GPA-5 galore on new system
Staff Correspondent
The introduction of the new system of calculating marks last year has been put down by teachers to students scoring the higher number of grade point average (GPA) 5 this year.As many as 17,276 examinees in Secondary School Certificate (SSC), Dakhil and SSC (Vocational) examinations have scored the GPA 5 this year -- which is a record -- compared to 9,886 last year and 1,392 the year before. The letter-grading system was introduced in these SSC-level public examinations in 2002 when only 330 students secured GPA-5s. Students with 80 marks in each subject earlier could secure GPA 5 and no marks from the elective subjects were carried over to the aggregate. But the new system allows marks above 40 in the elective subjects to be added to the aggregate and equally divided for the 10 subjects. If a student, for instance, gets 60 marks in an elective subject, 20 marks would be added to his aggregate. "If the system was there in the previous years the number of students with perfect GPA would have been similar to this year," said one teacher, preferring anonymity.
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