If educational institutions are the cradle in which people’s futures are shaped, then what could possibly be more important to such an institution than the future of a student?
Yet, judging by the behavior of some of our educational institutions, one might think that a student’s life, dreams, and potential are of no importance at all.
What seems to have become important is the institution’s performance statistics, the number of GPA-5 achievers, and the reputation of having a 100 percent pass rate.
A recent report published in Ittefaq on this issue stated that approximately 1.895 million students were registered in Grade 9, but only about 1.448 million filled out forms for the SSC examination.
In between, roughly 450,000 students disappeared. Did such a huge number of teenagers suddenly abandon their education? Did all of them fail? The report says no. Many students who had passed selection or test examinations were still not given the opportunity to sit for the main examination.
In some cases, their “crime” was simply failing to achieve the desired GPA. Can any educational institution play with the lives and futures of several hundred thousand students in this manner?
This tendency is not merely illegal; it is also a cruel mockery of the very concept of education. A school’s responsibility is to prepare its weaker students, help them improve, and make them capable of sitting for examinations.
Instead, removing students who are likely to produce poor results so that the school can maintain impressive statistics is extremely alarming.
It is alarming because this strategy itself is presented as “100 percent success.” A 100 percent pass rate, a large number of GPA-5 results, and admission to prestigious colleges—all of these together create the market value of an institution.
Parents enroll their children based on these statistics. As a result, students gradually cease to be viewed as human beings and instead become numbers representing an institution’s results.
It is essential to take a firm stand against this mentality. When an educational institution publishes its performance statistics, it should not be enough to show only the number of students who participated in the examination.
The complete picture must be disclosed: how many students were registered in Grade 9, how many filled out SSC examination forms, how many actually took the examination, how many passed, and how many achieved GPA-5. Otherwise, claims of a 100 percent pass rate remain incomplete and misleading in many cases.
This issue deserves even greater scrutiny in the case of prestigious institutions. No matter how famous a school may be, it has no right to unlawfully prevent any of its students from taking a public examination.
If such allegations are proven true, those responsible must be held accountable. Merely issuing a show-cause notice is not enough. If an investigation establishes irregularities, administrative and legal action must be ensured.
The education boards now have an important opportunity. By digitally linking Grade 9 registration data with SSC examination-form data, they can publish the dropout rate for each institution every year.
If an unusually large gap is detected, an automatic audit could be initiated. Complete records should be maintained showing who took the test examination, how many marks they obtained, who filled out the examination form, and who did not. Whether students were actually given the opportunity to sit for the examination should also be brought under scrutiny.
We must remember that sacrificing a student’s future to protect an institution’s reputation is not a success. Rather, it is evidence of the institution’s moral bankruptcy.
No matter how impressive a school’s certificate of 100 percent success may look, what value does it really have in the eyes of education if the school achieves that result by removing weaker students?
The reputation of an educational institution is built through the lives and achievements of its students. If protecting that reputation requires sacrificing the very students who created it, then one unavoidable question arises:
For whom is this reputation being maintained?
