The New Nation - Internet Edition

Md. Masum Billah

The results of higher secondary certificate examination got published on September 10 pleasing the students, teachers and guardians and the whole nation. Side by side it arose some questions as well. A large number of students with GPA-5 in HSC will be denied admission to their first choice in public universities and medical colleges and engineering institutes because their number is much more than the number of seats in those institutions. This upward trend of both pass rate and number of students shows every year. Every year it becomes a headache of the authority but the ever grasping poverty increase the number of drop outs gives a little bit solution to this problem. Still it remains as a big problem for us. With the increasing number of population we need to increase the number of educational institutions along with technical and vocational institutions to accommodate the mediocre learners. University Grants Commission's twenty-year (2006-2026) strategic plan for higher education suggests establishing at least 28 universities. At present 1800 colleges affiliated with National University especially those in rural areas do not get sufficient students because of their poor quality education, outdated curricula and academicians. Shortage of teachers proves another problem.

Many students with good results do not go for higher education because admission capacity of quality public universities is limited and new one are not being set up to accommodate the increasing number of good result achievers in HSC exams Only two new public universities were established in the last three years while HSC pass rate increased by around 17% during the period. Besides the number of GPA-5 holders rose four times since 2005.Around 4.6 lakh students passed the HSC in 2008 with pass rate 79.19 and 22045 got GPA-5 pass percentage shows more than 10% higher and GPA-5 achievers almost doubled compared to those of last year. So, a tough competition awaits aspirants for admission to all public universities like Dhaka University, BUET an fifteen medical colleges. Academicians suggest cancellation of admission test admission on the basis of GPA in SSC and HSC will lessen the suffering of the admission seekers. Here also question arises. Is our examination system leak proof? Is our examination of international standard? Does it show the real merit and creativity of the students?

We have 14, 750 seats in public universities, 17,330 in private universities , 1.65lakh in National University affiliated honours colleges and 2.34 in National University affiliated degree colleges. BUET, Dhaka University, Jahangirnar University, Rajshahi University, Chittagong University, Khulan University, public medical colleges, Dental College, leather Technology, Textile Engineering have only 20,000 seats and of these 885 seats in BUET, 4500 in Dhaka University, 1350 in Jahangirnagar Univeristy, 2500 in public medical colleges This year total 466570 students passed with 22045 GPA5. Out of 22045 GPA-5 holders 19108 students obtained GPA5 in seven education boards. 11140 got GPA5 last year.This year 13426boys and 8619 girls got GPA5. 12972 students got GPA5 from science group, 4590 from Business Studies and 1546 from Humanities group. This picture clearly shows that a huge number will not be able to receive higher education. We have to give a serious thought to this point.

100 percent passed colleges this year stand 678, last year the number was 434. Zero pass percentage college was 60 last year and this year this number is 41.

Combined pass rate this year is 76.19 and 65.6 last years. Pass percentage of boys and girls this year is almost same. This is encouraging picture. Still we have to cope with the text and modules of outside world so that our students can easily match themselves with overseas students.

This year the pass percentage of English has influenced the result tremendously. Now a question arises what magic wand we used to make the students pass in English unbelievably this year? Did our authorities use any extra measures to make all the students pass in English? Those who obtained GPA-5 what about their standard of English? As a global language its standard should be judged globally. International testing services TOEFL, TWE, IELTS etc. judge the standard of English in international perspective. It is based on four skills.

Only writing and reading skills are tested in our examination system. Other two skills remain absolutely neglected in spite of introducing the communicative English. When these two important skills are not practiced and tested at all in our public examination, how can we say that the standard of English has improved which indicates the better results of this year's higher secondary certificate examination?