Highliights:

• Three employees suspended over alleged SSC result manipulation.
• Physics marks showed zero on scripts, 45 digitally.
• Investigation found discrepancies across multiple answer scripts and records.
• Board investigation continues despite its seven-day deadline passing.
• Employees’ long tenure raises concerns about sensitive-result security.
• Previous investigations uncovered repeated result manipulation allegations at Chittagong Board.

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Repeated allegations of result manipulation at the Chittagong Education Board have raised questions over safeguards in its sensitive result-preparation work, with three temporary computer-section employees suspended of their duties over an alleged attempt to alter an SSC result.

The latest case involves a student whose marks published in the 2026 SSC results were higher than those recorded on the answer scripts. In one striking discrepancy, the student received zero in physics on the answer script, while the computer system showed 45 marks.

The three – Rashedul Islam Nasir and Imtiaz Ahmed Chowdhury of the scanning section and Md Rayhan of the solving section – came under suspicion during a re-scrutiny on 25 August.

Mohammad Abdul Mannan, deputy controller of examinations (secondary) at the board, told TBS that the student had applied for re-scrutiny of physics, higher mathematics and Bangladesh and Global Studies, during which an examiner detected the initial discrepancy. 

Further verification found discrepancies between marks on the student’s other answer scripts and data stored at the computer centre.

Board chairman Professor Abdullah Al Mamun Chowdhury formed a three-member investigation committee on 25 August and asked it to submit its report within seven working days. 

The deadline has passed, but Professor Mohammad Zahirul Haque Swapan, board secretary and convener of the committee, said the investigation is still underway.

Board officials, on condition of anonymity, said system data, scanning-machine records and employees’ work schedules were analysed to identify personnel assigned to the relevant machines that day. Buet experts were also consulted on the technical aspects.

All three denied involvement. Imtiaz said scanning workers only scan answer scripts and prepare bundles, while Nasir said it was impossible to identify and manipulate a particular student’s OMR from the scanning machine. Rayhan said a script could not be separately identified or manipulated during sorting, scanning or solving.

Long tenure in sensitive work

Two of the three employees have worked in the computer section since 2014, while Imtiaz joined in 2022. The two who joined in 2014 have therefore remained in sensitive result-preparation work for more than a decade, while the third has worked there for about four years.

This is despite a practice followed by other education boards of transferring personnel involved in result preparation every six months to a year because of the sensitivity of the work.

As the board’s senior system analyst post is vacant, Bikas Chandra Mallick, senior system analyst at the Cumilla Education Board, has been assisting with result preparation.

He told TBS, “Employees in the scanning or solving sections may have opportunities to commit fraud if the system lacks adequate security measures. If a system does not have password protection and access controls over who can edit data, as with personal email, its vulnerabilities can be exploited to alter data or commit fraud.”

Board officials said a syndicate may have developed around result manipulation, although the employees have denied the allegations of any such involvement.

The computer section has 18 employees, of whom only chief programmer and an assistant programmer are permanent. The other 16 are daily-wage workers, while seven have worked in the section since 2010.

Not the first allegation

During last year’s SSC re-scrutiny, 34 scripts were found to have higher marks entered in the system than those on the scripts. An investigation committee submitted recommendations to the ministry, but their contents were not disclosed.

In 2024, the board cancelled the results of 17 students who had been awarded GPA-5 despite not sitting the SSC examination. 

In the 2023 HSC, a Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education investigation found that marks had been increased in 11 papers in the result of former board secretary Narayan Chandra Nath’s son, Nakshatra Debnath. His result was cancelled, while disciplinary and criminal action was ordered against Narayan, who was later made an OSD.

A case was filed against four people, including Narayan and former chairman Mustafa Kamrul Akhter. A charge sheet has been submitted against all four, and the case is awaiting further court proceedings.

Attempts to contact board chairman Abdullah Al Mamun Chowdhury over the allegations were unsuccessful.