Nearly 90,000 more students have failed this year's Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and equivalent exams compared with last year.

A total of 690,608 candidates failed this year, up from 600,660 in 2025.

Of the 1.83 million students who sat the exams this year, 1.14 million passed, as per a bdnews24.com report.

Last year, 1.3 million of the 1.9 million candidates who appeared cleared the exams.

Results were published on Monday, with Education Minister ANM Ehsanul Hoque Milon presenting detailed figures at a press conference at the Secretariat afterwards.

Under the nine general education boards, out of 1.4 million candidates, 899,610 passed, and 504,929 failed the SSC exam this year.

Of the 296,982 students who sat the exams under the Bangladesh Madrasah Education Board, 164,797 passed, and 132,185 failed the Dakhil exams.

In the Bangladesh Technical Education Board's SSC and Dakhil vocational exams, 53,494 students failed of the 127,964 who took the exams, with 74,470 passing.

This year's SSC and equivalent exams ran from Apr 21 to May 20, followed by practical exams, while Dakhil and Vocational written exams concluded on May 24.

The overall pass rate stood at 62.25 per cent this year, the lowest in 19 years. That marks a 6.2 percentage point fall in the pass rate from 2025, when 68.45 per cent of candidates passed and 139,032 secured GPA-5.

The country recorded its highest-ever SSC pass rate in 2021, at 93.6 per cent.

This year's average pass rate is the lowest since 2007, when 57.37 per cent of candidates passed.

Among successful candidates, 116,676 secured a GPA-5, or 10.24 per cent of all who passed. The total dropped by 22,356 from last year's tally.