Educationists say ensuring quality education should be in the focus now and the government agrees.
Education Minister Dipu Moni sees some “positive sides” of the results released on Tuesday. The government is trying to bring a qualitative change to the education system and improve the standards, she said.
The pass rate in JSC-JDC exam is 87.9 percent this year with 78,429 students bagging GPA-5.
The pass rates in Primary Education Completion and Ebtedayee examinations have declined to 95.5 percent and 95.96 percent respectively - slight falls blamed on changes in the evaluation method.
State Minister for Primary and Mass Education Zakir Hossain presented summaries of the results to Hasina.
The prime minister congratulated the students on their success. “We want to serve modern technology-based education. Our goal is to have such an education system that will enable our children to keep pace with the era,” she said.
Dipu Moni urged everyone to assist the government in ensuring the students nurture their merit rather than celebrating GPA-5, the maximum grade point, in public exams.
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, she noted.
Educationists have for years also pointed to the competition the students are facing in class five. Many have called for scrapping the PEC and Ebtedayee exams altogether.
“We are looking for ways to ease the exams so that there can be no anxiety,” he said.
Rasheda K Choudhury, executive director of Campaign for Popular Education, said Bangladesh has made progress in pass rates, but now it was time the government worked for improving standards of education.
She also called for more investment in education and a legislation to ensure quality education.
“Steps must be taken to put an end to corruption in the education sector. The entire budget allocation for education must be used for the sector,” he said.