SSC 2026 GPA-5 Count Drops to 116,676 as Girls Outperform Boys

The number of top achievers securing the highest grade of GPA-5 in Bangladesh's Secondary School Certificate and equivalent examinations has dropped significantly, with 116,676 students earning the distinction this year, while female candidates continued to outpace male counterparts.

Education and Primary and Mass Education Minister Dr. ANM Ehsanul Hoque Milon officially released the 2026 examination results during a formal announcement at the Ministry of Education conference room in Dhaka on Monday morning. The publication brought an end to over two and a half months of anticipation for roughly 1.8 million students across the country.

According to the official statistics, a total of 116,676 examinees achieved GPA-5 this year, comprising 52,780 male students and 63,896 female students. Female candidates surpassed male peers by 11,116 recipients in the top-tier bracket, reinforcing a consistent pattern of female academic outperformance observed in recent cycles.

The overall count of top scorers marks a notable decrease compared to the previous year. In 2025, a total of 139,032 students secured GPA-5, consisting of 65,416 male and 73,616 female candidates. This represents a cumulative decline of 22,356 total GPA-5 recipients, with female top scorers decreasing by 9,720 and male top scorers dropping by 12,636.

The release of the results follows an extended processing period, arriving approximately three weeks later than the traditional 60-day window following the conclusion of written examinations. A total of 1,857,344 candidates registered for the tests across 11 education boards nationwide, utilizing 3,885 testing centers across 30,666 educational institutions.

The candidate pool for 2026 included 930,305 male students and 927,039 female students across three major educational streams. General education boards accounted for 1,418,318 candidates, while the Madrasa Education Board registered 303,286 Dakhil examinees, and the Technical Education Board recorded 134,660 participants.

Broader performance metrics from prior cycles highlight considerable year-on-year shifts, with the national pass rate recorded at 68.45 percent in 2025, following an 83.4 percent pass rate in 2024.

Students and guardians can access detailed scorecards and marksheets through official education board portals online. Additionally, mobile SMS services are available for result retrieval using both the established 16222 number and the newly introduced 16140 SMS shortcode, though technical traffic may cause minor delays during initial publication hours.