Published : 28 Sep 2026, 02:57 PM
Updated : 28 Sep 2026, 02:57 PM
Education Minister ANM Ehsanul Hoque Milon has said teachers who initially evaluated this year’s Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exam scripts will be held accountable after re-evaluation saw more than 3,000 students receive GPA-5s and nearly 5,000 go from failing marks to passes.
“I cannot give you the number right now, but this has certainly been identified. It was identified immediately. We know who evaluated which script,” he said.
“We have to provide them with training and ensure accountability. There is no other way.”
Milon was responding to questions from journalists on Monday after a meeting of the National Steering Committee at the Secretariat on celebrations for World Teachers’ Day.
The government will honour 100 distinguished teachers across the country on Oct 5 to mark the day.
Each teacher will receive Tk 100,000 in cash, a crest and a certificate of honour. Prime Minister Tarique Rahman will present the awards at a ceremony at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium.
After the minister announced the programme, journalists raised questions about discrepancies in the evaluation of SSC exam scripts and asked whether action would be taken against the teachers concerned.
Milon said 1,829,485 students sat this year’s SSC exams.
Before allowing students to seek re-evaluation of their results, the government amended the Public Examinations Act of 1980, he said.
“Previously, there was no system for re-evaluating the scripts. Only the tabulation sheet — the marks added up at the top — would be checked,” the minister said.
“From my experience in 2001, after the marks were added up, if a script had been switched or something else happened, nobody would know about it. Based on that experience, we have now added a provision to the law allowing the entire script to be re-examined.”
This year, 62.25 percent of students passed the SSC and equivalent exams, the lowest pass rate in 19 years. Of the 1,829,485 candidates who sat the exams, 1,138,877 passed.
Milon said 1.286 million applications for re-evaluation were submitted — more than the total number of students who initially passed.
“From those applications, we found that the grades of 27,836 students changed, the marks of 56,259 changed, and 4,585 students went from failing to passing,” he said.
“In other words, nearly 5,000 students who had failed were found to have passed after their scripts were re-examined. That is a very large number. And the most surprising thing is that 3,079 students received GPA-5s.”
Milon said the figures raised questions about how many students may have been deprived of their correct results in previous years when full re-evaluation was not available.
“There will be some more surprises to come. Let us first identify where the other weaknesses are,” he said.
The minister said there were “weaknesses” in the way teachers had evaluated the scripts.
“I have separated these scripts. We will form a committee to examine what weaknesses there were among the examiners who evaluated them,” he said.
“We will arrange training accordingly, and you will learn later what action can be taken against those who failed to evaluate them properly.
“This is a major issue, one in which our students will continue to suffer.”
Responding to another question, Milon said the large number of students subsequently receiving GPA-5s pointed to problems in previous evaluation practices.
“If such a huge number end up getting GPA-5, you have to understand how weak our script-evaluation practices have been in the past, how much favouritism there was and how much manipulation there was,” he said.
“There are many other methods of manipulation. We will tell you about them in due course. We are working on it. As I said, there are more surprises to come on this issue.”
A journalist pointed out that students sometimes take their own lives after receiving incorrect results.
Milon replied: “I introduced this system because I learnt about that. After introducing this system, no one will take their own life [for such a reason]; their scripts will be re-examined.”
Minister Eyes Online System for Teacher Transfers
Milon was also asked why 46 primary school teachers were transferred on Sept 23 despite an announcement suspending teacher transfers.
“If a transfer file has already been processed and the transfer issued, can transfers suddenly be suspended?” he said.
“We also have to carry out transfers because appointment letters have to be issued as part of the ongoing process. Those who are attached [to different posts] have to be finally settled into their positions.”
Amid questions over alleged corruption in teacher transfers, Milon said the government plans to introduce an online transfer system in the future.
