Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal has demanded the temporary postponement of the ongoing HSC and equivalent examinations, along with other board and university examinations, in view of flash floods, nationwide heavy rain and disaster conditions. The organization said it believed the education ministry would view the matter as a humanitarian consideration.
In a statement on Monday, the organization’s president Rakibul Islam Rakib and general secretary Nasir Uddin Nasir made the demand, expressing hope for urgent and empathetic steps by the education ministry to ease the anxiety of students and guardians in the disaster situation. The leaders said that, according to reports published in the news media, 267,918 families had already been completely waterlogged in the country’s seven flood-hit districts, and 1,022,963 people had been severely affected. Alongside this huge damage, many educational institutions in the affected areas were now being used as shelters, they said, and with roads submerged it was extremely risky and difficult for examinees to travel to the centers.
“Our observation and request to the education ministry is that, with the road communication system in flood-hit areas having broken down, examinees, teachers and guardians are having to suffer extreme hardship. Temporarily postponing the examinations at this moment would ensure the safety and relief of students,” they said. In a disaster that had devastated more than a million people, they said, the books and essential papers of countless students had been destroyed. If they sat examinations in this situation, students from flood-hit areas would fall psychologically behind, which would have a negative impact on their results, they said. At the same time, keeping the examinations running while leaving a huge section of examinees in crisis would hamper the proper assessment of merit and destroy equality of opportunity.
Therefore, the leaders said, temporarily postponing the examinations until the disastrous weather situation improved, the examination centers became fit for examinations, and proper travel arrangements for examinees were ensured, would be a logical and student-friendly decision. They also said: “We firmly believe that the current people-friendly government, elected with a huge mandate from the people, and the education ministry are extremely sensitive to students’ lives, safety and bright future. Chhatra Dal always works in favor of ordinary students’ rightful rights and welfare.” They therefore requested the education ministry and the authorities concerned to temporarily postpone the ongoing HSC examinations until the situation improved and then to take a decision to hold the examinations according to a new schedule.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report