The Constitution of Nepal provided local governments with an explicit authority to manage the school level education. Schedule 8 of the statute lists basic and secondary education under the jurisdiction of the local government, which means it has the authority to govern every aspect of school education from hiring teachers, and monitoring to conducting the examinations.

The federal government, saying that schedule 9 of the constitution also keeps education under the concurrent authority of all three tiers, decided to segregate the authority to conduct examinations to all the levels. The constitution implementation strategy prepared by the Ministry of Education in 2017 said the grade 8 exams will be held by the local governments while provincial and federal governments will take the charge of conducting the tests of Secondary Education Examination (grade 10) and grade 12, respectively.

Two years after the strategy was adopted, the National Examination Board, under the federal government, has still been conducting the grade 10 tests. The board, according to the strategy, will be limited to conducting the national board exams for grade 12. However, it could facilitate the examination departments in the provinces to manage the tests, unless they are fully capable of handling the task.

The provincial governments say as they are fully settled, they are now ready to exercise the authority. Though the next round of examinations will be conducted in March next year, preparations have to start within the next couple of months. The process to fill exam forms starts in two months while the task of preparing the questions and printing the question-papers and answer sheets has to begin late this year.

Dal Rawal, social development minister for Karnali Province, told the Post that the provincial government will start the preparations with the beginning of the new fiscal year. “The grade 10 examination is very much our priority,” he told the Post. There are examination departments in each province under the education directorate to conduct the tests.

Nawal Kishor Sah, Province-2 minister for social development, said they are waiting for the federal government to delegate the entire authority for the examination. He told the Post that they must be allowed to handle every task from the preparations and printing of question papers to result preparation.

“We won't just conduct exams if the questions are prepared by the federal government,” he told the Post. He said the Province 2 government would raise the issue with the federal government soon. When question sheets of the SEE exams were leaked in the province, Sah had blamed the incompetence of the federal government for it. Talking to the Post, he then claimed that the examinations would have been completed smoothly had his government taken the responsibility. Education experts also had called for the delegation of authority as demanded by them.

Chandra Mani Poudel, chairman at the examination board, said the procedure to hand over the authority to manage the grade 10 examinations is not in place. “The legal door is still closed,” he told the Post. “The authority could be easily delegated if there is legal clarity.” He said the board can play a facilitating role if provincial governments so wish.