Two text messages appeared on my phone on Thursday evening as I came out of cinema after watching Tan Siyou’s Amoeba, a Singaporean film about teenage girls suffocating within an extremely controlled system. The first text came with a news link: could I write about the alarming drop in the number of HSC candidates this year? The other came from the director of my admissions office, sharing the same news link, without any additional message. The hint was obvious: he might struggle to meet his admission target due to this absenteeism.
The news reports around 550,000 students who completed registration in Class XI but did not submit the form for the HSC and equivalent examinations this year. Among those who did submit the form, 24,784 candidates were absent on the first day of the exams. In other words, more than one in three expected candidates has vanished (or should I say ghosted?) before reaching the exam hall. The higher secondary certification is a terminal exam through which students enter higher education. The newspapers have offered some possible reasons: many of these students may have failed the selection test at the end of Class XII, the eligibility requirement for the public examination. Many of them might have realised that the strict examination invigilation policy would make it difficult for them to pass and decided to join the workforce instead. Some of these students may have migrated or be preparing to migrate. Some girls are perhaps married off. Some families could not afford the rising cost of education.
Perhaps all these reasons are valid. But put together, they reveal something sinister: the HSC exam, instead of bridging the secondary and the tertiary, has become a checkpoint.
Many colleges don’t allow students who fail two or more subjects in internal examinations prior to the final HSC exams. If weak students sit for the public examination, they may fail and bring disrepute to their respective institutions. Students become expendable through statistical housekeeping. The test is set as a trapdoor to quietly remove the so-called weak students from the final count, instead of using the test as a diagnostic process to determine where emergency supports are needed.
While we should avoid an “easy pass” culture that masks learning gaps, we must not use academic weakness as a reason to shut the door on students. If a student reaches Class XII lacking exam competency, we must ask what the colleges did to identify and address these weaknesses.
The other side of the story involves the debate over education cost. The whispers are getting louder: education is a bad investment. Families experience education as a recurring expenditure needing out-of-school coaching, guidebooks, transport, food, uniforms, exam fees, internet connectivity, and private tuition. Even public education that looks affordable on paper is expensive with all its ancillary charges. For a middle-class family, the cost hurts. For a poor family, it decides the destiny of their wards. Sending children to the workplace is more practical than sending them to further education which may or may not yield a decent job. Marrying off a daughter seems a safer option given the household expectations and social pressure. It would be, however, wrong to assume that poor families don’t value education. But when the education cost rises and the reward becomes uncertain, the value proposition may change for many of them.
No wonder many of these young individuals chase the remittance dream. The labour market has its own syllabus: earn now, learn later, if ever. Given the heavy unemployment rate, the pull is severe. The tragedy is that without HSC-level education and recognised skills, many of them entering low-wage work at home or abroad will never have the bargaining power for upward mobility or career velocity. An HSC dropout may enter the production line of a factory. But without literacy, numeracy, English skills, digital confidence, and technical reasoning, that worker is likely to remain trapped at the bottom.
An HSC dropout may join the agricultural field. But the future of agriculture demands mechanisation, climate-smart farming, cold chain logistics, storage, processing, market data, and supply chain coordination. Without proper schooling, it will be difficult to integrate these young ones. The same goes for the ICT sector, which requires more than browsing smartphones. We need the educational background for these students to pursue coding, freelancing, digital services, design, data, and communication. Hence, the HSC completion is about more than a certificate. The disappearance of these students means that there will be fewer supervisors, nurses, technicians, coders, entrepreneurs, teachers, and informed citizens in the future.
It is easy to blame social media addiction, peer pressure, substance abuse, and other social ills. Students dropped out because we as a society failed to provide the conditions for their transition from one phase to another. They become the ghost, neither present nor absent. Resource-constrained families, weak classrooms, an exploitative job market, and a stigma-ridden marriage “market” have all potentially let these students down. The absence of HSC candidates is our collective failure. The solution lies in a pragmatic rescue mission with clear action plans.
First, we need a proper monitoring system for all students. Soon after the SSC completion, there should be provisions for technical certification, apprenticeship, or other recognised pathways. All educational institutions must have student support services to follow up on the progress of each student.
Second, selection tests must be transparent. Colleges should not be allowed to use them simply to protect pass rates. Institutions must document what support was provided before excluding the failed students from the final exam.
Third, we need to develop alternatives to the conventional higher secondary routes. The Open University model of evening classes, open schooling, modular exams, bridge courses, fee waivers, and work-compatible learning can be devised to ensure high school completion. We should not educationally bury a student just because they missed the HSC exam.
Fourth, we need short, stackable, respected credentials in the form of vocational diplomas. We need real skills linked to real jobs. Many universities in Pakistan are using micro-credentials to help school dropouts and returning students reintegrate into the education system.
Fifth, the curriculum board can work with the industry to design earn-while-you-learn apprenticeship programmes. Industry leaders in RMG and textile, ICT firms, agro-processors, logistics companies, and manufacturers can co-finance the training. Our students are our collective responsibility. To ensure a just transition, we cannot allow more than 550,000 students to be left behind.
At the end of Amoeba, three girls aligned with the country’s development mantra gaze at the sky, while the girl with a different perspective wanders on another floor. Not all transitions can be equal. But we can at least do our part to make sure that these students receive our support when needed.
Dr Shamsad Mortuza is vice-chancellor at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB).
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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