Up A Grade

SUMAN LAUDARI
SLC evaluations

As someone involved in the field of education for the last one decade, I was delighted to read about the decision of the Department of Education to withdraw pass, fail and percentile system in the SLC examinations, and to introduce the letter grading system. Such a decision comes as a relief for students. This will obviously encourage thousands of students to take SLC exams this year or in the years to come as many of them had been failing the exams for a number of different reasons. With the new system in place, failure induced suicides will not take place.

Letter grading will help abate the discrepancies in education system, created through the location of the schools. Schools located in villages or rural areas do not have the physical facilities, access to teaching/learning materials, and even qualified teachers that many schools in city areas offer to students. Such a disparity has brought differences in the quality of education and their ultimate achievement. This had been a major cause for the academic setback of the students from villages and rural areas. Hence, the decision to not fail students in the SLC exams is welcome because it gives everyone the equal opportunity to continue with higher studies. 

Next, this can minimize the unhealthy competition among the private schools in Kathmandu valley and other major city areas. As a lot of these schools focus more on SLC exams and the percentage their students achieve rather than on the holistic development of learners, this decision can reduce the pressure that schools exert in students. Parents and other stakeholders have always expressed their concerns about the school exerting pressure on students in different ways such as 12-hour long classes and everyone having to stay in hostel. 

This decision can also afford financial reliefs to parents as they will not be forced to send their kids to private schools to ensure that their kids pass with flying colors in the SLC exams. As the grading system changes, we can hope that people will not be concerned about the percentage. Notably, this will also shatter the myth of the iron gates. 

Nonetheless, few things should be done if we want to see the above mentioned changes happening. Scholars have expressed the fear that this could just be the old wine in a new bottle. The first thing to do is to revamp the internal examination system. Policymakers need to realize that students should be provided with opportunities to pursue their interest, while also studying regular courses in the schools. 

Thus, to assess how students are developing holistically, cumulative assessment and letter grading has to be a part of mainstream education. This can only be done if all the schools maintain continuous evaluation system and record the development of students round the year. Moreover, the letter grading system has to be implemented right from the early classes so students will better understand how they are graded and the consequences of each grade. This will obviously increase the teachers' and school administration's workload. Hence, the authorities concerned need to think about compensation package for teachers to make this policy effective.

Next, the final grades in the SLC should be cumulative of all internal evaluations. If it becomes the result of one-off evaluation, as in the existing system, this does not bring much difference. It is obvious that schools will carry on with their rituals and will continue putting pressure on students and keep counting how many of their students score an A+. 
Further, should the policymakers not think about reducing or avoiding the 'washback' effect of the examination? If the present policy is introduced without bringing change in how the final grades will be awarded, teachers and schools will still pay unwarranted attention to examination as they are doing it now. And, students will not feel much difference in the old and new system.

Besides, parents will still be concerned about what grades their wards will achieve because the grades will still be highly important when it comes to going to a good college or securing a scholarship for further education. So, for the sake of good career of their children, they will still be sending their kids to best possible schools and investing thousands of rupees every month in their tuition fees. 

Though this decision might do good to elevate the SLC examination system, it does not alleviate the worsening quality of education in the schools of Nepal. So, stakeholders and policymakers should understand that just changing the prints on the mark-sheet does not improve the education quality. Overall management of public schools, teachers' performance evaluation, and school supervision and teacher recruitment system need to be taken into serious consideration. It is also necessary to keep schools away from political intervention. 
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