The School Leaving Certificate, abbreviated as SLC is the final examination in the secondary school system of Nepal and is equivalent to GCSE in UK. The Ministry of Education of Nepal decided to implement letter grading system in SLC examinations from this year. The letter grading system was introduced in technical and vocational stream for around 32,000 students last year. It will be implemented in all streams from this year.
There will be nine grades — A+, A, B+, B, C+, C, D, E and N— to evaluate students’ performance.
As per the new grading system, A+ means ‘outstanding’ and is given to students who score between 90 and 100 marks (out of 100). Similarly, A means ‘excellent’ is given to students who score between 80 to 89 marks. B+ means ‘very good’ is for students with scores between 70 to 79, B for scores between 60 and 69, C+ for scores between 50 to 59, and C for score between 40 to 49. D is for scores between 20 and 39, E for scores between 1 and 19 and N meaning ‘not graded’ is for students scoring 0. N grade is given to students who have been absent or expelled from the exam.
Diwakar Dhungel, executive director of the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) stated that the main motto behind introducing letter grading system in SLC exams was to avoid the use of words such as pass and fail.
Please click the links below to read the original articles as well as some differing view points from the Nepalese press.