Minister addresses lower SSC pass marks for Islam, Dhivehi

Education Minister Ismail Shafeeu stated on Wednesday that the reduced pass threshold for the SSC examination in Islamic and Dhivehi subjects is not a reflection of poor teaching or student performance.

This announcement comes as the Department of Public Examinations (DPE) released mark sheets for this year's SSC examinations, coinciding with the release of O'Level results.

According to the DPE, a department under the Ministry of Education responsible for national and international examinations, the required passing marks for Dhivehi and Islam have decreased in recent years. Specifically, for Islam, a 'C' grade, previously obtained with 50 percent marks in 2019, now requires only 34 percent. Similarly, the passing requirement for Dhivehi, which was 45 marks in 2019, has been reduced to 35 marks this year. These changes have prompted concerns from some parents and teachers.

In a Facebook post, Minister Shafeeu clarified that the threshold should not be misinterpreted as the actual scores assigned to the test papers. He explained that the threshold for national-level assessments is determined based on mark distributions in the past and the difficulty level of the current examination paper.

"The main purpose is to determine, for example, whether a child who got a C grade in 1995 and a child who got a C grade this year have almost the same level," Shafeeu informed Sun.

The Minister acknowledged that this information had been withheld until recently due to potential criticism if the SSC examination threshold was publicly known. However, he maintained that the method of setting the threshold is not inherently problematic.

Shafeeu further elaborated that while student grades may decline for various reasons, the adjusted threshold is not a consequence of inadequate student learning or teaching quality. "For example, if you give a very difficult paper, it doesn't necessarily mean that the child is poor. The threshold is not always low because the child is poor, or because the teaching is poor. There are many other factors," he explained.

He reiterated that parents and teachers are concerned about the decline in the threshold since 2019 and emphasized the need to investigate the underlying reasons.

The O'Level examination commenced on April 25 across all schools in the Maldives, with 7,971 students participating. Education Minister Shafeeu recently highlighted that in addition to the recent decline in student results for these subjects, Dhivehi and Islam are among the most challenging subjects to find qualified teachers.