These encouraging SSC results
We should now strive for a zero failure system
We congratulate all the students and all the schools which have achieved record-breaking results at this year's Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations. The pass percentage of 70.41 is indicative of the vast improvement that has been made in the school leaving examination process. It is to the credit of the students, their teachers and their guardians that altogether 41,917 students have achieved GPA-5 scores. The increase in the number of schools with a pass percentage of 100 per cent, from 778 last year to 2,272 this year, is without question a remarkable feat. We expect that all the students who have succeeded at the SSC this year will live up to their reputation as they move into higher education.
Even as we celebrate these very appreciable results, we note that there are nearly 30 per cent of young men and women who have failed to leap across the fence. That only proves that there is yet scope for improvement in the system. In today's world, school systems have developed to a point where no student has to stay back in school because he fails to pass the examinations. That is a pointer to what we need to do in Bangladesh. In other words, without in any way compromising the aims of education, we must strive to develop a zero failure system in education that will permit no boy or girl to be left behind. The thought that those who have failed this year will lose another year or perhaps run into difficulties of various kinds is depressing. Additionally, there is the matter of the schools which stand to lose their monthly payment orders (MPOs) if they do not perform to satisfaction. That simply is no answer to the problem, for the priority here ought not to be one of penalising schools with bad results but make it possible for them to regain lost academic ground.
Life is forever a test. The SSC examinations are an early test for the young. For such reasons, the school leaving system should so evolve as to ensure minimum academic standards for all. But for that to be done, it is imperative for us to deal with the impediments in our way. The role of the education department is paramount here. If it can do away with the corruption within it and move on to playing a monitoring role in education, we can go a long way.
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