The National Examination Board has issued a procedure asking all schools in the country to submit the evaluation sheet of Grade X students to the respective District Education Development and Coordination Unit by July 4 on the basis of evaluation of students’ performance.

The NEB’s procedure is followed by the Cabinet’s decision to scrap physical examination of Grade X, also called the Secondary Education Examination, owing to the surge in COV- ID-19 infection. The DEDCU is then required to submit the evaluation sheet to the NEB by mid-July, which will then publish the final result of SEE.

The evaluation of students’ performance will be made by a five-member committee of the school comprising the head teacher, one senior teacher and teachers of English, Mathematics and Science. The committee shall fill the form provided by the NEB in accordance with the proper evaluation scheme. The schools are expected to provide proper explanation regarding the marks provided to the students, especially when the marks in theory subjects is above 80 per cent.

NEB Chairman Chandramani Paudel said, “We have introduced a new rule: schools should provide proper explanation with proofs justifying the higher marks given to students.” He further explained that the rule was introduced as the NEB was criticised last year after schools provided unreasonably high marks to students in comparison to previous years. Paudel also said they might send the grading back to the school if the remarks were not found plausible.

Last year, the government’s move allowing schools to provide marks on their own had received flak from various stakeholders as the schools were found to be providing unreasonably high marks to their students. Last year, as many as 9,019 students had acquired the perfect GPA 4.0 after schools provided marks to the NEB on the basis of internal evaluation.This was an increase by over 8,400 per cent compared to the previous year in which only 106 students had scored the perfect GPA 4.0. Overall, grading had also increased dramatically, meaning the students had acquired more scores than their ability.

The Board is planning to issue results by July-end and is preparing to start new classes from August onwards. Some 517,000 students are preparing for the SEE this year.

The NEB had postponed the SEE exams indefinitely citing the surge in Covid-19 cases in the country. The exam, if held on the scheduled date, will end by the end of June.

Earlier, the academic year used to begin from April. But when the SEE exam was held after several months, the government had decided to begin the new academic year in mid- June. However, even the extended date will now be pushed by over one month.

source: The HImalayan Times, 15 June 2021