'I feel most of the students and guardians are in support of holding the exam'

We should not call it an automatic pass, or auto pass, because the students demanded an evaluation based on the examinations they have already sat for. They showed two reasons for this: they lack proper preparation for the exams and the wounded and injured students of the students' movement will not be able to sit for the exams.

I believe it will be an incomplete assessment for the batch. Among 14 lakh examinees, how many of them are injured? We don't have statistics for that. 

The handful of students that besieged the secretariat yesterday do not represent the majority of the students. I feel most of the students and guardians are in support of holding the exam. Without taking the majority's opinion and support, they gathered inside the secretariat building in an absolutely undisciplined manner, which is unacceptable. 

The handful of students who created this indiscipline inside the secretariat should be marked, and the police officers who were responsible for maintaining the security of the premises should be brought under scrutiny. They were supposed to protect the place, which they failed to do. 

Although the government has agreed to what they demanded, I don't support their demand. What the education advisor's office did was also appreciative, because they didn't let anything happen to the protesting students as well. They tried to reason with the students and presented options, like offering to take the exams on 50% marks, and moving the exams by two weeks. The students were however not ready to listen and hence the administration accepted it. 

The guardians are also worried about their children's future because if this is the way students are evaluated today, how will they do in the higher studies stage? We have to think about that. 

What the education advisor said today is that foreign universities do not count GPAs; rather, they assess the overall school performance and evaluation papers. However, the universities of Bangladesh evaluate the student's SSC and HSC marks. 

This year's HSC batch missed the chance to sit for important subjects, even the practical exams. I don't know how they will perform in the admission tests, especially for medical and engineering institutions. The students who didn't do too well at the SSC level may have been looking to improve their results this time. But now that they are being promoted this way, it will have long-term consequences. 

The government should have considered these important factors. 

Rasheda K Chowdhury is a former advisor of the caretaker government.