Beginning with the next academic year, higher secondary schools will be authorised to conduct Grade 11 examinations on their own, ending a three-decade long practice of holding the test at the central level.

The Central Examination Board (CEB), tasked with conducting school examinations, is preparing to delegate the authority to respective schools to conduct Year 11 exams. The eighth amendment to the Education Act-1972 dissolved the Higher Second Education Board, to be replaced by the CEB. This also necessitated board exams only in grades 10 and 12, instead of grades 10, 11 and 12 as happens at present.

According to Laxmi Prasad Poudel, member-secretary at the CEB, the Curriculum Development Board is revising the curricula for changing the evaluation system. The practice is very much like in India where board examinations are held at grades 10 and 12 only.

According to Chandra Mani Poudel, chairperson at the CEB, preparations are also under way to hold grade 10 tests at the provincial level while twelfth grade exams will be organised by the centre. The provincial offices of CEB will conduct grade 10 exams starting next year. The Office of the Controller of Examinations had been conducting Grade 10 tests at the central level.

Though the Constitution of Nepal empowers local governments to manage education up to the secondary level, the Education Act authorises the CEB to conduct the tests arguing that it would take some years for the local governments take up the responsibility.

Meanwhile, the Central Examination Board is conducting a workshop inviting experts from seven countries on reforming the evaluation system. 

As an associate member of the Council of Boards of School Education in India, the board is organising the event to discuss the current evaluation practices and underlying problems. Officials from exam boards of India, Pakistan, Bhutan, the United Kingdom, Mauritius and Singapore will attend the three-day programme in Dhulikhel.

“The evaluation system needs to be reformed along with changes in pedagogy and curriculum. The workshop will come out with some new approaches,” Poudel told a press meet organised at the CEB on Monday.