Each year, the publication of the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) results in Bangladesh brings both celebration and despair. The jubilation arises from the achievements of those who succeed, while grief dominates for the large number of students who fail. According to the 2025 HSC results, out of 1,225,661 examinees, 726,960 passed, resulting in a pass rate of 58.83%. This means that more than 41% of students were unable to cross this crucial educational threshold. The statistics reveal not just individual failures but also the deep-rooted structural flaws of the country's education system.
One of the most evident issues lies in the persistent disparity among education boards. This year, the Dhaka Education Board topped the chart with a 64.62% pass rate, while the Comilla Board remained at the bottom with 48.86%. Such variations are too stark to be explained merely by differences in student performance. They reflect broader inequalities in resource allocation, teaching quality, administrative capacity, and supervision. Colleges in peripheral districts often operate with inadequate infrastructure, limited access to laboratories, limited classroom facilities, and underqualified teachers. Without addressing these fundamental inequities, regional imbalance in performance will continue to plague the system.
Another major cause of failure is the declining quality of classroom teaching. Students increasingly rely on notebooks, guidebooks, and coaching centers rather than textbooks or direct instruction from teachers. This growing dependence on commercial materials reflects the erosion of classroom-based learning. Teachers, often burdened by administrative tasks or demotivated by poor pay, rarely engage in active, student-centered pedagogy. As a result, rote memorization has replaced analytical understanding. This weakness becomes most visible in subjects like English and Mathematics, where conceptual clarity is essential. When the classroom becomes secondary to the coaching center, meaningful learning suffers irreparably.
The 2025 batch also bears the lingering scars of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these students spent part of their secondary education learning through online platforms or makeshift arrangements, often without adequate supervision or resources. The learning loss that began during the pandemic years has not been recovered. Studies and education experts have repeatedly warned that the post-pandemic learning gap continues to haunt secondary and higher secondary levels. Students who enter college with weak foundational skills struggle to cope with the dense syllabus of the HSC level, leading to widespread underperformance.
Socioeconomic pressures further intensify this crisis. Many rural boys are compelled to assist their families through agricultural or informal labor, which limits their study time. Conversely, girls tend to remain more consistent in college attendance, which explains why their pass rate, 62.97%, outperformed boys' 54.60% this year. Poverty, malnutrition, long commutes, and lack of access to private tutoring are major determinants of academic success. Education, for many families, is still viewed as a privilege rather than a right, and economic necessity often overrides long-term academic aspirations.
The fairness of assessment itself has also become a matter of concern. Some argue that question papers differ in difficulty across boards, creating inequitable standards. A unified question paper for all boards could ensure a level playing field, though such a reform would require rigorous monitoring and security to prevent question leaks. Bangladesh's long history of question paper leaks undermines trust in the entire examination process. Until assessment systems are standardized and securely managed, disparities in results will remain a recurring phenomenon.
Equally troubling is the performance of entire institutions. This year, 202 educational institutions across the country recorded a zero-pass rate, compared to only 65 in 2024. This staggering number reflects not only student weakness but also institutional collapse, such as ineffective leadership, poor teacher attendance, and a lack of remedial support. Such institutions require immediate government intervention, targeted teacher training, and transparent accountability measures. Treating them as isolated cases would only deepen the systemic rot.
Finally, the decline in success rates, though alarming, carries a silver lining. For years, policymakers prioritized "good-looking" results to project progress, thereby masking deep learning deficits. This year's fall in pass rates and GPA-5 achievers, from 145,911 in 2024 to 69,097 in 2025, signals that inflated marks are no longer tolerated. The Education Adviser's remark that "we have chosen honesty over inflated satisfaction" emphasizes a turning point. Recognizing the crisis is the first step toward reform. If Bangladesh can sustain this honesty while simultaneously addressing inequities, the path to recovery will become clearer.
Bangladesh's education system stands at a crossroads. The failure of more than one-third of HSC candidates should not be dismissed as a temporary statistical downturn. It is a reflection of deep structural inadequacies, including unequal resources, weak pedagogy, learning loss, and economic marginalization. Unless the state undertakes urgent reforms such as teacher training, equitable funding, reducing disparity, and rigorous evaluation, the crisis will only widen. Honesty in reporting results is commendable, but honesty must now translate into action.
The writer is an education policy researcher
