Gain or Pain?
Despite passing of more than 58 percent, this year's School Leaving Certificate too is not a gain for all. Many see it still as a pain
By NIRAKAR POUDEL
For Denis Karki, 17, a student of GEMS, a reputed private school of Kathmandu, it was the happiest day of his life. He secured distinction in the School Leaving Certificate Examination.
However, the result did not produce a moment of joy to many. For Anita Baral, 18, of Jhapa district, 500 miles east of capital and Sabita Poudel, 17, of Kalakkhola of Syangja district, 250 miles west of capital, the result came as a shadow of death. After failing to pass examination, Baral ended her life by taking poison and Poudel killed herself by hanging in kitchen ceiling.
According to SLC Examination Board, 274,210 regular students appeared in the SLC examinations this year, but only 58.6 percent were successful to pass the exam.
According to the results, which were published late night on Thursday (July 5), 58.64 percent of regular examinees have passed the exams along with 31.5 percent of the exempted ones. In total, there were over 352,000 students who appeared this year's SLC. Last year, only 46.51 percent of regular examinees had passed the SLC test.
As per the Office of the Controller of Examination (OCE), Sanothimi, 56,153 students have passed in first division; 89,662 in second division and 7789 in third division. Likewise, over 7000 students have passed securing distinction marks. Like in the past year, the OCE has not published the names of top ten students. The results of this year's SLC have been published in daily newspapers including Gorkhapatra, The Kathmandu Post and Annapurna Post. They are also made available in websites of the ministry of education and department of education (www.moe.gov.np; www.doe.gov.np ), among others. Likewise, they can also be availed through SMS to 1400 number of Nepal Telecom. This year's SLC had been held on April 4-12.
"It was a day of jubilation," said Karki who secured distinction. For students of private boarding schools like Karki, SLC examination is no more iron gate but for the students from government schools like Poudel and Baral, SLC is a totally different story.
"This is the best result in the last few years," said Minister of Sports and Education Pradeep Nepal. "We still need to improve it."
Many education experts claimed that the quality of education has improved in Nepal in recent years. Their assertion is based on the trend in increase in proportion of the students who pass " Iron Gate" in recent years.
"This claim is a complete illusion because the majority of the passed students are from private schools. If we analyze the performance of the government schools the situation is gloomy. This vast difference in the performances of the government schools and the private schools has raised a big question," said an educationist.
It is said that the better outcome in the SLC examination this year may be attributed to the fact that the syllabus was watered down. This year only the syllabus of class 10 was included for the examination in contrast to previous years when syllabus from both the class 9 and 10 were included.
The criteria to pass the exam were eased by allowing grace mark of 5 for those who pass at least two subjects. It seems that only the private schools were favored by these new rules. Graded English Medium School (GEMS), for example, achieved outstanding result this year with 128 students out of 189 students securing distinction and the rest passing with the first division.
The government schools all over the country were still unable to improve their results.
Experts argue that the government must step forward to improve the quality of education in the government schools and make it as competitive as private schools. Although the government invests fair amount of money on education, the reason for the government schools to produce unsatisfactory outcome are politics that prevail in the schools and lack of well qualified teachers.
Despite the alluring prospects in the government schools, most of teachers of these schools are involved in politics and are dispassionate about teaching. When inquired about the number of days required to complete the course, a teacher of a private school replied that at least 180 days are required. If we take into account the number of strikes and bandhs, these minimum numbers of days are not covered.
Private schools usually compensate these bandhs and strikes by taking classes on other holidays and conducting coaching classes. On the other hand, government schools remain closed even when private schools are opened due to the obstruction of the teachers demanding better facilities or fulfillments of other unnecessary demands.
In the rural parts of Nepal, there are no qualified teachers in the secondary levels. Recently, there was news in the media about the teacher of primary levels coaching those of the secondary level.
There were talks about setting two different boards for the government schools and the private schools if the quality of education in the government school is not improved. Currently, the course studied by a student of a private school, who has access to the Internet, all the technologies, libraries and different sources of information, and a student of a remote village who is totally unaware of computers and other technologies is same.
Is it a fair competition? In fact, it is obvious that the competition is not fair. To make the competition impartial either the quality of education in the private institutions should be lessened or the government school should also be provided with the same access to information and technologies as the private schools. Since, the former is a ridiculous option, the only alternative is to upgrade quality of government schools.
"The overall result this year is very promising. The result can be improved even more if these frequent bandhs don't affect education. The education should be declared peace zone," said a teacher.
"Although the private schools have achieved excellent results, some schools have put unnecessary pressure on students by conducting classes' up to twelve hours per day. Such unnecessary workloads have prevented students from social interactions, sports and other basic entertainment," added another teacher.
If the classes are not disturbed by strikes in upcoming days, the pressure on the students might lessen and schools can focus on developing student's personality and other activities.
This disparity between the quality of education in the private and the government institutions must be addressed very soon. If this issue is not taken seriously, there will always be pain for one group of the students and gain for the other group. The government must take immediate action to figure out the way that will be in favor of both the groups. If the government had addressed this issue a few years back, then Anita Baral and Sabita Poudel might not have committed suicide.
WEST SETI TO START BY YEAR END
Construction of the 750-MW West Seti, which will be the biggest power plant in Nepal, is expected to start by the end of 2007.
The construction of the mega project located in Doti district, far-western region, will be completed in five years at an estimated cost of USD 1.2 billion, Rastriya Samachar Samiti (RSS) said quoting officials at the construction company West Seti Hydro Limited (WSHL), a subsidiary of Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation (SMEC) of Australia.
Nepal government has 15 percent share in West Seti project being financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and three Chinese banks. Under the project agreement (PA) signed in June 1997 the Nepal government had assured to grant all licenses to WSHL for the development, construction, ownership and operation of the project, including generation and transmission licenses for a period of 30 years from the date of issue of the license.
The electricity generated from West Seti will be exported to India. Nepal government will receive revenue for the 10 percent of the power generated as royalty payment.
A power purchase agreement (PPA) with a term of 25 years, to be effective from the start of commercial operation, was signed by WSHL with Power Trade Corporation of India in 2003. WSHL managing director William Bultitude said the project would be handed over to Nepal government after 30 years. (Courtesy: nepalnews.com)
