Feature

G.P.A. 5.00 and those ‘Successful’ Schools

Tabassum Mokhduma

SO finally we saw yet another year, which gifted the nation with a huge number of students achieving the feat of attaining G.P.A. 5.00, the highest grade in Secondary School Certificate Examination (S.S.C.). Well, it is really good to see those jubilant faces of the successful students, proud teachers and relieved parents who had been praying for the students' success and waiting anxiously for the results to come out. Their prayers were certainly brought its fruit and that is why the following days after the result we saw photos of the successful students, names of the successful schools and so on in different newspapers of the country.

No doubt, it positively feels great to achieve that outstanding result, but I am not going to narrate how they feel, nor am I going to compare it with the O' Level results. It is about some successful schools which proudly give the photos of their outstanding students in the newspapers and thus encourage the parents to run after those schools and have their kids admitted. Well, I do not have any problem with the photos of those schools, which has good teaching staff, excellent monitoring system and other facilities that is needed for a student for not only to accomplish such stupendous result but also to groom them for the future. Neither do I have problem with those photos of the successful students and their schools. After all, excellent achievers should definitely be recognized. What is bothering me since S.S.C. result is the unexpected acts of some schools, which I strongly feel, should not be encouraged at all.

One of my cousins passed S.S.C. this year and got G.P.A. 4.88. The result left him and his family in an awkward and quite embarrassing situation. His school, without his or his parent's permission, published his photo along with the G.P.A. 5.00 achievers of that very school in a leading local newspaper and along with photos published congratulatory notes which can mislead anyone to believe that my cousin was also one of the G.P.A. 5.00 achievers. The use of congratulating words were such that they did not directly say that all the students whose photographs were published got that highest result but those words seem to say that all those students actually got G.P.A. 5.00 and the credit fully goes to that school!

After this awful situation, many of his relatives, friends, even neighbors were congratulating him for achieving G.P.A. 5.00 which actually he did not achieve! Moreover, some were saying why he did not inform them about such a good result. Some were even saying that they did not even know such a good and caring school is there. He and his family were feeling so embarrassed for what that school did and they were in fact trying to make people understand that he did not get highest G.P.A. but school published his photo along with those who got it and school authority's deceitful but smart congratulatory words were encouraging parents to have their kids admitted in that school.

It is important to congratulate the successful students so that they feel encouraged to do even better in the future. But certainly this is not the way. Schools are the institutions that are supposed to instill several qualities in the students and truthfulness is one of them. But instead of doing so what they are actually doing is encouraging the students to choose the path of lies and betrayal?

It is only the story of a student and a school. May be there are some other schools like this as well who do the same. Moreover, the ever-sprouting coaching centres are also there which, besides doing this type of act, sometimes deceive in even more 'creative' way. Well, that is a different story. But if this type of irresponsible acts of the schools keep continuing then we all know what will happen to Bangladesh in the future.