Delay in answer-scripts review, lack of mark-sheets hold-up Class IX admissions

The delay in review of answer-scripts and lack of mark-sheets in Junior School Certificate and Dakhil examinations have been held responsible for more than a month’s hold-up in admissions to Class IX. On the other hand, the absence of mark-sheets in junior-level examinations has forced school authorities to helplessly wait for the response of education boards to know the marks of the students because they cannot judge the merits of the students on the basis of a grading system. But sources in the education board said they did not have any plans to provide mark-sheets instead of grades to students, or both, at the junior level. They said there was no way but to suspend the process of admission to Class IX for at least a month every year because of the re-scrutiny of the answer scripts of students who file complaints.
Quarters involved in the process said the students were only being given results under the grading system, but it was their fundamental rights to know the marks they obtained.
Before the introduction of the grading system, the results were categorised in divisions. In this system, students securing 1000–600 marks used to be placed in the first division, those with up to 450 got the second division, and those with up to 330 landed in the third division. Marks of 750 fetched a star. The letter marks for each subject was 80.  
The Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) students were brought under the grading system in 2001 and 2003 respectively.
As per the system, A+ for the marks of 80–100, A for the marks of 70–79, A– for the marks of 60–69, B for 50–59 marks,
C for 40–49 marks, D for 33–40 marks and F for 0–32 marks. Finally, a student gets a grade points average (GPA) as per his overall performance in all subjects.  
However, the education boards have resumed giving mark-sheets to SSC and HSC students in 2016 following a High Court judgement.  Nafees Salman Khan, who passed the HSC exam as a science student of the Government Kabi Nazrul College, Dhaka, had filed the writ petition and got a judgment in his favour.
The education board authorities said they were issuing the mark-sheets of the SSC and HSC, two public exams, because of the court directive.  As the JSC and equivalent examinations were not public examinations and were not covered by the judgement, the boards were not giving mark-sheets to the individual students, they said.
“The admission process to Class IX is always delayed due to re-scrutiny of answer scripts and mark sheets,” principal of the Ideal School and College, Sahanara Begum, told The Independent yesterday. “There is a problem when the number of students seeking admission exceeds the seat capacity, as it becomes difficult to assess the merits of the students as they provide the grading points only. In this situation, we write to the education board to provide us the marks of the students who apply to our schools,” she added.
“If we get the marks from the students early, we will not have to wait for a long time to obtain the mark-sheets from the boards,” she said.
The chairman of the Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, Dhaka, Prof. Md Mahabubur Rahman, told The Independent, “We only provide mark-sheets to the SSC and HSC students as per the court’s verdict. We don’t have any plan to provide it to the students of the junior level.”
Meanwhile, a total of 26,876 students of the JSC level applied for the re-scrutiny of 60,037 answer-scripts with the Dhaka education board, a number higher than last year’s 55,000, board sources said.  This year, most of the answer-scripts sent for re-scrutiny were for the English paper (10,000), while the numbers for Bengali was 5,000, mathematics 4,000 and science 6,000.
The results of the re-scrutiny would be published on January 28, Tapan Kumar Sarkar, controller of the Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, Dhaka, told The Independent.
“Generally, it takes at least a month for the re-scrutiny because the application needs one week. Then we seek the papers from the examiners, a process that takes another week, and the scrutiny needs at least 10 days. It is hard to reduce the time for the re-scrutiny,” he added.
“We cannot allow the admission process for Class IX because if the results of the students change after re-scrutiny, he/she has every right to apply for admission to the desired schools,” he said. In such a situation, the students are denied their fundamental rights of getting mark-sheets and the school authorities have no option but to wait for the revised results, hampering students’ education.

Delay in answer-scripts review, lack of mark-sheets hold-up Class IX admissions

The delay in review of answer-scripts and lack of mark-sheets in Junior School Certificate and Dakhil examinations have been held responsible for more than a months hold-up in admissions to Class IX. On the other hand, the absence of mark-sheets in junior-level examinations has forced school authorities to helplessly wait for the response of education boards to know the marks of the students because they cannot judge the merits of the students on the basis of a grading system. But sources in the education board said they did not have any plans to provide mark-sheets instead of grades to students, or both, at the junior level. They said there was no way but to suspend the process of admission to Class IX for at least a month every year because of the re-scrutiny of the answer scripts of students who file complaints. Quarters involved in the process said the students were only being given results under the grading system, but it was their fundamental rights to know the marks they obtained. Before the introduction of the grading system, the results were categorised in divisions. In this system, students securing 1000600 marks used to be placed in the first division, those with up to 450 got the second division, and those with up to 330 landed in the third division. Marks of 750 fetched a star. The letter marks for each subject was 80. The Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) students were brought under the grading system in 2001 and 2003 respectively. As per the system, A+ for the marks of 80100, A for the marks of 7079, A for the marks of 6069, B for 5059 marks, C for 4049 marks, D for 3340 marks and F for 032 marks. Finally, a student gets a grade points average (GPA) as per his overall performance in all subjects. However, the education boards have resumed giving mark-sheets to SSC and HSC students in 2016 following a High Court judgement. Nafees Salman Khan, who passed the HSC exam as a science student of the Government Kabi Nazrul College, Dhaka, had filed the writ petition and got a judgment in his favour. The education board authorities said they were issuing the mark-sheets of the SSC and HSC, two public exams, because of the court directive. As the JSC and equivalent examinations were not public examinations and were not covered by the judgement, the boards were not giving mark-sheets to the individual students, they said. The admission process to Class IX is always delayed due to re-scrutiny of answer scripts and mark sheets, principal of the Ideal School and College, Sahanara Begum, told The Independent yesterday. There is a problem when the number of students seeking admission exceeds the seat capacity, as it becomes difficult to assess the merits of the students as they provide the grading points only. In this situation, we write to the education board to provide us the marks of the students who apply to our schools, she added. If we get the marks from the students early, we will not have to wait for a long time to obtain the mark-sheets from the boards, she said. The chairman of the Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, Dhaka, Prof. Md Mahabubur Rahman, told The Independent, We only provide mark-sheets to the SSC and HSC students as per the courts verdict. We dont have any plan to provide it to the students of the junior level. Meanwhile, a total of 26,876 students of the JSC level applied for the re-scrutiny of 60,037 answer-scripts with the Dhaka education board, a number higher than last years 55,000, board sources said. This year, most of the answer-scripts sent for re-scrutiny were for the English paper (10,000), while the numbers for Bengali was 5,000, mathematics 4,000 and science 6,000. The results of the re-scrutiny would be published on January 28, Tapan Kumar Sarkar, controller of the Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, Dhaka, told The Independent. Generally, it takes at least a month for the re-scrutiny because the application needs one week. Then we seek the papers from the examiners, a process that takes another week, and the scrutiny needs at least 10 days. It is hard to reduce the time for the re-scrutiny, he added. We cannot allow the admission process for Class IX because if the results of the students change after re-scrutiny, he/she has every right to apply for admission to the desired schools, he said. In such a situation, the students are denied their fundamental rights of getting mark-sheets and the school authorities have no option but to wait for the revised results, hampering students education.