Almost all secondary schools on track
Amid criticism over abysmal results in the Dhaka University admission tests, a nationwide assessment survey report has drawn a rosy picture of secondary education with findings that nearly half of the secondary schools are performing well.
Of the 18,425 institutions surveyed, 1,020 are listed as top-performing, 9,098 as well-performing and 7,319 as moderate-performing in the report.
However, such a picture was not reflected in the recently concluded entrance tests at Dhaka University. The DU test results rather brought into question students' success rates in the public examinations.
Around 83 percent of over 2.6 lakh aspirants failed to obtain even pass marks in the entrance exams.
The survey report titled "Performance based institutional self assessment summary 2014," widely known as ISAS report, was released at a national workshop at the National Academy for Educational Management (Naem) in the capital yesterday.
It was prepared by the Planning and Development Wing of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE) on the basis of seven main indicators.
The report says 988 schools are either performing poorly or not at all.
"We are constantly working and extending support to the schools so that they can make some progress on the indicators," said Prof Fahima Khatun, director general of DSHE that oversees secondary education in the country.
One of the indicators is students' performance, under which the number of students, their results and attendance rates are calculated.
"Students are gradually doing well in the examinations and that is what makes the difference," Prof Fahima told The Daily Star.
The six other criteria are teaching-learning environment, leadership of the institution heads, effectiveness of school managing committee, teachers' professionalism, co-curricular activities and guardian-teacher relationships. There are some 45 sub-criteria.
The heads of 18,425 schools filled up the ISAS forms, which were crosschecked by upazila secondary education officers, district education officers and other officials concerned before the authorities made the final report, listing the institutions in five categories.
This is the fourth time the government has carried out the survey.
The top performing schools are graded under 'A' category, schools performing well under 'B', those moderately performing under 'C' and performing poorly or not performing at all under 'D' and 'E' categories.
This year's report shows that the number of top performing and well performing schools increased by 1.9 percentage point from last year while poor performing and non-performing schools came down significantly.
Such an improvement in a year, however, raises questions since the assessment is being done by the institution heads themselves.
Since it is self-assessment, the heads often provide inflated data, sources in DSHE said.
Prof Fahima also admitted the fact partially. "It is true teachers may provide inflated data, yet those were checked by our officials."
Government efforts like providing training to the teachers, distributing free textbooks and widening the stipend coverage for students have had an impact, she said.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said the report was not completely free of errors. "It is difficult to remain neutral when you assess yourself. Besides, we lack efficiency."
Yet, the minister noted, an improvement in the quality of education has taken place, which many people tend to ignore: the enrolment rate has increased, dropout rate decreased and a gender parity achieved in the secondary level education.
“Isn't it a qualitative change?” Nahid said.
The report, however, gives a dismal picture in one of the indicators -- teaching-learning environment of the institutions.
Around 31 percent schools have done poorly in the criterion that covers areas like average number of students per classroom, safe drinking water facilities, availability of furniture for students, library facilities and others.
The evaluation report divided the country's schools into nine zones, with Rangpur having the highest number of schools (315 out of total 3,038) performing poorly or not at all followed by Barisal (248 out of 1,639).
Dhaka has the highest number of top performing schools (243 out of 2,417).
The ISAS report also named the top 11 government and non-government schools in the capital.
Among the government schools, Dhanmondi Government Girls' High School topped the list followed by Government Laboratory High School, and Khilgaon Government High School.
Rajuk Uttara Model School and College is the top performing non-government school. Ideal School and College and Viqarunnisa Noon School were ranked second and third among non-government schools.
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