Fondly, or terrifyingly, labeled the "iron gate" by Nepalis, the School Leaving Certificate (SLC) has been the final examination in the secondary school system for a long, long time now. Once upon a time there was also a thing called O-levels in Nepal, but it was soon shot down by the government for whatever reason I can't fathom. Anyway, the point is that the SLC has been here since formal education has existed in Nepal, and very little has been done to update it. It used to be inclusive of the 9th and 10th grades, now it's just the 10th grade, but that's not a significant change in terms of teaching techniques and exam questions. I have heard many say that this change just made it easier to achieve distinction, and not much else. So it just changed the numbers a bit. Other than that, a few subjects were added to increase the exam's breadth as time went on, but that also doesn't do much in terms of teaching techniques and exam questions. So we have the entire country's children studying under a system that has been running since the past two or three generations.
I completed my 10th grade elsewhere so I didn't have to take the SLC. Therefore, I do not have any first-hand experience with it, so let me know if I'm missing something here. Almost all friends I made after the 10th grade had taken the SLC, and they let me know a lot about it. I tried to research more on the system, but there isn't much about it on the internet. So going purely by what I have heard repeatedly and seen when my cousins have prepared for the exam, I have to conclude that it is a rote-study based exam. I have heard this one too many times. "Ghoknu parchha" as said annoyingly in Nepali, means exactly that: rote learning. So why is this a problem? Because rote based study is not going to get you a proper education. To back this statement, I will try to connect some dots.
Here I present to you a few facts. On average, Nepali students that take the SLC perform poorly in the A-levels and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs, even if they had achieved distinction on the SLC. The A-levels are an established Cambridge-based system that is renowned all over the world. Nepali students who take the A-levels or IB and do well are more likely to get admission in good colleges outside of Nepal. A lot of students that finish their schooling in Nepal want to study in good colleges outside Nepal. Nepal's colleges and universities are largely subpar in comparison to colleges elsewhere. So now let's connect the dots. Nepalis not winning Nobel Prizes, as an example, says something about our lack of academic success. The SLC and further education in Nepal have failed to produce academic excellence in all these years. To put matters into perspective, Bangladesh and Pakistan, countries at a similar developmental stage as Nepal, have Nobel laureates. They have different education systems that seem to have worked, even if it was only to produce one Nobel laureate each. You can make the argument that Nepal just got unlucky and that one Nobel laureate isn't much of a sample size, and that is fair. But how would you explain why SLC students perform poorly on average in the A-levels and IB, unlike IGCSE or O-level students? The A-levels has produced a good lot of Nobel laureates and it has widespread recognition. Clearly, the SLC is doing something wrong that the IGCSE and O-levels seem to be doing right.
So what is the SLC doing wrong? The SLC has mass amounts of rote learning and little to no analytic or creative learning. This can be seen easily in SLC exam sheets, where there are book-definitions and mechanical questions galore. There are little to no questions that encourage students to process information and utilize them in different ways, except maybe in math. What are Newton's three laws? How does knowing that help you become a better physics student if you don't know how to use these laws? The A-levels, on the other hand, ask questions that force students to step out of rote-based learning. Memorizing chemical reactions isn't going to help you when it comes to predicting how two things you have never seen will react. Students that know the mechanisms of relevant chemical reactions will be able to answer this question, but students that memorize reactions will not. The A-levels try to make you a constructive and creative thinker, and that is extremely important when it comes to educating young minds. The IGCSE and O-level programs also do this, but sadly the SLC doesn't.
As an ending note, I can't help but conclude that Nepal's average citizen is more ignorant than, say, Bangladesh's average citizen. Our students grow to become people that shape our country, so it is pivotal that we improve our education system and change the SLC. It's never too early to start, as today's students are Nepal's tomorrow. The sooner we fix their education, the sooner we fix the future of our country.
I hate to say it but everything you've written above is absolutely true. I think all the courses should not be made compulsory to students after certain grade. As I did the SLC, many of my friends used to suffer particularly in Mathematics(which is a compulsory subject) whereas I did suffer in Accountancy(which is not compulsory but my school did so). Now I was pretty sure back then I didn't want to do accountancy and I never did. Whatever I studied that time in Account is no use to me now. So why compulsion?
ReplyDeleteTeachers teach the same lesson for 10-15 years and they think they are the best. If you go out of the context a bit and ask them a question, most of the time they won't be able to answer such questions. Teachers are not able to explain properly and therefore ask students to memorize stuffs. And this is what I have experienced.
There are books published which is said to be written by Nepalese writers but they are not. They are all copied from Indian books and might have few edits. Now I want to know why don't they write book themselves. Because they can't explain the concept properly? or even they have not understood the concept properly?
Personally, I can understand more by reading books written by English writers than explained by my Nepalese teachers. So what's this? it's such a shame!!
There's a lot to do everywhere. I hope you, me and every other youths can find the solution to it and improve it. Keep writing bro..:)
Thanks for the insightful information. Your points further solidify the need for an educational overhaul. The SLC is simply outdated and the teachers don't help much either. We need to redo the entire education system and we need to monitor teachers properly. We need to endorse different, more useful books, and we need to adopt a creative and constructive learning environment. Lets lead an educational revolution in Nepal!
ReplyDeleteWow Mukesh bro.It's a really good article.The things are just bang on.It has really struck in my head.Even I have taken the SLC exams.and I feel the same too.Too much content and no depth at all.It's like a glass of milk that has 90% of water in it.Adjusting to A-level was a big challenge to me.
ReplyDeleteAnd the question sets that come in SLC. I think they have just photocopied it from the sets in previous years.At first I thought it would make no difference rote learning but now I know that I was cheating myself by doing so. My knowledge hadn't increased at all.That is why I was so diffident and stubborn.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your insights Satyam. It is very difficult to get information on the SLC board online, and comments from students that have experienced it are very valuable. It is the students that suffer from this inadequate education system, so we have to raise our voices. We should lead this revolution.
ReplyDeleteI am ready to lead for this revolution.
ReplyDelete