KATHMANDU, July 28: The School Leaving Certificate (SLC) supplementary exams are being held from Friday across the nation. The government has completed all the preparations to hold the exams beginning from July 29.
The results of the last SLC exams were published about 40 days ago. The Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE), which was scrapped after the new Education Act came into effect, had said that the students who scored D or E in two subjects as per the letter grading system would be allowed to take the supplementary exams.
Among the total 588,152 students who appeared in the last SLC exams, 147,583, including 39,257 students from the exempted group, will get a chance to sit the supplementary SLC exams to be held from July 29 to August 5 between 8am to 11am, according to the Ministry of Education (MoE).
“Every preparation to hold the supplementary SLC exams has been completed,” said Krishna Prasad Kapri, controller of the OCE, which will conduct the exam activities till the National Examination Board takes over. “Question papers and answer sheets have been already dispatched to the districts,” he said.
Kapri informed that the exams will be held in 192 exam centers based at district headquarters. “There can be fewer exam centers based on students' participation. The results of the supplementary exams will be published by September 16.”
Kapri further said that the government was yet to adopt the full option based supplementary exams. “It is the decision of the National Curriculum Development and Evaluation Council, which is headed by the education minister. The OCE doesn't have authority to take a new decision,” he claimed. “It is a good opportunity for students to increase their grade point.”
Supplementary exams allow students to upgrade their obtained grades, say experts. But in Nepal, the system is incomplete or inappropriate compared to the developed countries where students get the opportunity to take supplementary exams on whatever subjects they wish,” they argued. “They get an opportunity to upgrade their grade points in any subjects with low grades.”
This letter grading system is being applied for the first time in the 82-year history of the SLC exams. The government has recently endorsed a new education act that requires holding SLC exams at grade 12 and regional/provincial exams at grade 10.
75,000 students sit for supplementary SLC exams
