Full picture of Dinajpur board's HSC disaster: no one passed at 49 institutions, 46,689 failed in English alone

The 2026 HSC results in Rangpur Division have turned into a severe disaster. Under the Dinajpur education board, 60,389 candidates failed this year. Of them, 46,689 failed in English alone. The overall pass rate stands at just 45.98 percent, the lowest in the division's published statistics of recent years.

The most worrying picture is in the institution-wise results. Not a single student passed from 49 institutions under the board. By contrast, only six institutions achieved a 100 percent pass rate.

The statistics, signed by the chairman of the Dinajpur education board, were published at 11am on Saturday (31 October). The board's controller of examinations, Professor Md Borhan Uddin, later presented the figures at a press conference.

According to board sources, a total of 111,787 students from 668 institutions in the division's eight districts sat this year's HSC exams. Of them, 51,398 passed. That means more than half of the candidates could not pass this year.

Compared with last year, the Dinajpur board's pass rate has fallen by 11.51 percentage points. In 2025 the board's pass rate was 57.49 percent. It was 77.56 percent in 2024, 74.48 percent in 2023 and 79.08 percent in 2022.

This year, 2,953 students in the board's eight districts achieved GPA-5. Among them are 1,383 boys and 1,570 girls — girls have outnumbered boys in GPA-5 as well. In 2025, 6,260 students in this board achieved GPA-5, so the number of top achievers has fallen markedly within a year.

The greatest concern in this year's results is English. The pass rate in the subject under the board is 56.05 percent, meaning 43.95 percent of candidates failed in English. In numbers, 46,689 students failed in this one subject alone.

Explaining the English disaster, controller of examinations Professor Md Borhan Uddin said many colleges under the board lack experienced and skilled English teachers. He said the failure to teach properly had negatively affected students' results.

He also said that, alongside the long-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic, students' normal education had been disrupted by recent political movements and unrest, and that this had affected their preparation and results. Calling the English outcome undesirable, the controller said the board was considering the matter seriously and would take steps to strengthen necessary teacher training in future.

By stream, science students did comparatively better, with a pass rate of 66.77 percent. The humanities pass rate is 39.93 percent, and the business studies pass rate is just 35.73 percent.

Girls are also ahead in the gender-wise results. The boys' pass rate is 41.31 percent, against 50.26 percent for girls. Of all successful candidates, 22,106 are boys and 29,292 are girls.

In the list of the top 50 institutions by GPA-5 achievers, Rangpur district has the most entries, with 12 institutions. Dinajpur is second with 11; Nilphamari and Lalmonirhat have six each, Gaibandha and Kurigram five each, Thakurgaon three and Panchagarh two.

Rangpur Government College tops the institution list: of its 1,271 candidates, 1,207 passed and 428 achieved GPA-5. Rangpur Cantonment Public School and College is second — 949 of its 956 candidates passed and 310 achieved GPA-5. Police Lines School and College had 122 GPA-5 achievers, Carmichael College 116 and The Millennium Stars School and College 61. Amid the overall disaster, all 47 candidates of Rangpur Cadet College passed and every one of them achieved GPA-5.

On the other hand, the number of zero-pass institutions was 43 last year, against 49 this year. Among them, Kandir Hat School and College in Pirgachha upazila of Rangpur has drawn particular attention. This year only one student from the institution sat the exam in the humanities stream — that candidate, Sanjib Barman, failed in one subject. No student from the institution passed last year either. Its acting principal, Rafiqul Bari, said the college was founded in 2011 but has still not been brought under MPO; it currently has 16 teachers and staff including an office assistant. He claimed good students are not interested in enrolling there for lack of necessary infrastructure, facilities and financial security, so student numbers have been falling day by day.

According to educationist Professor Harun Or Rashid Chowdhury, the failure of huge numbers of students in English and in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is one of the main causes of the overall disaster. His analysis also pointed to exams on the full syllabus, students' long-standing learning gaps, a shortage of skilled subject teachers, irregular classroom attendance and a lack of effective teacher training. He also cited the failure to fully recover from the educational losses of the coronavirus pandemic and the impact of the political and social unrest of July 2024, and named dependence on private tuition instead of the classroom and excessive time on social media as possible reasons for falling education standards.

The Dinajpur board's result this year is not only a matter of a falling pass rate or fewer GPA-5s; it has also brought forward the need for a deep review of college-level education quality, the teacher crisis, teaching methods and students' learning gaps across the eight districts.