Education Minister Ganga Lal Tuladhar on Thursday said that the results of this year’s School Leaving Certificate (SLC) exams has made the government “very serious” and forced it to review its education policy.

Ganga Lal Tuladhar (File photo)

He said the huge difference seen in the results secured by the private and government (community run or public) schools has compelled the government to review the investments it has made in the education sector.

While 99 percent of the examinees appearing in this year’s SLC exams from private schools across the country made it through, only 46 percent of their colleagues from government run schools passed the annual board examination for class 10 students.

Minister Tuladhar, in an interview with a local radio station today morning, promised that the government will take appropriate measures to improve the quality of education in the government/community run schools and make them as competitive as private schools to ensure that more and more examinees appearing from the latter make it through the exams, which is also called “iron gate” by some due to low percentage of students passing in it.

Reports say not even a single examinee appearing in this year’s SLC exam from government schools in few remote districts including Solukhumbu made it through.

Reports of one students committing suicide consuming poison in Kavre district after failing to pass the SLC exams also hogged media headlines after the results were published on Monday this week.

Out of the total 4,56,022 examinees, 220,766 have passed S.L.C under the regular category, which is 8.81 percent less compared to last year’s SLC results. Among them, 20,111 examinees passed with distinction, 82,619 secured first division, 1,07095 secured second and 8,241 students passed in third division. nepalnews.com