Magic touch in the SSC results

Magic touch in the SSC results
The SSC results of 2011 came out with much hope, enthusiasm along with some questions. The record number of pass percentage of 82.16 against 78.19 percent last year showing a trend of upward motion in the second public examination. Definitely the trend tends to make us happy. Thirty-five lac people hit the website to learn the results while twenty four lac people collected the results using mobile phone SMS. This also bears testimony to the increasing use of technology in the field of education in our national life. The causes of upward results have been attributed by the authorities to the growing consciousness of the schools, guardians and students, students’ more concentration on studies, absence of adopting unfair means and above all the increased pass rate in English and Mathematics. The increased pass rate in English and Mathematics raises questions how it has suddenly become possible in these two important and hard subjects.
Students this year sat for examinations on creative question in seven subjects. Last year students found creative questions only in two subjects’ namely Bengali first paper and Religious education. It was spread across the country that the note-books and guide books would take leave of the school corridors and educational arena. But in reality they have been found in their original shape . Students and teachers could not come out of them. The way of creative questions and their appearance are still vague to the lion’s share of the teachers. It was decided that all the teachers would be brought under the training of creative questions but it did not happen in the real sense of the term. A very negligible number of teachers were reached. The government could have reached a vast number of teachers if it had engaged the NGOs working for secondary education development. In this case we can mention the name of BRAC which has twenty two well equipped training centres with the capacity of accommodating three thousand participants at a time. In the creative question system each question of ten marks is divided into four parts such as knowledge level for one marks, understanding level for two marks, application level three and higher skill four marks. There remain six questions for sixty marks and forty marks for practical and other purposes. The students of class six will see creative questions in all the subjects so that they can cope with the question fully well in the SSC examination.
Dhaka Board authorities claimed that teachers received training which contributed to increase the pass percentage in English and Mathematics. Unbelievable percentage in first paper 97 percent and second paper 94 percent while 92 percent in Mathematics. Our English textbook ‘English for Today’ contains one hundred nineteen lessons in twenty two units. It is written on the basis of four language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Out of these four skills only two are touched by the teachers and students such as reading and writing skills. The rest two skills namely speaking and listening remain ever neglected. It means that two legs of a table are already broken which do not support the table to stand comfortably depending on only two legs. But we are giving certificates that students have done extremly good in English taking the test of only two skills (reading and writing). Now if we look into their reading and writing skills we see that many students having GPA-5 cannot even read the passage well. If you ask them to retell the passage they cannot give you any message in English. But they manage to get very high marks. How is it possible? Questions are set from only a selected number of passages such as The National Memorial, Examination Strategy, Shat Gambuj Mosque, Feroza, Dr. Nafisa, Masum and Becky and Tazneen Karim in either of the education boards. Questions available in a popular guide appear in the same way and form in the board examinations. Students do the practice of those selected passages in class nine , ten and it continues till the SSC examination from the guide book. If any question is prepared by any creative teacher, it is frowned and criticized by the students and all concerned that the questions are not common and they have been made so hard. So, it has become the tradition of the day to pick question from that particular guide book to make English popular and make more students pass in this subject. This is why 97 percent students passed in English first paper. It further means that we have already done a lot in English. We need not put more effort in English. In second paper forty marks are on traditional grammar in which students who don’t have any idea about grammatical facts can manage pass marks. The rest 60 marks remain for writing. Here teachers’ skill of preparing suggestion is the magic. They make a suggestion of three or four essays, paragraphs and completing stories. Students take preparation only on these selective items, vomit those on the examination scripts and manage GPA-5 and the teachers who prepared that short suggests are evaluated and honoured as the best teachers of the school and area. The real situation proves further dark. Out of these GPA-5 holders only a rare number of students can write a paragraph of their known topic in English. I still conduct research on the students of secondary and higher secondary levels and this dark picture appears before me. If you ask them to retell the same passage they have read, they cannot. If you ask them to write a question about the passage they just surrender. I am not exaggerating. This is the fact with some exceptions. There are some teachers who are more skilled to make a suggestion. What they do, they just give one essay and on the basis of it, any essay can be written. Students take preparation only on that easy. These students absolutely fail to use in English in their practical life situations but a show a very good performance in the result. I do fear what we are going to face in future.
All the subjects are going under creative system except English. The newspaper sources say that the education authorities are reluctant to touch or change anything in English and mathematics as the most deciding factor of increasing pass percentage depends on English and mathematics. In respect of mathematics, most of the students don’t develop basic ideas. Any change in figure in mathematics throws the students in a perplexed situations event the teachers. I gave a sum ( I have a mathematical problem outside the text to a teacher who is known as the ship of mathematics in the area but he miserably failed to do it.) 92 percent students passed in this subject. Are we just increasing the pass percentage or we are preparing the students to face the challenges of the twenty first century?
Teacher training is a significant factor in terms of quality teaching which finds a lot of constraints. As the short-term trainings of different government projects and NGOs don’t have any financial implications, the teachers and school show reluctance to receive those trainings. There lies no obligation for the teachers also whether they have any training to teach a particular subject. The teacher shortage in the schools also makes the head teachers disinterested to send the teachers to receive short trainings offered by government projects and NGOs. But these trainings have a well follow-up system whether teachers are applying the latest method in teaching or not. It is sometimes not liked by the teachers but it is must to develop a teacher professionally. B.Ed does not have any well follow-up system though it attaches financial implication. Now the ministry of education must make it mandatory to receive a particular days of training and its application in the class for all the teachers particularly the teachers teaching the harder subject. If it is not ensured we will just produce the students having only certificates, not any knowledge to contribute to their individual life and nation.

Masum Billah