Analysis of Mass Failure in English in HSC Examination-2017 in Bangladesh
The seminar paper investigates the alarming rate of failures in English in the HSC Examination of 2017 in Bangladesh. English, being a crucial language globally, faces challenges in the education system of Bangladesh. The paper explores the causes of failure, the responsibility for the situation, and both current and future implications of this issue.
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SEMINAR PAPER Department of English
Presented by Shubhashish Das Govt Iqbal Memorial College, Feni
Title Mass Failure in English in HSC Examination-2017 in Bangladesh.
Introduction: There are five international languages in the world and English has gained the topmost priority and status among them. English is now being used and treated as the first language in many countries because for its wired acceptability. In Bangladesh too, English has been given up most priority and importance for practical reasons. The Bangladesh government has made English compulsory at all levels of education, beginning from class one to masters, including engineering, medicine and agriculture.
The result of the H.S.C exams of 10 education boards including Mardrasha and technical boards were published on 23 July 2017. But a last the number of failures of the H.S.C candidates has hurt our feelings the strings of our heart seems to have been torn and we are shedding the blood of pain. Reason for selecting this topic as seminar issue: In recent years the demand for English has increased. Schools colleges and universities around the world are adding more English classes into the curriculum. In Bangladesh also English is compulsory from entry level to higher education. But the outcome of learning English is shocking and terribly shocking. Where in lies the root cause of this tragic and pathetic failure?
Who will bear the responsibility for this failure? Now it is time to look into the matter most critically. To investigate deep into the deplorable incident, though it seems difficult for the time being we have selected this topic as seminar issue. It will take time to find out all the causes of failure of students in general but we cordially have tried to find out the main reasons behind this happening.
Present as well as past phenomenon and future changes of this topic: A smiling student shows another on a mobile phone how she did in her HSC exams at the Viqarunnisa School and College yesterday. It was not all smiles for everyone though, as this year's results marked a sharp drop in pass rate and the number of high achievers.
The results of this years H.S.C examinations saw significant fall in both the success rate and the number of highest achievers. The overall pass rate of higher secondary certificate examinees under eight general education board dropped by more than 5 percentages points to 66.84 percent. The number of students having achieved the highest grade GPA-5 also came down to 33,242 from last year s 48,950. The combined pass rate under all the 10 educations boards including Madrasa and technical boards, also declined to 68.91 percent from last years 74.70 percent. Similarly, G.P.A-5. achievers under the 10 boards fell to 37,969 from last years 58,276.
As many as 6.25 lakh boys and 5.38 lakh girls from 8,771 institutions took this year's HSC and its equivalent examinations beginning on April 2. Of them 8.01 lakh students passed.
Poor Performance in English Students performed badly in English, said chairmen of several education boards. More than 2.17 lakh students failed this subject alone, according to the data provided by the boards. In Dhaka board, the success rate in this subject came down to 76.66 percent from last year's 86.46 percent. The pass rate in English in Jessore board this year shows a fall of 17 percentage points. "The questions were comparatively hard in my board and that's why many students failed this subject," Prof Abdul Alim, chairman of the board, told The Daily Star. "English has always been considered the major factor in results. Many students flunked this subject, pulling down the tally of total students passed," said Prof Mahabubur Rahman, chairman of Dhaka board.
Shocking Performance of Comilla Students A startling low pass rate of students under Comilla board pushed down the overall pass rate. Only 49.53 percent students came out successful causing this board to be at the bottom of the result chart. A little over 1 lakh students took part in the exams. Only 62 percent of them passed English, according to the data. Apart from the poor performance in English, students in the humanities group performed badly. Some 42,393 students sat for the examinations from this group and the pass rate is only 38 percent. Board Chairman Prof Abdul Khaleque, however, blamed students' poor performance in English only for the fall in overall results. "I have already asked my officials to look into the other reasons behind the drop. After assessing the reasons, we'll be able to say what went wrong," he said. The education ministry has already asked the board chairman to inform it of the issues that contributed to the poor results.
Girls Did Better Like this year's SSC exams, girls have done better than boys as their pass rate is 2.28 percentage points higher than their counterparts'. "This is very encouraging for us that girls are doing well," the minister said. However, girls lagged behind boys in the context of achieving the highest grade. A total of 20,535 boys secured GPA-5, while 17,434 girls got the highest grade.
Science Students Lead As usual, students from the science group under eight general boards did the best with a pass rate of 83.14 percent, followed by 69.65 percent in the business studies group and 58.14 percent in the humanities group. "Several years ago, the number of students studying science was declining, which was alarming. But the trend has been reversed as we see the number of students studying science is on the rise," Nahid said.
This year 532 institutions saw a cent percent pass rate while no students passed from 72 institutions. Sylhet board topped the chart in terms of success rate with 72 percent. The colleges across the country wore a festive look. Students and their parents, who had been tensed for some time, erupted into cheering as soon as they received the results. Some danced while some took selfies showing victory signs. However, some students were seen breaking down in tears for not getting expected results. "Failing the examinations does not mean the end of life. Those who have failed take better preparation," Nahid said.
The facts of such situation at present: Firstly, the environment necessary or teaching and learning English is totally absent in the schools and colleges of Bangladesh. The faults method of teaching English is largely responsible for the poor performance of the students. We know, communicative method is used for teaching and learning English. At the secondary and higher secondary levels. This communicative method is not as effective as the traditional method, as is obvious from the fact that a students who has passed the H.S.C exam cannot write or speak a sentence correctly. On the contrary, a student who has passed the H.S.C exam in the traditional method can write English better.
Its main cause is that in communicative method the teacher only helps the students understand the text and know the meanings of the difficult and unknown words. After doing this, the teacher asks the students go answer the different forms of questions on the passage. Hence very naturally, the learners learn only how to pick up the write word from the passage to answer the questions. The process requires the students to used only one word in most cases. This one word exercise and practice cannot enable a student to write correct English or communicate with other people properly, which is the main target of the present education system. It is thus seen that a student who knows nothing of English language and grammar gets good marks, at least pass marks, in the exam. It is because a student could take help from his/her friend in the exam hall. Thus, after passing the H.S.C exam.
Secondly, there is lack of suitable class environment, that is in the classroom the teachers don t encourage the students to talk English. Practice makes a man pretest, goes the saying. Practice has no alternative. There fore, lack of practice leads the students ultimately to fear and hesitation which they cannot overcome even in the later part of their life. Thirdly, the students are encouraged to memorize some selected and suggested compositions for passing the exams. The most shocking matter is that, when the students, who memorize compositions do not find common topic for writing composition in the exam questions, they get upset and nervous, and such cut a sorry figure in the exam frustrating everybody.
Finally, the most important factor that should be held responsible for the students weakness and failure in English is the lack of proper guidance of the teachers, who are supposed of the teachers, who are supposed to be well versed and have good command over the English language. But unfortunately there are some teacher who possess very poor knowledge of English and are betraying their ignorance in class performance. They are mostly inexperienced, unskilled, untrained and lacking proper knowledge in English. There are many teachers in Bangladesh teaching English in primary, secondary and higher secondary levels who are unable to write a sentence in English.
Its effect in education After passing the HSC exam when a student enter into university and other institutions for higher education, he cannot secure even pass marks. This is really disgraceful. Dhaka University (DU), published the results for Kha unit honours admission exams for the 2017-2018 academic session on September 25, 2017. A total of 32,749 applicants competed for the 2,763 seats in the Kha unit exam this year, averaging 13.86 candidates per seat. In the test also it is seen that majority of the students failed to secure the pass mark. Bangladesh is one of the developing countries of the world and the people of Bangladesh are as delegates and observers from different countries remark with an air of satisfaction, progressing quiet rapidly.
But the picture of the total education system is really unsatisfactory and regrettable when we find that the education sector, despite the hearty and active Endeavour of the government to boost up and gear up the students of our country to rank among the world class students, is retreating fast for some reason or other. It has been found that the failure and weakness of the students in Engli9sh exceed all other failures and weakness.
Ways to overcome the problem: Now we would like to suggest some effective ways of English at the HSC level. English grammar (Parts of speech, articles, tense, voice, narration, sequence of tense, clause, formation of sentence, sub-verb agreement, different parts of a sentence, use of preposition, phrases and idioms basic sentence pattern etc. Encouraging the students to write compositions in the classrooms and identifying and correcting their mistakes. Encouraging learning words from English- English dictionary with examples and illustrations. Some items that are not effective for learning English should be removed from the HSC English syllabus. I have just given a hint of the thing. A detailed analysis not possible within the space of this article.
English is a foreign language to us. Hence in order to learn English effectively the English syllabus should be reshuffled once again. In the present day world, communication is the main theme. So the reach our goal and fulfill the purpose of the schools and colleges following the most effective method of teaching a foreign language. When a child is born, it hears and mother and the people surrounding it. A good plan should be made and a good amount to time should be spent to create a suitable environment for teaching English.
Conclusion: To sum up, I would like to say that the persons concerned with teaching English should make a concerted effort to pave the way for bringing about the students success in English. We are poor nation, and if we are to make our rightful position in the modern world, we have to make double pace engaging all of our resources and merits. Since English is the most important and widely used of all the international languages, advancement in the use of English of our people might well be one potent way of increasing our pace of development so as to ensure our prestigious position among the developing countries.
References: 1. National Curriculum 2012 Credit also goes to 2. The Daily Star, 24 July 2017 3. I Scholar Bd, March 19, 2017 Mr. Md. Nazmul Hasan 4. Dhaka Tribune, September 25, 2017. Mr. Mohammad Ersadul Mustafa 5. Etv News. Mr. Towhidul Alam Mr. Md. Abul Hasan Mr. Shekh Anisur Rahman Mr. ShubhashishDas Mr. Sayed Asad Ullah Khaled
Thank you all Good bye
