HSC results
It is clear that
there is a dearth of properly trained teachers of English in many institutions
The pass percentage of this years Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and equivalent exams has fallen by quite a margin compared to previous years. The number of GPA-5 achievers has also showed a downward trend. According to many, underperformance of students is due to a new and revised evaluation method that focused on standardization of marking of answer scripts and doing away with the discrepancy in marks given under the old system. Besides, the relatively new MCQs (multiple choice questions) have also put some examinees used to the previous question paper format to precarious positions.
Fair evaluation of a students performance is good. But appallingly poor performance of scores of examinees of some education boards is a cause for concern. The parents and guardians of students who could not pass will have to bear the brunt of the failure. The examinees of Comilla Board have performed dismally with a pass rate of only 49.52 percent. The high failure rate has been attributed to students failure in English subject to get pass marks.
The reasons behind failure of a huge number of students in English should be found out. It is clear that there is a dearth of properly trained teachers of English in many institutions under these boards. In this case the system is to blame, not the students. We cannot say that the quality of education is improving in the country. The quality matters, and quantity of anything of poor quality often turns out to be a burden and unproductive. However, the students who have scored fairly well, that is, those students who have got a score of GPA-3.5 and above, should get a chance of obtaining education from the universities of the country. But as the number of seats in the public universities is limited, a large number of students will go to poor quality private universities for education spending large sums of money.
Those who do not have enough money, they will have to give up their hope or end up getting admitted to colleges affiliated to the National University. But if the country had at least one public university in each district, the poor but meritorious students of the relevant district could hope for winning a seat in that university, as one hardly expects a Barguna student would go to Thakurgaon to vie for a seat. The government has time and again told us that it would establish one public university in each district. But we have not seen sufficient seriousness in this regard.
