77.77% of examinees pass SSC, equivalent exams

The pass rate in the Secondary School Certificate and equivalent exams has slipped 2.58 percentage points year-on-year to 77.77 percent this year.

But the number of GPA 5.0 scorers increased by 5,868 to 110,629 in the same period, according to results announced by Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid.

The education minister, accompanied by the heads of the various education boards, handed over a summary of the results to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Ganabhaban on Sunday morning.

The education minister will highlight various aspects of the results at a press conference at the Secretariat at 1pm. Students will be able to check their results after the press conference, around 2pm.

Last year 80.35 percent of candidates passed their SSC exams and 104,761 scored a GPA 5.0.

A total of 2,031,889 candidates sat for their SSC and equivalent exams under ten education boards this year and 1,443,382 passed.

According to the education minister, the pass rate for the SSC exams under eight general education boards was 79.4 percent, the pass rate for the madrasa board’s Dakhil exam was 70.89 percent and that of the technical board exam was 71.96 percent.

The pass rate in the closely-watched exams was also the lowest in nine years. The results reflect Nahid’s own performance as the education minister. When he took the reins of the education ministry in 2009, the pass rate was 67.41 percent. The rate has increased since then, reaching a peak of 92.67 percent in 2014.

While presenting the summary to the prime minister, the education minister noted that the number of examinees had increased, that more students were taking the science exams and that girls had performed well.

Nahid said that in his opinion, the policy of distributing new textbooks on the first day of the year had played a significant role in improving the quality of education.

He also spoke of various other measures to improve the quality of education and educators and said that special measures had been taken to ensure that answer scripts were not awarded or penalised unfairly.

“We have overcome some of the flaws in checking the answer scripts that were prevalent in the past and have achieved a certain level of quality. But there is no doubt that we have to develop this further.”

“As there were more candidates this year it is not too concerning that the pass rate has dropped. After all, a 77.77 percent pass rate is not particularly low,” Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said.

Nahid congratulated those who had passed their exams and said that those who had failed should not despair, but instead apply themselves to their studies more diligently.

“Only once 100 percent of our nation is educated will we be able to build a country free of hunger and poverty,” said Hasina. “Education is something no one can take away from you.”

This year’s SSC theory exams were held between Feb 1 and Feb 25, while the practical exams were held between Feb 26 and Mar 4.

RESULTS BY SMS

The SSC and equivalent exam results will be available through SMS for all mobile operators.

Students or their guardians can type ‘SSC/DAKHIL<space>the first three letters of the board’s name<space>student’s roll number<space>2018’ and send the message to 16222 to receive the results in an SMS response.

The results will also be available on the education boards’ website, educationboardresults.gov.bd.

Schools can also download the results of their students from the site and can collect hard copies of the results from their respective boards.

In special circumstances, hard copies may also be collected from the district administration and Upazila executive officer’s offices.

REVIEW OF RESULTS

Requests to review exam results can be made through state-run mobile operator Teletalk between May 7-13.

To review the results, students or their guardians can type ‘RSC<space>the first three letters of the board’s name<space>roll number<space>subject code’ and send the SMS to 16222.

An SMS response will inform the sender of the revision fee and provide them with a personal identification number or PIN.

If the sender agrees, they can type ‘RSC<space>YES<space>the PIN number<space>a mobile contact number’ and send the SMS to 16222.

For every subject and every paper to be reviewed, Tk 125 will be charged. A fee of Tk 250 will be charged for subjects with two papers.

More than one subject can be reviewed through the same SMS by separating their subject codes with a comma.