Bangladesh’s Political Turmoil Takes a Toll on Test Scores

“Hartals,” or strikes, have been a common feature of Bangladesh’s political scene since its birth. Hartals often involve violence in the form of damaging private property such as cars, trains, or buses, and therefore result in a virtual shutdown of transportation and commerce. Although public schools remain open during strikes, attendance is low because many students are unwilling to take the risk of travelling. Private English-medium schools shut down during strikes, taking significant time away from the school year.

Not only do strikes take away valuable school hours, the uncertainty and constant reshuffling of exam schedules negatively impacts students’ ability to prepare. A student from Monipur High School and College stated, “our syllabus could not be completed because of the hartals and blockade programmes and now the political programmes are hampering our last minute preparations.” The impact can already be seen in the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) results in 2013, which have dropped more than five percentage points. The combined pass rate also decreased 4.37 percentage points.

International exams such as the O’ and A’ Levels, which follow a global schedule, have been rescheduled or postponed at least nine times since January 2013, often at unusual hours such as midnight. In certain cases, consecutive hartals have resulted in cancelled exam dates, meaning students would have to wait at least six months before the next exam date. Parents and guardians are frustrated and worried about their childrens’ performance, and their prospects of admissions to national and international universities. A group of parents recently submitted a memorandum to the opposition party, demanding them not to call hartals on exam days.

Recent years have seen a marked increase in the number of hartals, with 173 days of shutdown in the period between 2001 and 2006. 2013 also saw a record number of strikes as it was a pre-election year. The recent election has been marred with controversy, with a boycott from the opposition party and a record low turnout. It has resulted in declarations of indefinite blockades and continued strikes, which threaten to weaken not only the economy, but the education system.

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