Tapan Kumar Sarkar, convener of sub-committee of exam controllers, told The Daily Star yesterday evening.

The test will begin at 2:00pm on March 2, said Tapan, also controller of examinations at Dhaka Education Board.

Jashore Education Board Secretary Prof Tabibar Rahman told this correspondent that they cancelled the ICT exam, as examinees found that 13 out of its 25 multiple-choice questions of Gha set were those of Career Education subject.

The retake of the examination will start at 10:00am on February 28, said officials.

“Examinees of many centres noticed it and informed the invigilators. We then decided to cancel the exam as we found the matter true,” he said, adding, “I think that the BG Press has made a mistake.”

About 1.84 lakh students are taking the SSC exams under Jashore Education Board, said officials.

On the first day of the Secondary School Certificate exams, wrong question papers of Bangla first paper were distributed among examinees at several centres in Manikganj, Chattogram, Cox's Bazar and Munshiganj.

Answer sheets of the examinees who were given the wrong question papers will be evaluated separately, Education Minister Dipu Moni said later.

On Sunday, the authorities announced that SSC and its equivalent examinations scheduled for February 16, 17 and 18 would be held on February 26, 27 and March 2 due to Biswa Ijtema.