Not all is well for JSC examinees
Saturday, 31 December 2011
With jubilant and happy faces splashing on the TV screens and newspapers, the general mood following the publication of results of the Junior School Certificate Examinations-2011 definitely speaks for itself. In democracy, the majority matter and on that count 83.71 per cent pass rate in the Class VIII public examinations held nationwide is no doubt a cause for celebration. But then what escapes notice amidst the hullabaloo is the 16.21 per cent of the total number of students who have failed to score pass marks. Numerically or per cent-wise the children - each of whom is a living person full of hopes and liable to emotions like any susceptible mind of the teenagers -are reduced to figures. Reducing living human beings into mere statistics misses one vital point. The point is that so many learners could not learn what is considered the required minimum. This is a sheer waste of human talent, energy and money of significant amount.
On the face of it, this year's overall results can be considered an improvement over the past year's. Sure enough, the percentage of pass is higher, more than 30,000 examinees have made it to the highest grade point average (GPA) -5.00 compared with last year's 8,556. More schools have to their credit cent per cent pass and the number of educational institutions with zero-pass has also dropped from last year's 367 to 141.
Impressive as this apparently may be, the hard reality is that only about half of those who appeared for the examinations secured more than 50 per cent marks. About 0.7 million out of 1.8 million students obtained marks between 33 per cent and 49 per cent. The quality of this large number of students is indeed suspect. It will not be surprising if the majority of them fail to cope with curricula of the next higher classes. Only 1.71 per cent of the examinees secured GPA-5.00 (marks between 80-100). This is a poor reflection of the potential of young learners. They, undeniably, are capable of doing much better. When primary students as disadvantaged as those studying in BRAC schools have achieved a success rate of 99.83 per cent with enviable GPA of A+, A and A-, there is no reason why normal schools would lag behind.
Clearly, there is a wide discrimination between educational institutions located in villages and in towns and cities. The discriminations only become more yawning as the learners advance to higher classes. Again the more reputed schools have made it to the 'Ivy League' in terms of examination performance. It is the village schools which mostly have poor results. With both parents and teachers taking extra care for studies in the form of coaching or tuition after school time, the town or city-based schools are outperforming their counterparts in villages. The location of the zero-pass educational institutions is most likely to be in villages as well. So where the focus ought to be given is clear but are the authorities willing to come up with necessary remedies? Recruitment of quality teachers for those schools is the first requirement and next comes the allocation of enough funds. This done, regular monitoring of teaching can make a sea-change in the quality of education in village schools.
On the face of it, this year's overall results can be considered an improvement over the past year's. Sure enough, the percentage of pass is higher, more than 30,000 examinees have made it to the highest grade point average (GPA) -5.00 compared with last year's 8,556. More schools have to their credit cent per cent pass and the number of educational institutions with zero-pass has also dropped from last year's 367 to 141.
Impressive as this apparently may be, the hard reality is that only about half of those who appeared for the examinations secured more than 50 per cent marks. About 0.7 million out of 1.8 million students obtained marks between 33 per cent and 49 per cent. The quality of this large number of students is indeed suspect. It will not be surprising if the majority of them fail to cope with curricula of the next higher classes. Only 1.71 per cent of the examinees secured GPA-5.00 (marks between 80-100). This is a poor reflection of the potential of young learners. They, undeniably, are capable of doing much better. When primary students as disadvantaged as those studying in BRAC schools have achieved a success rate of 99.83 per cent with enviable GPA of A+, A and A-, there is no reason why normal schools would lag behind.
Clearly, there is a wide discrimination between educational institutions located in villages and in towns and cities. The discriminations only become more yawning as the learners advance to higher classes. Again the more reputed schools have made it to the 'Ivy League' in terms of examination performance. It is the village schools which mostly have poor results. With both parents and teachers taking extra care for studies in the form of coaching or tuition after school time, the town or city-based schools are outperforming their counterparts in villages. The location of the zero-pass educational institutions is most likely to be in villages as well. So where the focus ought to be given is clear but are the authorities willing to come up with necessary remedies? Recruitment of quality teachers for those schools is the first requirement and next comes the allocation of enough funds. This done, regular monitoring of teaching can make a sea-change in the quality of education in village schools.