Following a protest led by a group of students, the Ministry of Education announced the cancellation of the 2024 Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and equivalent examinations. Across the nation, the public is disappointed about this impulsive decision. Many are questioning whether taking such an extreme step was indeed required.
Initially, the HSC examination was postponed to September 11 due to the ongoing political tensions in the country. Given the traumatic experiences students endured throughout July and the instability following the fall of the previous government, additional preparation time was essential to resume the exams.
The Ministry of Education’s choice to give students more than a month to prepare seems thoughtful, given that the Hasina administration left on August 5 and the interim government took over within three days. As a result, in this situation, the demands made by the students seem less legitimate.
It is acknowledged that, like other students, many from the HSC 2024 batch actively participated in the July protests, with some suffering severe injuries. Even if we assume that, in the worst case scenario, 10,000 of these students were injured and might struggle to attend the exams on time, this number still represents less than 1% of the total examinees, which number nearly one and a half million.
The ministry might have allowed the regular exam schedule to continue for the remaining 99% students while making special arrangements for the injured students. But calling off the entire exam was a surprising decision. Furthermore, the Dhaka Education Board Chairman asserted that exam questions were leaked in some regions since they were given to nearby banks prior to the protests. Even if this is accurate, the tests can still go on because the ministry still has one month to create and disseminate new sets of questions.
All of the general subject tests — including those for English, Bangla, and ICT — have already been finished. The remaining exams are primarily group subjects, which are crucial for assessing students’ expertise in their specific fields of study. Traditionally, group subjects are viewed as the most important exams, as the main focus of public university admission tests is on how well students perform in these core disciplines. It will be difficult to assess their proficiency in these crucial areas if the exam is stopped.
Two major groups of students will be severely impacted by this decision. The first group consists of students with poor academic records in their SSC exams. For these students, the HSC exam is often a crucial second chance to demonstrate their academic abilities, as they have two additional years to prepare. The ministry hasn’t said explicitly how the remaining tests will be graded, but it would be unfair to the students who have put in a lot of effort to get better over the last two years if they went back to subject-mapping like they did in 2020. Their commitment and hard work can go unappreciated.
The second group at risk includes students who changed their academic stream after SSC. A student who finished their SSC in the Science stream and then switched to the Humanities, for example, is unsure of how their grades will be calculated.
I know of one junior at my university who got an auto-pass in 2020 from personal experience. She achieved a GPA of 5 in SSC in subjects such as physics, chemistry, and math, and then, under the auto-pass system, she received a GPA of 5 in completely other topics like civics, economics, and history. Apparently, the evaluation procedure is vague and devoid of precise instructions, endangering the comprehensive growth of the educational framework.
The use of auto-pass in 2020 was necessary due to the global shock of the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected not only Bangladesh but the entire world. However, turning such exceptional measures into regular practice is not advisable.
The interim government has promised significant reforms and a new version of Bangladesh, but the first initiative concerning education appears highly controversial. The public now eagerly awaits a more reasoned and logical approach, rather than decisions driven by impulsiveness or external pressure.