Feature
Brain Drain
Zannatul Lamea
I called it “Bumper production of GPA 5”, yes yes , I am talking about the SSC result 2008.Truly mesmerizing, wasn't it? My cousin was an examinee this year, and I found her sulky after the result, no worries she herself secured GPA 5, but she still was sulky. I was inquisitive and tried to dig into the matter. What she said was that the top score of the country is now a generalized term, no matter how extra-ordinary effort you give or how much marks you secure, you have to share a generalized top score and there is simply no way to identify an out of the box student scoring high marks. Even in O’ and A’ levels, there is recognition for the student who scores highest mark in any subject. Well, I couldn't help but agree; there are a lot of loopholes in the existing SSC and HSC results. I would not be going into making a list of the error findings, but I sure can number the very common and prominent ones. Personally speaking, students of our country have lowered their glass ceilings of expectation. Previously there was a zeal among fellow students to work hard and be an outstanding student with top scores. At present? Let alone scoring high, the expectation of even a very talented student has come down to securing 80% only. Getting GPA 5 is all they want, they give their best not to be an outstanding student but just to be one of the GPA 5 crowd.
Recognition itself works as a strong drive to chase every impossible dream. Students can't really be blamed. When our own education system has outlined the infra structure in such a way that there is no evaluation, let alone recognition of outstanding efforts- then why blame the students for not striving further? If a student who scores 99% and a student who scores 80% are evaluated and categorized in the parameter, then why would they want to work hard to get 99, when the one scoring 80 gets the same appreciation? Personally speaking, I think that our education infra structure in a way discourages students to learn and excel to reach the peak of excellence.
So what is the aftermath? A huge number of students score the highest scale that is GPA 5.00, they all go through the rigorous process of admission into universities and majority of these GPA 5.00 achievers end up not getting admitted in their first prioritized subjects. There is a common notion among a lot of us, most importantly among our parent group that any student not getting admitted in BUET, DMCH or Dhaka University is not talented at all and they love categorizing those students as B grade students. Well it sure is easy to label a student just like that and then sneer at him/her, but the question is, how many of you have actually analyzed the situation before sticking a label on us? I would just put up some point of clarifications- Consider the population of the student community, is there proportionate amount of seats in your “Public” institutions to accommodate this diverse group? On average it is seen that for one seat, at least 25-30 students are competing. One scores the jackpot, what happens to the rest 24? All of them are rotten apples? Isn't that what they are regarded as? So where would this rest lot go? Should they stop their education only because they didn't “qualify” to win the battle of winning one seat when 24 others are competing for the same seat? And it's not always that he/she scored it through fair competition. In Bangladesh, even in education system there is no transparency, doesn't matter what your score is, doesn't matter if you have sufficient amount of grey matter to study the subject- all that matters is “Connection” and the height of the level of it.
Do top scorers ever need to worry about admissions? Well I guess in Bangladesh, they do. So what happens ultimately even after scoring the top score that is GPA 5? Students wonder with anxiety if they would get admission in their desired place. Is it because all of a sudden their brains get drained? Or is it the magic of our educational infra structure that talents are transformed into dumps leaving most talented students in a dilemma about their future?
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