Unusual dropouts
Our country is lucky to have two consecutive pro-active education ministers: the first one eradicated copying in the examination in the SSC and HSC levels, the present one presented us an education policy, however disputed it may be, and introduced for the first time the public exams for class five and eight. But now the unusual dropouts in the first ever JSC and JDC examinations speak volume of a major fault in the novel system.
Taking this year's JSC examination, my son told me about the sorry state in the examination halls. Invigilators vitiated the serene environment of the examination halls by correcting the scripts of the students they privately tutored. Worse still, the brighter students were made to help the weaker students with a view to raising the percentage of passing. A secret arrangement among the invigilators may have been behind all these anomalies. The result is sure to be disastrous, because this kind of unfair means is introducing a bad ethics to the delicate minds of the junior students.
However, what is happening beyond the examination halls is quite alarming. Thousands of examinees succumbed to the pressure incidental to the public exams, the fear of failure and the costly hazard of travelling to the examination centres as far away as 15 miles in some areas. Hence 1 lakh dropouts out of 1.5 million examinees!
I wonder what these novel examinations in the initial levels were for. Was it merely to stop the easy access to class five and class eight certificates? The nation wants a clarification from the education ministry.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments