The pass percentage in the School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examination has nosedived again, by nine percentage points, this year.

Out of the total of 397,759 students who appeared in the SLC examination conducted in the academic year 2067 B.S. (March 2011), only 220,766 students got through this most vital exam of their school life.


The pass percentage in this year´s SLC exams stands at 55.50 percent -- nine percentage points lower than in the previous year (2066 B.S.), when 64.31 percent of students passed through the ´iron gate´.

Last year´s pass percentage, which was four percentage points lower than in the year immediately before (2065 B.S.), had raised eyebrows among education policymakers. The dismay that policymakers felt was largely due to the euphoria of constant increase in SLC pass percentages in the last few years, especially since the academic session of 2061 B.S.

This year´s further decline in the SLC pass percentage has baffled government officials also. Education Secretary Shankar Prasad Pandey, who briefed journalists about the SLC results published by the Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE) on Sunday, appeared puzzled as to why the pass percentage dropped drastically this year.

“The drop in SLC pass percentages may be due to the more disciplined and stricter conduct of exams,” Pandey said, responding to journalist´s queries. “This question can be dealt with better by education experts.”

The percentage has dropped in spite of the OCE board´s decision to continue the tradition of grace marks. According to Surya Prasad Gautam, controller of examinations, the OCE board has given a maximum of 5 grace marks to students who failed two subjects.

According to Gautam, altogether 17,740 students have benefited from the OCE board´s decision on grace marks this academic sesssion. This means that only 51.04 percent of students would have passed the SLC exams had there been no grace marks.

Simply put, barely only one in two students has succeeded in this year´s SLC examination. This is the worst SLC pass percentage since the academic session of 2062 B.S. That academic year, only 46.52 percent students made it through the iron gate. The percentage had risen constantly since 2062 B.S. until last year.

The pass percentage under the exempted category is even more shocking. Of the total 56,263 exempted students, only 17.30 percent succeeded, with none of them obtaining distinction marks. Last year, almost 30 percent of exempted students had passed.

In what seems the only satisfactory point about this year´s SLC results, the number of students obtaining distinction marks has gone up to 20,111. Last year, only 16,859 students had achieved distinction.

Reflection of politics

Education expert Dr Bidya Nath Koirala, who firmly believes that the rise and fall in the SLC pass percentage does not truly reflect the progress made by the country in education, says this year´s sharp fall is mainly due to stricter examinations.

“The more stable the country´s politics, the stricter the exams become,” says Dr Koirala. “You will find this if you look meticulously at the trend of SLC results in the last few years. Ever since the country witnessed political uprisings, the SLC pass percentage has gone up, thanks to less strict exams. In the last two years, there were not many big political agitations, and this led to stricter exams and hence the decline.”

As Dr Koirala put it, the shockingly low pass percentage, that too despite grace marks, has once again raised the debate over the quality of education. “This shows the utter inefficiency of our education system,” Dr Koirala said. “All of us, who are part of this system, have failed.”

source:republica