The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has taken a 'policy decision' to reinstate scholarship exams for fifth graders from 2025.
According to Farid Ahmed, the secretary of the primary education ministry, the exams will likely be held by the end of 2025.
On Friday, he told bdnews24.com: "Fifth graders will have to sit the annual examination for next year. However, interested candidates can also take part in the scholarship examinations."
The scholarship examinations were discontinued in 2009 when the ousted Awami League government introduced the Primary Education Completion Exam, or PEC. Scholarships were then awarded to the highest scoring students in the PEC.
In 2020, the PEC exams were suspended due to COVID 19, and it was later cancelled to reduce academic pressure on students.
After a 13-year hiatus, the scholarship examinations were revived on an experimental basis in 2022, resulting in over 82,000 scholarships being awarded in early 2023.
Among the recipients, 33,000 students received talent pool scholarships, while 49,383 were awarded general scholarships.
The monthly scholarship stipends were Tk 300 for talent pool scholarship holders, and Tk 225 for students with general grade scholarships. An additional one-time incentive of Tk 225 was also given to the awardees.
Farid said: "A policy decision has been made to reintroduce the primary scholarship examination from next year. However, the details are still being discussed."
"We are returning to the previous curriculum. Discussions are ongoing to revive the scholarship exams like before. The way a separate examination was conducted for the annual and scholarship exams before the PEC, we are thinking of doing something similar to it."
When asked in which method the scholarship examinations would be conducted, Farid said: "The NCTB will determine the method of evaluation for the fifth graders next year."
—bdnews24.com
