A total of 370 students from classrooms where fellows from TFN were engaged had appeared in the examination. Out of them 270 (73 percent) passed while 150 of them secured first division or distinction marks. In comparison, the pass percentage in public schools throughout the country stands at 33 percent.

TFN is a fellowship programme which recruits outstanding university graduates to teach in public schools with an aim to end inequity in education. According to TFN, 86 fellows are currently teaching in 32 schools across Lalitpur, Sindupalchok and Dhanusha districts reaching to about 6000 students.

“When I first joined, not a single student had passed the SLC examination. But to see 50 percent students pass gives me a sense of achievement,” Bijaya Mani Paudel, 2013 TFN alumni who taught Science at Chandeshwori Secondary School at Simle in Pyutar VDC of Lalitpur for two years, said. “For the first time in the school’s history, two students passed in the first division,” he added.

“I am thrilled to learn that all of the students passed in English,” another fellow Prajwal Khadka, who taught English at Narayani Higher Secondary School at Gimdi VDC in Lalitpur, said.  Eighty-seven percent of students passed the SLC from the school this year, compared to 36 percent last year.

TFN also claimed that 100 percent of students have passed the SLC subjects taught by TFN fellows.