Reforming SSC exams

EXPERTS have recommended dropping four subjects from Secondary School Certificate curriculum and at the final examination to reduce unnecessary burden of learning on young students to make easy their courses and passing out in the SSC exams. Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid has said as per a media report on Tuesday that the government would take up the recommendations to reform the teaching and examination system. We believe that such recommendations may be meticulously weighed and accepted if they prove to benefit students without compromising the quality of education.

The four subjects to be dropped include Career education, Physical education, Fine art and Craftsmanship, Health science and Sports. In fact the educationists have made in total 15 recommendations at a workshop in Cox’s Bazar early this week on reform of examinations system, review of curriculum and textbooks. They also recommended that text books should be more easy reading and attractive. As per their recommendations a committee should be formed to review entire curriculum and ‘Book Reading Day’ should be observed once in a year. The educationists recommended evaluation of students on the four subjects, that would be dropped from SSC examination, at the schools through continuous assessment and introducing effective systems to make sure that the four subjects are taught properly. Their suggestion also include the government can make a question bank containing multiple choice questions (MCQ) and creative questions to improve the quality of such question.

Education Minister’s opinion that the government has taken the recommendations seriously and would make a decision soon consulting other stakeholders may be positively viewed. If his indication becomes true the examinees will sit for 9 subjects instead of 13 in the SSC examination of 2019. There will also be common questions in all the Education Boards for SSC exams from the same year. These initiatives show that government is aware of some loopholes detected even after reformed was implemented in the system few years back.

In our view education system should be pragmatic and need to be prepared with far-sightedness and wisdom keeping eyes on the capacity of students to understand it. If needed we must further reform our education system to make it adaptable with change of time to make our future generation properly groomed from lower tier of education. Needless to say coaching business and outsiders support now overshadows our education system to prepare the students. If it continues with collaboration of notebooks, made easy and sure success all efforts to put our education system on right track will be futile. The new move may find ways to improve the system.