The next Junior School Certificate examination will be held in 10 days instead of 15 and Secondary School Certificate examination will be held in 29 days instead of 35, said officials.

Prof Ziaul Haque, chief of Inter-Education Board Coordination Subcommittee, told The Daily Star they already set a calendar for next JSC and SSC examinations that would consume less time.

He said, “We are also planning to do the same with Higher Secondary Certificate examination from 2020.”

The decisions have been made so that students get more academic hours, he reasoned.

Prof Ziaul said, “We also put mental pressure on the examinees and their family members with the existing exam calendar. If the examinations run for a longer period, the applicants sometimes suffer from anxieties”

According to education board officials, annual holidays and other closures eat up more than half of an academic year at many secondary-level educational institutions, forcing the students to turn to private tutors.

The teachers of those institutions also struggle to finish syllabus in almost half of the ideal time. As a result, they rush through the curriculum to prepare the students, affecting the quality of education, said teachers and experts.

The secondary schools and madrasas have at least 137 holidays including 85 public holidays and 52 Fridays. Besides, many of these institutions lose another month or so as the classrooms are used as exam centres for public examinations.

There are 30,000 secondary schools and madrasas in the country now. Last year, 3,412 of them were used as centres for SSC and equivalent exams, 2,541 for HSC and equivalent exams and 2,903 for JSC exams.