Police held two teachers on suspicion of leaking question papers of School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examination after Young Communist League (YCL), a wing of the Maoists, bought questions from them.
SLC Exam is something that holds very high value in Nepal. The nation-wide examination, called Iron Gate, is not only attracts attention of all Nepalis but also considered a landmark to judge any school or student.
Private schools are doing business (well there may be slight social service factor). And if they stood out good in SLC examination, there are high chances that they will get more students, can raise the fees thus acquiring more benefits. No wonder if they are buying questions for thousands of rupees.
Last year, the SLC exam questions were printed in Janak Educational Material Center, and some of the questions were suspected leaked. There were questions available which turned out to be right 40 to 60 per cent.
This year, the picture is gloomier (despite printing the questions in India). The questions of English, held on first day on April 4, were exactly the same. Then, my students told me, the boys and girls sitting next to them today’s exam of Nepali was already writing answers – when the question was yet to be distributed.
As I am a teacher to a school, I knew that there were offers to buy questions more than a week ago.
The teachers of Ganesh Secondary School in Bhaktapur who were arrested are not the real culprits. How can two teachers of a school reach the Office of Controllers of Examination (OCE)? There are more people involved, and I am sure, there are millions of rupees involved in this corruption.
Will we get a fair investigation? Difficult! Because such leakage, I think, isn’t possible without the high-ranking officials being involved. And when high ranking officials are involved, you know what.
This is probably happening for a long time. And time for the government to think about minimizing the SLC exam’s affect on the people. One best way could be holding it differently in different district with different schedule and publishing results separately so that it doesn’t cause nation-side interest.
My students are confused about the future of their exams. They happened to be giving exams in the SOS School which is right next to OCE where the YCL held the protest and the students were stopped for half-an-hour. When they asked me about it, I couldn’t answer – I just say, think about your studies rather than all these non-sense things but I know they won’t be able to concentrate and the answer I gave to them wasn’t enough.
