This year’s pass rate would have been much better had more candidates not failed to clear their humanities subjects, officials said after publication of the results on Monday.
A total of 82.2 percent students have passed the SSC and similar exams under the eight general education boards, the madrasa board, and the technical education board, marking a 4.43 percentage point rise from last year.
Jashore board’s pass rate has increased to 90.88 percent by 14.24 percentage points.
Cumilla, Rajshahi, Dinajpur, and madrasa boards have also enjoyed a better success rate. Only Dhaka board suffered a decline.
But Education Minister Dipu Moni sees no problem in differences between pass rates of different boards.
“It’s nothing unusual… There has not been any lax. The students showed better performance where the pass rates soared,” she said after publishing the results.
“The pass rates in humanities affected the results on the whole as the highest number of students were from the division,” she pointed out.
About 55 percent of the over 2.1 million students who registered for this year’s SSC tests were from humanities stream.
They also made up 54.5 percent of the failed students.
The former education affairs adviser to a caretaker government, however, thinks the issue of differences between pass rates in different boards needs to be looked into.
Some institutions let a few students take the exams to show better results to continue enjoying government facilities like monthly pay order or MPO, Rasheda believes.
Sylhet board did worse than others this year because the students outside the city, especially those in the tea gardens, could not perform well, she pointed out.