7 visually impaired students miss SSC exam in Ctg due to lack of scribes
The school rejected the scribes as they were higher secondary or university students, which goes against the SSC policy requiring scribes to be in class eight or below and under 18, a board official said
Seven visually impaired students in Chattogram were unable to appear for their Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations yesterday (10 April) due to lack of scribes.
All seven students — Habibul Haque Ratul, Minhaz Uddin, Marufur Rahman, Rupsa Khanom, Apu Dutta, Lucky Akter, and Khairul Islam — are candidates from Rahmania High School in the city's Hamzarbagh area. Their designated examination centre was Bangladesh Mahila Samiti Girls' High School at the WASA intersection, reports The Daily Star.
According to officials, the issue arose because the students had arranged scribes who did not comply with board regulations.
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An official from the Chattogram Education Board clarified that, as per policy, scribes for SSC candidates must be students studying in class eight or below and under 18 years of age.
However, the visually impaired students had selected scribes who were either in higher secondary or university, leading the school to reject them ahead of the examination.
"Some of the proposed scribes were higher secondary students. We cannot approve anything outside the policy. There were also issues with the verification from the guardians and school authorities," the board's Exam Controller Professor Parvez Sajjad Chowdhury told The Daily Star.
Guardians, however, said they were unaware of the specific requirements and claimed they were not properly informed by the school beforehand.
Md Jasim, a parent of one of the students, said, "We were unaware that scribes must be from class eight or below. My wife and elder son regularly visited the school but the authorities did not inform them in advance. At the last moment, they cited the policy and left us in a difficult situation."
Meanwhile, Rahmania High School authorities maintained that they had repeatedly asked the guardians to bring appropriate scribes, but their instructions were not followed.
"They [the guardians] had been telling us for a week that they arranged class eight students as scribes. But they never presented them to us. Despite repeated requests, they didn't bring the scribes. In the end, they brought college students claiming they were from class eight. Upon verification, I found they were college students, so I didn't approve them," said Zeebun Nesha Khanom, acting headteacher of Rahmania High School.
"I waited until 9:00pm last night, but they still couldn't bring class eight students. We contacted the board, and they said nothing can be done beyond the policy," she added.
"These seven are our students. But we cannot act outside the rules."
