Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and its equivalent Alim and Business Management (BM) examinations begin tomorrow with 7,79,441 examinees sitting in 2,074 centres across the country.

This year the number of examinees is around43,068 more thanlastyear's.

Some4,24,823 male and3,54,618 female students of 7,288 educational institutions will appear under 10 education boards including madrasa and technical boards.

The exams will also be held in five overseas centres — Jeddah, Riyadh, Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Tripoli — for 191 candidates.

Announcing the figures at a pre-examination press briefing at the secretariat yesterday, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said necessary measures were taken to ensure a peaceful environment and prevent cheating at examination centres.

Referring to today's hartal called by Islami Oikya Jote, he said there was no need of such unnecessary hartal at this time and hoped that the jote would consider the inconvenience of examinees.

Bangla First Paper will be held tomorrow and the second exam, Bangla Second Paper, will be held on April 7.

Around 18.19 percent of the total students who registered as regular students in 2009-2010 session after passing SSC or equivalent exams failed to fill in HSC and equivalent exam forms.

Dhaka Education Board Chairman Prof Fahima Khatun said some 1,34,242 students will not be able to take the examination this year. However, this rate of such students refraining from taking exam, also considered as drop out, is slightly low this year. Last year it was 18.24 while 19.92 percent in2009.

The education minister said the government took special measures for students living in Libya. Of the 14 students supposed to take exams there, five returned to Bangladesh and will be taking the exam in Dhaka College centres. Question papers were already sent to Libya for the remaining eight students, he added.

Like in Junior Certificate Examination, disabled students will get 15 minutes extra time in the examination, he said. Nahid urged political leaders and local representatives not to enter examination centres without reason.

Like previous years, Dhaka board has the highest number of examinees in 2011 with 2,09,117, while the lowest is Sylhet board with30,965.

Around 6,29,619 lakh students will take the exam under eight general education boards; 76,957 students will take Alim exam under Madrasa Board; and 68,961 students will take BM exam under Technical Board.

Besides, 3,904 students of Diploma in Business Studies (DIBS) will sit under Dhaka Board.