Dhaka: Hundreds of students staged demonstrations in Gazipur and Sylhet districts on Sunday protesting the inclusion of creative question method in another subject in the HSC examination.

The education ministry has issued a circular recently to hold the HSC examination with seven creative pattern questions instead of six.

In Gazipur, students of different colleges, including Gazipur City College, MEH Arif College and Commerce College, gathered at Chourasta intersection in the city at about 11:00am and blocked Dhaka-Mymensingh and Dhaka-Tangail highways, said witnesses.

As a result, the vehicular movement on the busy highways remained halted for several hours, creating an eight-km tailback on the two highways each.

The agitating students also vandalised several vehicles as one of the agitators was injured during the demonstration.

The traffic returned to normalcy at about 1:00pm after Gazipur additional police super Sheikh Russell rushed in and brought the situation under control.

The students said the creative question systems for HSC examination were on six subjects and the examination duration was two hours and 10 minutes but recently, the ministry added another creative pattern question and allowed two hours and 20 minutes for the examination.

In Sylhet, students of different colleges formed a human chain at the Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka in the afternoon.

They demanded cancellation of the decision, threatening to go on a tougher movement if their demand is not met immediately.