Girls have outperformed boys in Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and equivalent examinations for the 11th consecutive year, widening a long-running gender gap that educationists say now warrants serious scrutiny over boys’ study habits, learning environment and growing exposure to distractions.
The divide was particularly pronounced in 2026.
While 66.68% of female candidates passed, the pass rate among boys was only 57.86% -- a gap of 8.82 percentage points.
Of the 911,000 girls who sat for the examinations, 607,939 passed.
Among 917,694 male candidates, 530,938 were successful, meaning 77,001 more girls passed despite fewer girls appearing for the exams.
Girls also maintained a clear lead in the highest grade.
A total of 63,896 female students secured GPA-5, compared with 52,780 boys, a difference of 11,116.
The pattern has now persisted for more than a decade.
Boys last recorded a higher SSC pass rate in 2015, when 87.41% of male candidates passed against 86.64% of girls.
Since 2016, girls have remained ahead every year.
The gender gap this year was visible across all three academic groups under the nine general education boards.
In science, 83.70% of girls passed against 77.39% of boys.
In business studies, the rates were 69.92% for girls and 59.98% for boys.
The widest divide emerged in humanities, where 54.38% of girls passed compared with just 41.14% of boys, a gap of 13.24 percentage points.
The latest results continue a pattern seen in previous years.
In 2025, girls posted a pass rate of 71.03%, compared with 65.88% among boys, while 73,616 girls secured GPA-5 against 65,416 boys.
Girls also led in pass rates and GPA-5 achievements in 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020.
Educationists say the consistency of the trend suggests the issue goes beyond a single examination or cohort.
Acting Principal Mazeda Begum of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College said: “As a teacher, I can say that girls do more homework and prefer studying on their own. Boys, on the other hand, tend to be more restless.”
She said girls generally remain more closely connected to their families and receive greater supervision at home.
Mazeda said: “Girls can be described as more disciplined. Boys may have the same or even greater potential in terms of intelligence, but girls tend to be more disciplined when it comes to studying.”
Mohammad Shams Uddin, acting head teacher of Siddheswari Boys’ High School, also pointed to weaker study habits among boys, saying parents more frequently complain that their sons do not study at home.
He also cited mobile phone addiction and difficulties in maintaining discipline as contributing factors.
Dr Md Serajul Islam, professor at the Institute of Education and Research at Dhaka University, said boys’ greater exposure to activities outside the home could be dividing their attention.
He said: “Boys have many things in their minds beyond their studies. As a result, their concentration becomes divided.”
He cautioned, however, against interpreting examination scores as the sole measure of learning.
“Although boys are falling behind girls in examination results, boys may be learning more through experiences outside the classroom,” Serajul added.
He nevertheless warned that the persistent performance gap required greater attention from families, schools and policymakers.
Serajul said: “Our whole society needs to be quiet and calm. We have to create a better environment. If we fail to do so, there could be a major crisis in the future.”
Parents, meanwhile, raised concerns that gender is not the only divide shaping examination outcomes.
Nasrin Nahar, a parent of an SSC candidate, said students outside major cities often lack access to the same quality of schools, teachers and learning resources available in Dhaka.
She said: “Most of our students are from rural areas. If questions are not designed generally, rural students will continue to fall behind those in cities.”
At Viqarunnisa Noon School and College, GPA-5 achiever Rumaisa Ali Mershiha’s mother said: “Mershiha worked very hard. She was under a lot of tension because there were concerns about mistakes in some question papers. We were also worried about how the results would turn out this year, but the outcome is as we hoped.”
Another GPA-5 recipient, Mayarisa Hasan, said: “I missed A+ in one subject by just one mark.”
Experts say girls’ sustained dominance in public examinations represents a major educational achievement, but it also raises a growing policy question: why are boys increasingly falling behind at school?
At the same time, they note a striking contradiction beyond the classroom.
Despite outperforming boys in examinations year after year, many women later lose ground in employment because of family responsibilities, social barriers and wider socio-cultural constraints.