SSC, EQUIVALENT EXAMS Pass rate falls to 9-year low

The combined pass rate in Secondary School Certificate and equivalent examinations in 2018 fell to nine-year low, shows the results published on Sunday.
The success rate in SSC exam under eight general education boards this year fell to eight-year low, SSC vocational exam under technical education board to nine-year low while Dakhil exam under madrassah education board to 11-year low.
The results also show that the number of institutions with 100 per cent pass rate fell to 1,574 from 2,266 of the past year. No students passed from 109 educational
institutions this year, up by 16 as it was 93 in 2017.
The number of students securing the highest grade point average 5, however, increased in comparison to that of 2017.
Students of general, madrassah and technical streams performed poorly this year pushing down the pass rate 2.58 percentage points from that of the previous year.
In SSC exams under eight education boards, pass rate slid by 1.58 percentage points, in Dakhil exams under madrassah board by 5.31 percentage points and in SSC vocational exam under technical education board by 6.73 percentage points in comparison with the results in 2017.
Education minister Nurul Islam Nahid has blamed new script evaluation system for the decline in the pass rate.
Board chairmen and officials, however, observed that beside the new script evaluation system, poor performances of Sylhet, technical and madrassah education boards and bad scores in English and mathematics affected the results.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina, after receiving the results from Nurul Islam Nahid, congratulated the successful students.
While talking to the students and officials of Bandarban and Barisal through video conference, Hasina said her government had a plan to build more residential schools in remote areas of the country and Chittagong Hill Tracts. 
‘Despite substantial improvement in overall communications across the country, remote areas need more residential schools to make easy for the students to pursue their studies,’ she said. 
The prime minister urged the officials to introduce midday meal in all schools.
At a briefing at the Ministry of Education, Nahid said that this year 15,76,104 of the 20,26,574 examinees passed the SSC and equivalent examinations.
The combined pass rate stood at 77.77 per cent, a 2.58 percentage-point decrease from 80.35 in 2017. 
Combined pass rate was 79.98 per cent in 2010, 82.31 per cent in 2011, 86.37 per cent in 2012, 89.03 per cent in 2013, 91.34 per cent in 2014, 87.04 per cent in 2015, and 88.29 per cent in 2016.
According to the results, 1,10,639 students achieved GPA 5 this year, an increase by 5,868 from 1,04,761 in 2017.
For the third year in a row, girls did better than boys in pass rate while boys did better than girls in securing GPA 5.
The pass rate for girls was 78.85 per cent and for boys 76.71 per cent while 55,701 boys and 54,928 girls secured GPA 5.
An education ministry joint secretary pointed out that poor performance of technical, madrassah and Sylhet education boards badly affected the combined results.
This year, the pass rate in the Sylhet board stood at 70.42 per cent almost 10 percentage point decrease from 80.26 per cent in 2017. 
Similarly, this year the pass rate in technical board stood at 71.96 per cent, a 6.73 percentage point’s decrease from 78.69 per cent in last year and in madrassah education board pass rate stood at 70.89 per cent, a 5.31 percentage point drop from 76.20 per cent in 2017.
In 2008, 82.06 per cent madrassah students passed the dakhil exams. 
In 2010, 82.72 per cent technical students passed the SSC vocational exams.
Sylhet board chairman Abdul Quddus said that their students performed poorly in mathematics this year which affected their results.
Madrassah education board chairman AKM Saif Ullah said that their students performed poorly in mathematics, computer studies and agriculture studies subjects this year which affected their results. 
Nahid said that they would analyse the reason of poor performance of the boards.
In the SSC exam under eight general education boards, 79.40 per cent of 16.24 lakh general students passed the exam, which was also an eight-year low for general boards. 
In 2011, 82.16 per cent general students passed the SSC exams.
This year, 1,02,845 students secured GPA 5 in SSC exam. The number was 97,964 in 2017.
This year, the success rate was 93.07 per cent for science, 80.91 per cent for business studies and 69.00 per cent for humanities group.
The highest pass rate was 86.07 per cent in Rajshahi board and lowest was 70.40 per cent in Sylhet board.
The pass rate was 81.48 per cent in Dhaka, 80.40 per cent in Comilla, 76.64 per cent in Jessore, 75.50 per cent in Chittagong, 77.11 per cent in Barisal, and 77.62 per cent in Dinajpur board.
Some board officials and teachers said that students’ poor performance in English and mathematics was responsible for the low pass rate.
In Sylhet board 76.61 per cent students passed mathematics this year while 91.19 per cent passed the subject in 2017 and 90 per cent student passed English against 95 in past year.
In Danjpur 85 per cent student passed mathematics this year against 91 in last year, in Jessore 86 per cent students passed mathematics this year against 90 per cent in 2017.
The written exams were held from February 1 to February 25 while practical exams between February 26 and March 4.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net