Aug. 25: In light of the deterioration in student’s learning and reading habits as well as degradation in the quality of education, the government has been preparing to tighten the provision of upgrading the pupils to higher grades.The Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) has sent a proposal of working procedure to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) that includes the amendment to the current evaluation method.

Ana Prasad Neupane, director general of the CDC, said it had sent the proposal seeking to amend the evaluation procedure with the aim of making it more systematic so that the students are upgraded based only on their merit.

The CDC has set the new provision as per the recommendation made by the committee led by Usha Jha, former member of National Planning Commission, on alphabetical evaluation method, Neupane said.

If the provision comes into effect after approval, the evaluation of the students will be more scientific/systematic. However, Neupane declined to speak about the threshold they have set for the students to get upgraded.

Neupane said that the students had to achieve a certain GPA to pass even Secondary Education Examination (SEE) and that the changed provision could be very supportive in reversing the degrading reading habit among the children.

Likewise, the CDC has also proposed the same assessment system from Grade I to XII. Now, the GPA and grade calculations vary t in different classes.

The draft of the working procedure, which also seeks to change the practical marks, has been sent to the Ministry for approval. The present provision allows the teachers to give marks to their students without a solid basis. But, once the new working procedure is implemented, that will put an end to such arbitrary practice. In the procedure, different criteria are included for practical marks, said Neupane.

Deepak Sharma, spokesperson of the MoEST, said that the Ministry is holding consultations with the National Examination Board (NEB) regarding the changed working procedure because the NEB has final authority in evaluation of students. So, the draft will be approved after getting the feedback from the NEB, he said.

source: risingnepal, 25 august 2021