Around 20.48 percent of the students, numbering 30,651, who appeared in the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations under Dinajpur Education Board two years ago will not appear in the Higher School Certificate (HSC) examinations that start today, according to statistics of the board.

In 2016, 1,49,592 students of 2,569 schools in eight districts under the board filled the forms for appearing in the SSC examinations. 

This year, 1,18,941 students of 196 colleges will sit for the HSC examinations starting today. Of them, 61,803 are boys and 57,138 are girls.

Dinajpur Education Board's Examination Controller Toaffazzur Rahman said the reason for not appearing in the examinations is mostly lack of money for boys and underage marriage for girls.