Don't worry too much about GPA-5, says Dipu Moni

Education Minister Dipu Moni has urged everyone to assist the government in ensuring the students nurture their merit rather than celebrating GPA-5 in public exams.

She also hoped the results of Junior School Certificate exams will be given on a scale of GPA-4 instead of GPA-5. The pass rate in JSC-JDC exam is 87.9 percent this year with 78,429 students bagging GPA-5.

The education minister accompanied by Deputy Education Minister Mohibul Hassan Chowdhoury shared the JSC-JDC exam results at a media briefing at in the Secretariat on Tuesday.

"I believe it is better for our students and the education system that we don't talk too much about the GPA-5. Our enthusiasm over GPA-5 is depriving our children, our students, of happiness.”

"They live under extreme pressure from their families and face peer pressure as well. GPA-5 can't be the only goal in life.”

"In fact, we should not think about GPA-5 at all. We should ponder on the issue if the students are learning with fun and are able to tap their potential," the minister said.

"We brought some subjects under regular evaluation. Earlier, it was said that the students never did the task in regular evaluation but the numbers were added automatically. Now there is no such scope," said Dipu Moni on the issue of decreasing the number of subjects in public exams.

"The new system allows the students to do each task every day while the teachers give input digitally. There's no scope to make mistakes,” said the education minister.

The government is trying to bring a qualitative change to the education system and improve the standards, said Dipu Moni. "We have to change our mindset and decide which issue to focus on.”

EVALUATION UNDER GPA-4

The decision to evaluate eighth graders in JSC-JDC exams on a scale of GPA-4 instead of GPA-5 is likely to be implemented in 2020.

"We thought about implementing the decision this year but later realised that it would be done in a hurry unnecessarily. We'll evaluate the entire issue and implement it next year,” she said.

"We're also working to follow the prime minister's directive to find a way to evaluate the students in year-end exams without the grading system.”