The results of this year's Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and equivalent examinations have presented the nation with a disturbing picture of secondary education. The combined pass rate stood at 62.25 per cent against last year's 68.45 per cent, marking a fall by 6.2 percentage points. Notably, the number of GPA-5 achievers has also declined for the fourth year in a row. For those who failed, it is not just one year lost from their educational career. Especially for students from low-income families, failure means their guardians have to bear another year's expenses on tuition, books, transport and other necessities. What is, however, reassuring is that girls again outperformed boys. While 66.68 per cent of girls passed, the pass rate for boys was 57.86 per cent. Girls also led in GPA-5 scores against boys by a considerable margin.
Education Minister ANM Ehsanul Hoque Milon sought to explain the lower pass rate in this year's SSC exams by saying that students got marks according to their actual performance and marks were not awarded freely. No doubt, an examination should measure what students have actually learnt rather than manufacture an artificially high success rate through lenient marking. If stricter assessment has brought the results closer to the real state of learning, that should be welcomed. But the explanation tells only one side of the story. The basic question remains: why did so many students fail in the first place? Subject-wise results provide some clues. English pass rates were below 75 per cent in seven of the nine general boards, while Mymensingh recorded more than 66 per cent pass in English and over 69 per cent in mathematics. Worse still, the humanities group recorded a pass rate of just below 49 per cent. Clearly, poor performance in English, mathematics and humanities points to serious learning deficiencies that stricter marking alone cannot explain away.
Equally revealing is the wide variation among boards, regions and institutions. As many as 312 educational institutions reported zero pass this year, which is more than double of what was last year's record. Similarly, close to 33 per cent
fewer institutions achieved a cent per cent pass rate in comparison to last year's record. Chattogram Board, for instance, recorded a five-year-low pass rate. True, the education of this batch was disrupted by the political upheaval of 2024-25 and floods. But that cannot explain everything. What about the teachers' performance? Were there enough qualified English and mathematics teachers? Were classes held regularly and weaker students given remedial support? Then, why did some schools saw every examinee failing, while others under the same system performed reasonably well? These are questions the education authorities cannot sidestep.
In the circumstances, the education ministry would do well to treat this year's results as a diagnostic report on secondary education, not merely defend the reduced pass rate as an outcome of honest marking. Each of the 312 zero-pass institutions should undergo a school-by-school review covering teacher vacancies, classroom teaching and infrastructure. Similar scrutiny should focus on the worst-performing boards, districts and subject groups. Remedial programmes in English and mathematics and support for humanities students are also called for. Teachers, too, must be held accountable. Where an entire class or school performs miserably, responsibility cannot rest on students alone. At the same time, unsuccessful students from poor families should receive support so that failure in one examination does not drive them out of education. In fine, honest marking is necessary, but equally necessary is honest scrutiny of teaching. The real task before the authorities is to find out why so many students failed and fix the schools and classrooms that failed them.
