Pass rate no substitute for educational reforms
Monday, 27 July 2009
The results of the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examinations for all educational boards, announced on Saturday, show a continuation of the trend of overall pass rate set above 70 per cent that has been noted in the recent years. Though the overall pass rate and the number of the GPA-5 scorers or outstanding performers in these examinations reflected a slight decline from last year, this does not signify any serious deterioration deserving comments.
The HSC results are also no reflectors that the contents and manner of imparting education at this level are undergoing any deep and driving reform activities. For the syllabuses, teaching procedures, etc., all are what these used to be in the past when worldwide an urge is noted for bringing changes in the too vital education spheres to make people assets than liabilities. But the educational streams in Bangladesh still continue to be dominated largely by general education or even forms of education to be considered as redundant in the developed countries. This is sad for successive governments and their top leaders in Bangladesh had reiterated on so many occasions that they intended to make human resources out of the Bangladeshis. These pledges only proved to be clichés as the forms of education in the country remain essentially unchanged.
For example, 607,782 examinees sat for the HSC exams this year; out of them less than fifty thousand only passed these exams under the technical and vocational educational board . The ones who passed out from the other seven boards contain a large number from the humanities group and the madrashas (religious educational institutions) whose contribution to developing human resources for diverse areas of the economy, are little or nothing. The best performers in this year's HSC examination are seen to be the ones from the madrashas.
The madrasha education board has topped the success chart securing individually a staggering 84.14 per cent pass rate out of 58,978 number of total examinees from this board. This relatively high pass rate cannot be viewed with satisfaction as promoting national objectives for the outdated and very deficient present nature of the madrasha education system is devoid almost entirely of studies in modern science, technology and business. The madrasha system is good at producing prayer leaders. But what good it can do to go on producing more and more of them in huge numbers when the country's economic progress demands the urgent creation of educated manpower suitable for employment or self employment in the changing nature of industries and services ? When the thrust of the educational boards should be on creating such manpower in abundance, the opposite is being witnessed -- generalists and ideologically indoctrinated young ones are being created. There is hardly any prospects of their application for true nation-building.
Thus, the government of the day would be expected to address these very important issues quite effectively within its tenure. It should seek to remodel the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination and the HSC one and make these truly oriented to the needs of the emerging society, especially to its economic requirements.
A large number of the good performers in the HSC examinations will also not find seats at educational institutions suitable for them. Thus, the way to the advancement of higher education of such students in befitting institutions, also need to be properly addressed.
The HSC results are also no reflectors that the contents and manner of imparting education at this level are undergoing any deep and driving reform activities. For the syllabuses, teaching procedures, etc., all are what these used to be in the past when worldwide an urge is noted for bringing changes in the too vital education spheres to make people assets than liabilities. But the educational streams in Bangladesh still continue to be dominated largely by general education or even forms of education to be considered as redundant in the developed countries. This is sad for successive governments and their top leaders in Bangladesh had reiterated on so many occasions that they intended to make human resources out of the Bangladeshis. These pledges only proved to be clichés as the forms of education in the country remain essentially unchanged.
For example, 607,782 examinees sat for the HSC exams this year; out of them less than fifty thousand only passed these exams under the technical and vocational educational board . The ones who passed out from the other seven boards contain a large number from the humanities group and the madrashas (religious educational institutions) whose contribution to developing human resources for diverse areas of the economy, are little or nothing. The best performers in this year's HSC examination are seen to be the ones from the madrashas.
The madrasha education board has topped the success chart securing individually a staggering 84.14 per cent pass rate out of 58,978 number of total examinees from this board. This relatively high pass rate cannot be viewed with satisfaction as promoting national objectives for the outdated and very deficient present nature of the madrasha education system is devoid almost entirely of studies in modern science, technology and business. The madrasha system is good at producing prayer leaders. But what good it can do to go on producing more and more of them in huge numbers when the country's economic progress demands the urgent creation of educated manpower suitable for employment or self employment in the changing nature of industries and services ? When the thrust of the educational boards should be on creating such manpower in abundance, the opposite is being witnessed -- generalists and ideologically indoctrinated young ones are being created. There is hardly any prospects of their application for true nation-building.
Thus, the government of the day would be expected to address these very important issues quite effectively within its tenure. It should seek to remodel the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination and the HSC one and make these truly oriented to the needs of the emerging society, especially to its economic requirements.
A large number of the good performers in the HSC examinations will also not find seats at educational institutions suitable for them. Thus, the way to the advancement of higher education of such students in befitting institutions, also need to be properly addressed.