SSC exams pass rate takes hit for new evaluation system

The success rate in Secondary School Certificate and equivalent examinations has dropped to 80.35 percent - the lowest in seven years.

Officials have blamed a new method to examine the answer scripts for the drop in number of successful candidates.

The number of students securing full score or GPA 5 has also dropped by 5,000 to 104,761.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid has said the results might be surprising to others, but he had anticipated it.

After announcing the 88.7 percent success rate last year, he had expressed hope that the pass rate would rise.

He has been strongly refuting allegations that the standard of education is not rising along with pass rate.

But the minister has admitted that there had been negligence on the part of examiners and faults in the evaluation method.

The 'proper' evaluation method has led to the drop in pass rate this time, he said.

"We anticipated it, but it might be surprising to others. But the new method is a progress," he said after handing copies of the results to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday.

"The pass rate is less this year. One might wonder why that's the case. The prime minister had instructed us to make sure that the answer scripts are evaluated properly," said Nahid.

What he said is that the difference between scores was more in the past because the examiners cared less to check the answer scripts, hurting scores of some students while some others got higher scores than they deserved.

Inter-Education Board Coordination Subcommittee chief Mahbubur Rahman said uniformity was maintained in checking the scripts this time following a three-year research. Mahbubur also heads the Bangladesh Examination Development Unit (BEDU).  

The new method of evaluation has drawn mixed reaction.

Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE) Executive Director Rasheda K Chowdhury has said the policymakers in the education sector had long been speaking about reforming the method of evaluating answer scripts and now it has been done late.

Hossain Zillur Rahman, a former education adviser to a caretaker government, has criticised the new method, saying that the bureaucratisation of education has reached its final level through the adaptation of the new system.

The results

>> Theoretical exams were held between Feb 2 and Mar 2, while the practical exams ran from Mar 4 to Mar 11.

>> 1,781,962 students took the secondary and equivalent exams under the 10 boards. Of them, 1,431,722 passed.

>> Girls are ahead in pass rate. A total of 910,373 boys and 871,589 girls took the exams. Of them, 727,988 boys and 704,034 girls have cleared their tests.

>> GPA-5 was achieved by 5.88 percent of students in both groups.

>> Rajshahi board tops the list with most successful candidates, with as much as 90.7 percent clearing the exams.

>> Dhaka board students are top GPA 5 scorers, with securing GPA 5.

>> Students from 28,359 institutions took part in the tests. All students of 2,266 institutions passed the exams while no student of 93 institutions could clear them.

>> Comilla board is a disaster. The pass rate in this board has dropped to 59.03 percent from last year's 84 percent.

	2017		2016
Board	Success Rate (%)	GPA 5 scorers	Success Rate (%)
Dhaka	86.39	49,481	88.67
Rajshahi	90.70	17,349	95.70
Comilla	59.03	4,450	84
Jessore	80.04	6,460	91.85
Chittagong	83.99	8,344	90.44
Barisal	77.24	2,288	79.41
Sylhet	80.26	2,663	84.77
Dinajpur	83.98	6,929	89.59
Madrasa	76.20	2,610	88.22
Vocational	78.69	4,187	83.11
Total	80.35	104,761	88.29

The new system

Education Minister Nahid explained the new method of evaluating answer scripts twice in the day - once after handing the results to the prime minister and later at a press conference.

He said it was challenge for the government to come out of the traditional method of checking the scripts.

"The teachers listed by the boards collected the scripts and later submitted those after check; that was all. There were no rules or monitoring.

The new method ensures that the chief examiners check the scripts, according to Nahid. "We have said earlier that the chief examiners did not check the scripts but just gave a report on it."

As part of the new evaluation method, the government trained chief examiners, who then trained the examiners.

"The chief examiners set a guideline for evaluating answer scripts before forwarding them to the examiners."

The change was made in line with the prime minister's advice and in consultation with academicians.

"The result of our three-year effort is that the students will be now more serious about their studies. The teachers will be sincere about teaching and grading answer scripts. Now we will get the real picture."

Education ministry officials said the government issued instructions on evaluation of answer scripts on Jan 31.

The BEDU later made and sent to the teachers a six-page instruction in line with the government order.

Other factors

The results are at a seven-year low this time, but the average has not dropped below 80 percent.

The picture, however, is worst in Comilla. The students in the board posted 59.03 percent success rate, which was 84 percent last year.

The officials of the board have blamed the poor grades in five humanities, arts and business administration subjects along with English and mathematics.

They have also pointed to the multiple choice question section being trimmed down with along with stricter examination of answer scripts.

Out of the 41 percent failed students in this board, 37 percent were from humanities and arts and business administration streams.

Fourteen percent students failed in English and 19 percent in mathematics in the board.

The authorities allocated 40 marks for MCQ and 60 for creative question section out of 100 until 2016.

The MCQ section was cut to 30 marks this year. The 10 marks were added to the creative question section.

A Dhaka board official said the students got less opportunity to get marks by filling MCQ sheets by guessing this time.

Will there be qualitative changes?

CAMPE Executive Director Rasheda said the people in the education sector had long been 'trying to correct the flaws' in the evaluation system to raise the standard.

"BEDU showed huge differences between marks given by different teachers on a same answer script. The students who wrote the genuine answer were harmed for this. This was the first step to remove this inequality," she said.

In her view, the results changed to 'some extent' this year due to the new system.

"This process needed to be introduced a long time ago. The question over awarding students pass grades largely leading to their failure to enrol at a good higher educational institution came to the fore time and again.

"The exam system and curriculum must be reformed in order to raise the standard of education. And now these are being done," she said. 

She also says the new system has proved that there had been flaws in the old one.

Rasheda doesn't think that the cut in MCQ section affected the 'results'.

"The students used to read guide books and go to private coaching centres. Now they are compelled to write the answers on their own," she said.

According to her, more students in rural areas than in towns and cities failed in English and mathematics.

"Do the rural areas have good teachers for these subjects? The lack of skilled teachers is a big challenge at the secondary level," she said.

Former caretaker government adviser Hossain Zillur has questioned the effectiveness of the new system in raising the standard of education.

He was critical of the authorities for question paper being leaked time and again and said, "We'll have to check why the pas rate has dropped. It's not that the students lost their merit suddenly."

BEDU chief Mahbubur said the evaluation is important because the government wants to bring a qualitative change to education.

"The answer scripts were checked in a uniform evaluation system. There was no scope of giving marks randomly...the quality evaluation will continue."

He also said he was not too worried about the pass percentages. "More new measures will be taken. Answer scripts of all public exams will be evaluated in the new system."