As in the rest of the country, the SSC exams for 2020 commenced on Monday with 620 students in Nilphamari sitting for their Bangla Paper I at the Rabeya Balika Bidya Niketon exam center – just one of them an irregular student who was supposed to receive a different question paper from the rest, which on this occasion happened to be the 2018 Bangla I question paper.

“120 questions papers were received for the solitary student who gave the exam under 2018’s syllabus and 1,020 question papers were allocated for the 619 regular examinees,” said Mohafizur Rahman Khan, the head teacher of Rabeya Balika Bidya Niketon and also secretary of the exam center.

 “Question papers according to the 2018 syllabus were supplied to 98 students by mistake in rooms 8 and 5 of the exam center,” he added.

After one hour had elapsed, an examinee called Selim Reza of Nilphamari Collectorate Public School & College realized the error and notified the invigilator.

Mohafizur Rahman Khan tried to downplay the incident and said the question papers were taken back from the 98 examinees immediately, although verification of how many students in which rooms had been affected by the gaffe must have taken some time and disrupted the exam experience for everyone.  

Those who were directly affected told UNB that additional answer sheets on which they answered the 2020 question were attached to those that are to be scotched.

“The secretary of the exam center cancelled the answers given on 2018’s syllabus with red ink. Due to this, we are apprehensive about our result,” they said.

Hafizur Rahman Chowdhury, Nilphamari deputy commissioner, said the exam with the right question paper was delayed by 1 hour 25 minutes, which the students were allowed to have back.  

“The matter is under investigation to find out who caused this blunder,” he stated.

At this stage the gaffe is being attributed to the center supervisor and invigilators’ oversight at the Rabeya Balika Bidya Niketon.