A failing test for secondary education
The recently concluded Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and equivalent examinations have exposed serious weaknesses in Bangladesh’s secondary education system, with the overall pass rate falling to 62.25 per cent – the lowest in 19 years.
The pass rate has dropped sharply from 68.45 per cent last year, representing a decline of 6.2 percentage points in a single year. Of the 1,829,485 students who sat the examinations this year, 1,138,877 passed.
The number of students securing the highest GPA-5 grade also fell significantly. A total of 116,676 students achieved GPA-5, accounting for 10.24 per cent of successful candidates, compared with 139,032 last year – a decline of 22,356.
The latest performance contrasts sharply with the record 93.6 per cent pass rate recorded in 2021. In 2007, the pass rate stood at 57.37 per cent.
The results have also exposed disparities between different groups of students. Urban students performed better than their rural counterparts, while girls outperformed boys.
Education stakeholders have identified a range of factors behind the poor performance, including the politically motivated granting of MPO status to schools, shortages of teachers, a lack of competent headmasters, inadequate monitoring by education offices and school managing committees, parental indifference and stricter assessment practices.
The Education Minister, meanwhile, sought to underline the importance of maintaining standards in assessment, saying that while one can “sing to one’s heart’s content”, marks cannot be awarded in the same manner.
Teacher shortages are another major concern. One teacher said the school has 15 sanctioned posts but five, including the headmaster’s position, remain vacant. Some existing teachers could also leave if they qualify for the BCS service, while the school has only two science teachers.
Questions have also been raised about the effectiveness of school management. In many sub-districts, the Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) serves as president of several school managing committees, making effective monitoring of numerous institutions difficult. Some committee presidents, meanwhile, are reportedly selected on political grounds and lack relevant expertise.
Rasheda K. Chowdhury, a former adviser to the caretaker government, told The New Nation that the education system’s recovery from the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic must be examined before drawing conclusions about the poor results.
She said the reasons should not be identified through conjecture and called for an impartial or third-party investigation into teacher evaluation, the competence of mathematics and English teachers and the extent of teacher shortages.
She also highlighted the urban-rural performance gap and the better performance of girls, saying these trends require further examination. She questioned whether teachers trained in one subject were being assigned to teach others and urged authorities to begin investigations with the 312 institutions where every student failed.
According to Chowdhury, a scientific study is needed to determine whether MPO status was granted indiscriminately, whether schools have competent and properly trained teachers, and whether their performance is adequately monitored.
She also stressed the need to strengthen local-level decision-making, competence and accountability rather than relying excessively on centralised policies.
Dr Alamgir Kabir, Acting Principal of Engineering University School and College, said students’ dependence on mobile phones had increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. He said parents, alongside teachers, had a responsibility to address the problem and added that teachers should also be held accountable for negligence affecting academic performance.
The latest SSC results therefore point to a problem extending beyond examination performance. The sharp decline in pass rates, widespread institutional weaknesses and disparities between schools underline the need for a comprehensive review of teaching quality, recruitment, school management, admissions and accountability across the secondary education system.
