Jessore board dazzles

Jessore board saw a significant improvement in this year's Higher Secondary Certificate examination pass rate, which catapulted it to the top of the eight general education boards.

The pass rate under this board rose by around 36 percentage point to 83.42 percent. Last year, it was 46.45 percent.

The pass rates of four other boards, however, increased nominally while the performance of students of the remaining two boards declined, according to the statistics provided by the boards.

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The success of the Jessore board, in fact, pushed up the total pass rate in the HSC examinations, board officials said.

Prof Md Abdul Mazid, chairman of the board, attributed the achievement to joint efforts by the board and colleges.

"Taking lessons from last year, we took several steps to ensure that students do well in the subjects they did badly," he told The Daily Star.

As many as 35,000 students of the board failed in English last year. These students took well preparation this year and most of them came out successful, Prof Mazid said.

The number of examinees -- 1.35lakh -- of his board was much higher than other boards, except for Dhaka.

"Seeing the disastrous results last year, we took up a challenge. We held views-exchange meetings with heads and other teachers of all colleges and parents.

"The colleges took special care and we monitored the colleges," Prof Mazid said.

Asked if teachers gave marks generously, the Jessore board's chairman said no question of this sort arose.

Echoing his views, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said there was a pressure on the Jessore board from the ministry and guardians after last year's results.

He said the ministry paid extra attention to the Jessore board.

Asked if there was any directive from the ministry or boards to the teachers who checked the papers, Nahid rejected such possibilities outright.

"There was no need to do so," he said.