Editorial
JSC results cause for satisfaction
Rural areas should receive priority attention
THE remarkable showing by students in this year's Junior Scholarship Certificate examinations is cheery news. The pass rate has risen by 11 per cent while number of GPA-5 holders has increased significantly over that of the last year. It is more heartening to know that students in general have fared better in English and Mathematics, which well accounts for their higher pass rate. A similar trend is also observed in the Junior Dakhil Certificate examination. A word of praise, in this connection, is due to the education minister whose energetic steps in distributing free textbooks has helped spur this positive change.
In spite of the success story, the widening gap in dropout and pass rate between rural and urban areas is cause for worry. The list of 20 best performing schools in each education board, prepared by the education ministry, is invariably topped by those situated either in metropolitan cities or district towns. It underlines the asymmetrical teaching quality between urban and rural areas. Rural students are not only deprived of the fundamental institutional facilities that urban students are provided with, a good number of them are also compelled to drop out because of poverty. While we applaud the government steps to help growth in education sector, we believe there is a lot more that needs to be done in order to bridge educational disparities between urban and rural areas. The government would do well to step up its stipend programmes to encourage talent in rural schools.
Although female students have fared better in making the highest grade, they have lagged slightly behind in pass rate. As a measure of interest in education, we find larger number of girls appearing at the exams than boys.
One final point, female education should be further prioritized so that girls' dropout rate falls and pass rate goes up.
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