Junior Certificate

The pass rates in this year's Primary Terminal and Junior Certificate Examinations marked rise. Free and on-time textbook distribution, creative question, teachers' training, special care in English and mathematics, stipends, school monitoring, awareness of students and parents made it possible.

The Junior School Certificate (JSC) results this year smashed all previous records in terms of success rate and GPA-5 achievers.
The pass rates in eight education boards stand at 86.11 percent, which is 3.44 percentage points higher than that of last year. A total of 44,158 students secured GPA-5, the highest grade point average, which was 29,838 last year.
The results published yesterday show a significant improvement in other indicators. The number of examinees, highest grade achievers and the number of schools with cent percent pass rose remarkably while the number of schools with zero pass rate came down.
A total of 12,98,188 students -- 6,17,412 boys and 6,80,776 girls -- under eight general education boards came out successful in the JSC examinations. The number of failed students came down to 2,09,487 from last year's 2,58,165.
And, 352 out of 362 JSC students who took the test from seven overseas centres came out successful. Of them, 47 obtained GPA-5.
The schools across the country wore a festival look as soon as the results came out. Apart from their own institutions, the examinees got their results online and through mobile phone SMS.
More than 15.54 lakh students from 18,461 institutions had registered for the test held on November 4-15. Of them, over 15.07 lakh showed up in the exam halls.
Students sat for nine subjects.
The number of schools with cent percent pass rate rose to 2,797, while the number of schools from where no student passed this year came down to 55.
The pass rate in Junior Dakhil Certificate (JDC) examinations under Madrasa Education Board is 90.87 percent, 2.16 up from last year.
Combined pass rate of JSC and JDC examinations also rose to 86.97 percent from last year's 83.71pc.
Students have been consistently doing well in the JSC examination since 2010, when the pass rate was 73 percent.
In terms of pass rate, boys did better than girls even though the number of girl examinees was higher. The boys' pass rate is 87.04pc which is 85.28pc for girls.
Rajuk Uttara Model School and College in the capital has topped the best 20 list of institutions while Viqarunnisa Noon School and Mymensingh Zilla School became third.
Briefing journalists on the results at noon at his secretariat office, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said, “Compared to last year, we are better off this year in all indicators, which suggest an improvement in the education sector. We want to retain this."
The results were formally handed over to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the morning.
He mentioned various government steps, notably timely distribution of free textbooks, broadcasting classes of the best teachers of the capital countrywide through BTV and giving stipends that helped raise the pass rate.
The minister also gave credit to teachers, guardians and students.
Education board officials and teachers attributed “creative question method” and initiating more teachers' training on creative question, special care on English and mathematics, students' awareness of the examinations and stipends to this success.
"Creative method is one of the reasons that helped the examinees obtain more marks,” Prof Fahima Khatun, chairman of Dhaka Education Board, told The Daily Star yesterday.
She said they trained around thousands of teachers of secondary level on creative question and that has enabled the teachers to simplify the lessons. Students understood the lessons better and did well in the test.
Prof Manju Ara Begum, principal of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College, echoed Fahima's view saying that because of the creative method, it is possible for students to get full marks if their answers were correct.
Eight educational institutions outside the capital secured positions among this year's top 20 institutions. However, all the top 20 institutions are either in the metropolitan area or inside the municipality.
As in previous years, the highest 93.82 percent examinees passed from Barisal Board. Chittagong Board is at the bottom with 78.35 percent pass rate while Dhaka Board goes down to sixth position with 85.02 percent pass rate.