A second official has been dismissed following an extraordinary error during an exam in Nilphamari, where candidates for the Higher Secondary Education Certificate (HSC) spent nearly two hours answering questions from the previous year’s exam.
Badsha Alamgir, secretary of the examination center at Barobhita School and College, who is also its principal, was relieved of his duties for negligence. Professor Ilias Ahmed, chairman of the Dinajpur Secondary and Higher Education Board, announced the decision on Monday afternoon.
What Went Wrong on July 19
The incident occurred at the Barobhita School and College centre in Kishoreganj upazila of Nilphamari on July 19, at the start of the HSC History first paper examination.
The exam began at 10:00 AM. But the papers handed to candidates were not that year’s — they were the 2025 question papers. Unaware of the error, examinees wrote on them from 10:00 AM until 11:45 AM.
That is one hour and forty-five minutes of an examination spent answering the wrong year’s questions.
How the Centre Responded
Once the error was detected, the center’s authorities suspended the exam and distributed the correct 2026 exam papers. Candidates were subsequently given additional time to correct the mistake, and the exam finally concluded at 2:30 p.m., more than four and a half hours after it began.
While the final solution protected the candidates’ right to take the correct exam, the interruption caused an already stressful exam day to drag on much longer than planned.
The Investigation
After the incident became public, the Executive Officer of the Upazila (UNO), Arifur Rahman, established a three-member investigative committee to examine what had happened.
The committee submitted its report on July 21, concluding that the allegation of dereliction of duty was substantiated.
Two Officials Removed
Action followed in two stages.
The first removal was of the centre’s supervising officer, known as the tag officer — Assistant Primary Education Officer Firozul Alam — who was relieved of duty after the investigation report.
Monday’s announcement extended that accountability upward, to the centre secretary and principal himself. According to the board chairman, the institution’s vice-principal, Shahidul Islam, has now been given charge of the responsibilities.
The Wider Picture
This year’s HSC exam season has already been marked by an unusual level of scrutiny regarding the exams, from errors in printed questions to disputes over their content. Education bodies have responded with visible administrative action rather than low-key management: investigations were completed within days, and officials were dismissed when negligence was found.
For candidates, the good news in this particular case is that the error was corrected on the day of the exam, they were provided with the correct paper, and they were given extra time. The question that remains, as always in these cases, is how a sealed packet of questions from the previous year ended up in the exam hall—a matter that falls squarely within the education bodies’ own distribution chain.
Rising Barta will report any further action arising from the Dinajpur board’s review.
