KATHMANDU, March 25: The first day of School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examinations is over peacefully across the country. The three-hour long examination of compulsory English subject had started at 8 A.M. Wednesday morning.
"There is no report of postponement or any untoward incident in today´s examination," said Gopal Bhattarai, Deputy Controller at the Office of the Controller of Examination, Sanothimi, Bhaktapur. "The examinations were held peacefully across the country."[break]
Altogether 412,081 including 364,591 regular and 47,490 exempted students are sitting for the 10th grade examination this year. This is 45,040 more than the number who took the examination last year. [break]
OCE has set 1,405 examination centers, up from 1,299 last year, across the country. The SLC exams, dubbed "Iron Gate" for its poor pass percentage has seen more students passing the examination in recent years.
Imran Ehmad, a blind student of Namuna Machhindra School, attempts S.L.C. exam with the help of a friend in Kathmandu.
Bijay Rai
Related story
75,000 students sit for supplementary SLC exams
Last year, over 63 percent of the students passed the exam. This is the highest ever pass percentage in the entire 74-year long history of SLC examination.
There are six compulsory subjects, 22 subjects in optional paper (I) and 18 subjects in optional paper (II). Each SLC examinee has to sit for eight subjects. All examinees are sitting for compulsory English examination Wednesday.
Deputy Controller Bhattarai said they have developed five different sets of question papers for regular students and five other sets for exempted students in each development regions. OCE has also developed separate question papers for exempted students unlike in the past years.
The written examination of the SLC will be over on April 2.
As in the past years, Kathmandu district has the highest (26,536 regular and 1,148 exempted) and Manang the lowest number of students (53 regular and three exempted) sitting for the SLC examination.
