This year, the SSC and equivalent examinations in the country started on 15 February. The student’s written tests were completed by 12 March while the practical examinations began on 13 March, and continued till 20 March. The result came out on 12 May, which means it has come out within less than two months.

Like the previous years, the Prime Minister declared the results according to the exceptional tradition of our country. In other countries, such a tradition is rare. In Bangladesh, the PM does it and offers necessary advice to the students, teachers and guardians.

The fact that female students are making good results in recent years makes her happy. So, she appreciates the performances of the girls. However, she also wants to learn the case of boys.

Why is the number of boys in the public examination decreasing and why are they lagging behind girls? She advised the guardians, teachers and others concerned not to show any kind of negative attitude towards those who could not come out successful. We really appreciate the Prime Minister’s attitude.

This year, the average pass rate is 83.04 per cent and last year it was 80.39. So, it is slightly better than last year. Well, the boys’ pass rate is 81.57% while girls’ is 84.47%.

Among all the students passed this year, 9 lac 99 thousand and 364 students were boys while 10 lac 38 thousand and 786 students were girls. But, why is the number of girls greater than that of boys among the passing students? Hence, let us retrospect for a while looking for causes that have actually led to this surprising situation.

The highest pass percentage is seen in Jashore Board, which is 92.32; and the lowest is in Sylhet, which is 73.35. Interestingly, the board which obtains the lowest position in one year in pass percentage achieves the highest position just the next year. The mystery or magic of this difference remains unknown to us and this case repeats every year. We urge the authorities concerned to find out the causes of this difference to identify through genuine research.

Another thing we observe every year is that not a single student passes from some institutions! This number was 48 last year and this year it is 51 even though all these intuitions have necessary infrastructures. What remedial steps have the authorities concerned taken to change this situation?

We come to learn some causes of failure of these schools and madrasa because of active roles of education journalists.  The pass rate of Technical Education Board is 81.38%, though we actually expect practical works from the students of these institutions. So, these results do not tell us the whole story. Moreover, our emphasis should be more and more on technical education.

Madrasa Education Boar has secured 79.66% of pass rate with 14 thousand and 206 students holding GPA-5. In previous years, we used to see the highest pass percentage in madrasas without any reasonable cause.

These results only tell us how much students can write, either this way or that way on the examination scripts. However, only writing test cannot ascertain the holistic development of the learners.

Their attitude, behaviour, active participation in class work, homework, group work, doing effective assignment and making presentation should get reflected in their overall performance. In the new curriculum, all these elements have been added but the implementation process should not frustrate us. 

There should be a ranking process of the educational institutions giving emphasis on how these effective means of education are being implemented and how far students are accruing benefits from these.

English and Mathematics play a significant role in enhancing the individual, institutional and board wise results. When the performance of these two subjects gets higher, the results also become higher accordingly. This year we have not yet learnt the overall situation of English subject. However, some newspapers have reported that in Mathematics students did not do well.

Boards must develop such type of mechanism that will tell the status of English and Mathematics automatically when results are published. Now, what is the role of education boards in this situation? Just making students fill in forms, conducting exams and publishing results? No, the boards should play a greater role by enhancing the quality of education.

They should conduct quality sessions for teachers, head teachers, principals and education administrators to exchange views and ideas among them. They should conduct survey and research, try to enhance the capacity of teachers and develop better questions which are creative and up to the mark of global standard. Even controversy over examining scripts and awarding hybrid marks often surfaces while the real assessment of the student’s abilities remains elusive. The boards must pay head to these issues as well and make greater efforts to improve the situation.
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The writer is the President, English Teachers’ Association of Bangladesh (ETAB) Email: [email protected]