Rural-urban disparity in HSC results

HSC RESULTS announced Thursday revealed the big disparity in the performance level of students who appeared from rural areas as against urban colleges. The results at 74.70 percent appear to be good but questions remain about the quality of the education along with the higher rate of passing. The rural-urban disparity and overall quality of education are two factors that need to be overcome and serious efforts are needed to mitigate shortcomings in those areas.  News reports said 10.07 lakh students appeared in the HSC exams this year and 7.29 lakh passed. The combined pass percentage and the number of highest grade point average (GPA) of 5 in Higher Secondary Certificate and equivalent examinations has gone up in comparison to the past years. But acute disparity in the results is evident from the fact that most of the 862 intermediate colleges having less than 50 percent students passed out are located in rural areas. On the other hand, most of the 848 intermediate colleges with all the examinees passing out in the HSC exams are in the urban areas. Again most of the GPA-5 scorers come from urban areas and a large number of them are from the capital, Narayanganj and Gazipur districts.It proves that rural students are continuing to lag behind their urban compatriots. There many be many reasons including acute shortage of teachers and quality teaching, lack of libraries, laboratory support and such other facilities at remote villages. Rural students cannot benefit from intensive coaching and even can’t afford to pay for regular coaching that almost all students in urban areas can do. Their parents are educated and caring and spend a lot for their wards. Moreover, teachers in most prestigious colleges in the city have involvement in setting questions and their students invariable benefit from it. We must say intermediate colleges in rural areas must get more support of the government to make sure that quality teaching is taking place in them. So we must have also trained teachers. But the reality is that many teachers posted at rural colleges are not even staying at their work place. As many of them come from elite families, they have arranged a system of leave and other excuses to stay in the capital and district towns. They collect salary regularly without teaching. We must say teaching can’t go without teachers’ presence in the colleges. Students can’t make better results this way in rural colleges. So such teachers must be forced to return to their work place without enjoying impunity from official discipline. Our education system can’t produce good students this way and poor results of rural students will only cause setback to their career.