The pass rates in public examinations are increasing gradually only because the quality of education has gone up, the education minister has claimed.
Published : 13 Aug 2014, 08:06 PM
Nurul Islam Nahid made the assertion at the press briefing on the HSC results published on Wednesday.
It was an apparent response to the critics who have been saying the education quality was not improving despite the uptrend in pass rate.
He said, "We don't have any problems with the students if they can manage to achieve 100 percent pass rate."
"We cannot force anyone to pass or fail."
The success rate at this year's Higher Secondary Certificate and equivalent examinations has gone up to 78.33 percent against last year's 74.30 percent.
A total of 70,602 students have scored GPA 5 this year.
No student sits the exams to fail, the minister said.
"The education quality has improved. We have taken better education to the rural areas. Results at the institutions in rural areas are also better."
"Many question the higher pass rate but we don't take that negatively. Because no-one sends their child to educational institutions to fail."
Nahid thought the pass rate would have been higher if the students had studied better under the care of better teachers.
He said the results were totally free of bias, as there was no scope to cheat because of creative questions.
This year, 23 subjects in the HSC exams had such question papers.
"Our extra efforts have reduced the number of institutions with 100 percent fail rate. The number will go down further in future," Nahid said.
No students from 24 institutions passed this year's exams. The number was 25 last year.
Nahid, who is the education affairs secretary of the ruling Awami League, claimed the quality of education was improving each year, resulting in a higher pass rate.
The minister said all students who have cleared the HSC exams would easily get admission to higher educational institutions.