Higher Secondary Education Board today said letter grading system in the School Leaving Certificate exams from this year will not affect admission of SLC graduates to plus two colleges.

Officiating Examination Controller Santosh Aryal, Office of the Controller of the Examination, today said that admission of students in plus two level will not have any effect as the grading system is based on score range for each grade.

The Ministry of Education had last week decided to implement letter grading system in SLC examinations from this year.

Last year, letter grading system was introduced in technical and vocational stream for around 32,000 students, while from this year it will be implemented in all streams.

Last year, students were awarded only six grades — A+, A, B, C, D and E — depending on their performance. From this year, there will be nine grades — A+, A, B+, B, C+, C, D, E and N— to evaluate students’ performance.

As per the new grading system, A+ meaning ‘outstanding’ is given to students scoring between 90 and 100 marks. Similarly, A meaning ‘excellent’ is given to students scoring between 80 and 89 marks. B+ meaning ‘very good’ is for students with scores between 70 and 79, B for scores between 60 and 69, C+ for scores between 50 and 59, and C for score between 40 and 49.

Likewise, D is for scores between 20 and 39, E for scores between 1 and 19 and N meaning ‘not graded’ is for students scoring 0. N grade is given to students who have been absent or expelled from the exam.

A+ is equivalent to 4 in GPA (Grade Point Average) system, A 3.6, B+ 3.2, B 2.8, C+ 2.4, C 2.0, D 1.6, E 0.8 and N is 0. Aryal further said that HSEB has been discussing with the government and other stakeholders regarding determination of grade ceiling for enrollment of student in plus two colleges.

“The academic session for grade XI begins from mid-July so we have already started discussions at various levels and will come to certain conclusions before the beginning of the new academic session.”

source:the himalayan times,13 Dec 2015