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Time to get rid of the SEE

The SEE (Secondary Education Examination) season is here. They used to call it the SLC (School Leaving Certificate) back in the day. I think one of our parliamentary sub-committees called for the end of the SEE a year ago and it's about time our government scraps the SEE thing for good.

I think we need to allow the schools themselves to have their internal exams until the 11th grade, and everybody can sit for the national 12th grade exams and save us billions of Rupees in hiring and employing hundreds or thousands of folks for our government-level exams in the 8th grade and 10th as well.

Every year, half a million young people sit for the SEE. These kids are barely 15 or 16 years old and our media and the society makes it look like it is a big thing. There is too much pressure for our young kids to perform well.

The passing rate is around 50% and what happens to the 250,000 young ones who fail the SEE every year. Some of the do go on to appear for the exams again and pass it and go for further studies but roughly 80% of those who fail just give up and have no choice but to engage in menial jobs and bide their time until they are old enough and have enough funds (from their parents) to go abroad to work under harsh conditions because the only jobs they get do not pay well but still three times more than what they would get if they stayed back home.

And when it comes to our 12th grade, it is the same story with around 50% pass rate. The schools themselves do their internal exams for the 11th grade and we have a 100% passing rate but when these students appear for the government exams for the 12th grade, half of them fail. Do we blame our schools or the government board for setting tough questions?

Our education sector is in a mess. Government schools lack basic infrastructure and resources and for decades, it has been a place to provide employment to one's loyal cadres. Private schools are mostly run by byaparis who are in it to make a profit and parents spend more than 50% of their income for tuition fees. Our average annual tuition fees at our private schools is around US$2,000 per year in a country where the GDP per capita is less than US$ 1,500.

The previous governments have tried to reform the education sector but it was mostly half-baked efforts because most of the donors of our political parties were private school byaparis. Even the founder of Little Angels' Umesh Shrestha has proudly claimed to have raised millions of Rupees for the Maoists back then and the guy even got to be a mantri from Nepali Congress a few years ago.

Our private school owners have strongly resisted the plan to make all the private schools operate as a non-profit trust because then they will not be able to Arab-patis in a decade and will not be able to fleece the parents in the name of Admission fees and Annual fees.

We have seen the same issue with our colleges and 10+2 wallahs. It is about time the government strongly acts against the private education sector. Yes, we need them because we still have not made our pubic education sector better but we have to stop the byaparization of our private schools and even hospitals. It is funny that if you look deeply, it's the same bunch of of who are investors in banks, insurance, schools and hospitals in the country.

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