Officials take measures to ensure smooth conduct of entrance exams in Maungtaw

February 19, 2018

Hein Htet Zaw, Thura Zaw

Students across Myanmar will take the university entrance examinations at their respective centres in their regions from 7 March. The news team asked education officials and security personnel in Maungtaw District about the steps they have taken to ensure students can take the examinations without any complications.

U Khin Aung (Township Education Officer, Temporary Head of District Education)

There are three examination centres in Maungtaw Township this year. Two are in B.E.H.S No (1), which is for ethnic students, and one is in B.E.H.S No (2), which is for Bengali students. Some 878 students will take the examinations this year, but there may be more, because some apply directly to the examination board, so we do not have their records.

Schools were closed following the 25 August attacks, but city schools were reopened 20 days later on 19 September, and additional time was given to recover the lost days.

We have tried to make sure that students and their homeroom teachers do not get appointed to the same examination centre, so Maungtaw and Buthidaung swapped half their faculty. This means that half the teachers waiting at examination centres will be from Buthidaung, and the other half will be from Maungtaw at each examination centre in both townships.

We have sent requests to the Border Security Police Force, District Police Force and Township Police Force for added security during the examination period.

Police Major Thant Zaw Oo (Head of Maungtaw Police Station)

We are deploying police officers from our station and officers from Taungpyo Police Station too. We will provide security details during the transport of the examination question papers and the answer papers, as well. We will request the community to be mindful of making too much noise during the examination period, and we will have police patrolling the neighbourhoods too.

We will be under close supervision of the Head District Police Force and we are also pairing with the Fire Service Department and other departments to take preventive measures for possible problems.

Maungtaw Township’s Education office said the township’s entrance examination success percentage was 16.12 in 2016, but fell to 9.9 last year.

Ref; The Global New Light of Myanmar