The written examination for the recruitment of assistant teachers in government primary schools will begin from March 15. The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has decided in this regard. The decision was taken at a meeting of the ministry on Tuesday (January 15).
The ministry has announced that radical changes have been made to the examination system this time.
According to sources from the Department of Primary Education (DPE), a record number of candidates applied for the recruitment of assistant teachers in government primary schools in 2018 compared to other times. More than 2.4 million applications were submitted online from August 1 to August 30 last year.
Of the applications, 452,760 people applied in Dhaka division, 382,335 in Chittagong division, 362,925 in Rajshahi division, 248,730 in Khulna division, 255,827 in Barisal division, 120,623 in Sylhet division, 294,368 in Rangpur division and 282,437 in Mymensingh division.
Officials of the Department of Primary Education said that about 1.2 million candidates applied for the last recruitment. Accordingly, the number of candidates who applied has doubled this time. In the last recruitment, the number of examination centers across the country was 3,662. This time, the number of centers has been increased due to the double number of candidates. The ministry may prepare more than 20 sets of questions to conduct the examination smoothly.
A source in the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education said that the DPE leads the preparation of questions for the recruitment exam, including conducting the exam. But the ministry will now determine the question selection and seating arrangement to bring in more stringent measures to prevent question paper leaks and organize the exam in a fair manner.
The question paper of the recruitment exam will be prepared digitally. The exam schedule, OMR form design and evaluation, and the method of result publication have been decided after a meeting with BUET. This time too, the exam will be conducted at both written and oral levels as before. According to the previous rules, the written exam of MCQ system will carry 80 marks and the viva will carry 20 marks.
It is known that currently there are about 64,820 government primary schools across the country. Of these, about 12,000 assistant teachers are vacant. For this reason, it was decided to recruit another 12,000 assistant teachers. The recruitment notice was published following the old recruitment rules. In light of this, 60 percent quota of female applicants are required to have HSC or equivalent pass and 40 percent quota of graduation or equivalent pass for males.
Candidates can download the admit card from the website dpe.teletalk.com.bd. Instructions for filling the OMR sheet and other information related to the exam can be found on the website (www.dpe.gov.bd).