According to the results published by the Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE) Friday evening, 64.31 percent of students passed the SLC exams this year, 4.16 per cent lower than last year’s pass percentage. In last year’s exams, 68.47 percent of students, a record high, had passed. [break]
Out of the total of 385,146 students who appeared in this year’s exams under the regular category, 247,689 students passed. Of these, 138,716 students are boys and 108,973 are girls. Similarly, out of the total of 41,905 students under the exempted category, 12,227 succeeded in breaking through the Iron Gate, including 5,609 boys and 6,618 girls.
Although the pass percentage has plummeted unexpectedly, the number of students securing distinction marks is higher than last year. In last year’s exams, only 11,304 students had secured distinction whereas 16,859 obtained more than 80 percent marks this year. As in the recent past, the highest number of students have secured second division.
As the total number of students appearing in the exams was higher than last year, the total number who got through this last exams in school education is also higher.
In spite of a decline in the pass percentage, a total of 259,916 students succeeded whereas only 256,489 students had passed last year.
Reasons for low result
In the last five years, the SLC pass percentage went up regularly. However, this year, the percentage has gone down unexpectedly, if not shockingly. OCE officials have attributed this year’s relatively low pass results to mainly two factors.
First: the supposed strictness of OCE in conducting the exams. Second: poor scoring presumably by students who appeared in the exams as private candidates, without having attended formal schools.
“We remained highly vigilant this year during the exams so as to make them the fairest ever,” Chitra Devkota, the exams controller, told myrepublica.com. “Private candidates might have scored poorly because they are supposedly not on par with regular students.”
A significant number of Maoist PLA combatants had also appeared in this year’s exams. However, Devkota declined to comment on the possibility of poor scoring by PLA combatants resulting in the lower results.
“It could be possible,” Devkota said. “But I cannot say so conclusively unless I examine their performance thoroughly.”
According to him, OCE gave five grace marks to examinees who failed to pass just a single subject. Around 17,000 students managed to get through the Iron Gate thanks to this provision for grace marks. However, this provision also failed to improve the results.
While many education experts have accepted OCE’s second explanation for this year’s low result percentage, they have declined outright to buy its first argument.
“All newspapers and television channels were flooded with news stories and footage of examinees copying answers straight from their notebooks during the exams,” an education expert, unwilling to be named, said. “How could OCE argue that the results were low due to its strict vigilance, overlooking an open secret?”
In spite of the plethora of reported irregularities in the exams, OCE canceled the exam papers of only 288 examinees. Likewise, the results of 3,360 examinees have been withheld while 6,892 examinees were absent during some or the other of the seven exams.
Living goddess gets through
The Kumari of Patan, Chanindra Bajracharya, has obtained distinction marks in this year’s SLC exams.
The 15-year-old living goddess, who became the first Kumari to appear in the SLC exams before renouncing her divine status, had taken all her exams in her own sacred chamber. Although enrolled at the local Bhasara Secondary School of Lalitpur, the Kumari never attended formal classes.
“The result was as expected,” Jiban Awale, who arranged the Kumari’s SLC preparations, told myrepublica.com. “She was brilliant enough to obtain more than 80 percent marks,” According to him, they will celebrate the Kumari’s success by conducting a formal ceremony. “The goddess is jubilant,” he told myrepublica.com.
The living goddess has expressed her wish to pursue management studies. Besides, she wants to learn the Newari script and computer science.
25 of 28 Samata students get distinction
Meanwhile, all 28 students of Samata Shiksha Niketan, Kathmandu, who appeared in this year’s SLC exams, got through the Iron Gate. Of them, 25 students got distinctions while the rest three secured first divisions. Similarly, of the total 11 students of the school’s Lalitpur branch, three got distinctions, while nine got first division marks.
This school has been offering quality education to downtrodden students.
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