Educationists have expressed concern about the underperformance of rural students compared with that of the students in urban areas in the recent public examinations, which, they say, is a clear indication that students living in outlying areas are facing discrimination and deprived of good education.
It is alarming for the future of the country that a large section of society would lag behind for years because of discrimination in education, they said while talking to New Age about the results of some recent public examinations in which rural students cut a sorry figure.
They said that the government should take the matter seriously and draw up plans to address the issue.
Educationists and rural schoolteachers blame shortage of teachers and lack of opportunities for their training for poor performance of rural students.     
Rural students continued to underperform compared with their urban counterparts although their results over the past years showed a trend towards improvement. 
The results of Secondary School Certificate and equivalent examinations this year show that most students who gained GPA 5 are from urban areas.
They also show that most of the top 20 schools in any education board are either urban schools or cadet colleges.
Similar was the recent results of primary terminal examinations, Junior School Certificate examinations and Higher Secondary Certificate examinations.
The same schools and colleges have remained in the elite club of top 20 schools for years with the rural schools lagging far behind.  
A total of 65,252 students got GPA 5 under the eight general education boards in this year’s SSC examinations, of them, 25,629 are from the Dhaka board. Most of the students who fared better were mainly from the metropolitan area of Dhaka and its surroundings. A majority of students who got GPA 5 outside Dhaka were also from urban areas.
Seventeen out of the top-performing 20 schools in the Primary Terminal Examinations are located in Dhaka metropolitan area and the rest three are in urban areas outside the capital, according to the results published in December 2011.
According to the results of Junior School Certificate examinations published in December 2011, most of the top 10 schools were also in urban areas.