The offices under the Ministry of Education have agreed to put up their best efforts for a two-digit increase in the pass percentage of the School Leaving Certificate examinations next year.

All the directors of the Regional Education Directorates and District Education Officers (DEO) from 75 districts expressed a commitment to this effect during a four-day national conference that concluded in the Capital on Wednesday.

In the meeting, it was informed that the Department of Education (DoE) has developed a work plan to improve the SLC success rate after the results dropped to eight-year low this year, drawing widespread criticism from different quarters.

Under the new plan, the public schools should remain open for 220 days in a year and the class days will be increased to 192 from the existing 180. There will also be full classes on Friday with some extra-curricular activities.

The new plan has it that the teachers should set a benchmark for success and develop a work plan accordingly, which will be monitored by school inspectors and resources persons. “With the new initiative, we are hoping to increase the SLC success rate at least by 10 percent next year,” said Lava Deo Awasthi, director general at the DoE at a programme organised to publicise decisions of the conference.

The SLC success rate dropped to 41.7 percent this year from 47.16 percent last year. According to the work plan, teachers and officials who fail to meet the benchmark will face action and those who perform well will be rewarded.

All the DEOs have agreed to maintain profiles of the schools with poor results and develop a mechanism to find out the reasons behind their poor academic performance and come up with solutions, according to the directive. The new provision has also tasked the DEOs to set up hotlines to receive complaints against teachers and address grievances.

Meanwhile, amid a shortage of teachers in the technical subjects like Science and Mathematics, including English, the ministry is working to change the existing legal provision that makes it mandatory for a teacher to have a Bachelor’s degree in the Education faculty. “We want to liberalise the policy so that we can recruit graduates from Science or other faculties too,” said Tek Narayan Pandey, director at the DoE. The department also has decided to carry out a school mapping and adopt merger or closing policy in the schools having minimal enrollment.

source: the kathmandu post,30 august 2013