Child marriage major cause for students’ absence in SSC exam

More than 6,000 students were absent from this year’s Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams under Dhaka Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education.

Information gathered on 1,203 of those absent students reveals that nearly 40 per cent (481) of them got married. This figure includes married boys and girls both.

In addition to that more than seven per cent of the candidates missed the exam for joining work to support their families financially. Others were absent due to illness, lack of preparation, or other reasons.

What’s alarming is that nearly 51 per cent of those 1,203 examinees, on whom data could be collected, will no longer continue with their education. The rest of them said they would take the exam next year.

The authorities of Dhaka education board gathered this data from the schools running under their jurisdiction. Now a report will be sent to the education ministry to take necessary steps in this regard.

The number of students filling the registration forms to attend SSC and equivalent exams this year across the country was about 100,000 (1 lakh) less than last year. The exam this year saw the lowest participation of students in the last five years.

Meanwhile, the number of students who filled out the exam registration forms but did not appear in the exam was also higher this time compared to previous years. As many as 26,928 students were absent on the very first day of the SSC exam held under 11 education boards compared to 19,359 absent on the first day of the exams last year.

While students are absent every year, the reasons are never explored. So the experts have long been advising to identify the real causes and to take appropriate measures.

In this context, the Dhaka board of intermediate and secondary education launched an investigation into the cause of student’s absence in schools running under this board.
For this data was collected from schools through a designated Google Form. The board had directed the schools to collect information from respective exam centres to find out which students were absent and to contact the students or their guardians in person or over the phone to gather information about the reason behind their absence.

According to the Dhaka education board, a total of 6,389 students supposed to attend the exams under this board were absent this year. The board has information about the reasons of absence for only 1,203 candidates as information couldn’t be gathered on all of them.

These students had completed registration for the exam but did not attend. A draft report has been prepared based on their information.

Sources from the Dhaka education board state that the draft report shows nearly 60 per cent of those 1,203 absent students were from the commerce group, 23 per cent from humanities and 17 per cent were from science group.

Usually students more advanced academically are found studying in the science stream. As per the collected data, the absence rate is lower among students of this stream.