The Secondary Education Examination (SEE) results published on Thursday show the performance of the 10th graders has improved compared to last year.

Of the 484,939 examinees who took the test held in March/April, 22,475 or 4.63 percent graduated with Grade Point Average (GPAs) 3.60 and above. Last year the share of students securing the highest range of grades stood at 1.94 percent. Only 9,633 students among 495,751 had graduated with GPAs 3.60 and above last year. The maximum GPA a student can score is 4.

The National Examination Board had conducted this year’s SEE from March 31. As per the results, 55,069 students qualified to study grade 11 getting the GPAs 3.20 to 3.60, which is 11.36 percent of the total examinees. There has been an increment in the number of graduates under this category compared to last year. Only 8.39 percent of the students managed to get 3.20 to 3.60 GPAs last year.

Unveiling the results through a press meet, Mahashram Sharma, chairperson at the board, said the students’ performance improved this year as they got a better learning environment after the end of the Covid pandemic. “Their study was hampered for the past few years due to Covid. The situation improved last year, enabling them to attend classes in person,” he said.

The results show 72,262 students secured 2.80 to 3.20 GPAs while the numbers of graduates managing to get 2.40 to 2.80 GPAs stood at 89,331. Similarly, 102,293 students got 2.00 to 2.40 GPAs, 88,447 got 1.60 to 2.00 GPAs and 38,770 secured 1.20 to 1.60 GPAs. The board has categorised 13,992 as non-graded, which is 2.89 percent of the total examinees.

According to Sharma, the standardised tests for English, Mathematics and Science also contributed to the better results. The board had piloted standardised testing which involves modelling the question sets after different rounds of testing among the students, starting this year’s SEE.

Although the officials claim the 10th graders’ performance has improved, education experts say slight increment in the share of better performing students doesn’t make the overall result better. Binay Kusiyait, a professor of Education at the Tribhuvan University, said as long as the number of students securing below 2.40 GPAs doesn’t decline, the results cannot be seen as good. The share of the examinees getting GPAs below 2.40 is 50.66 percent.

“Still, more than half of the students haven’t fared well in the SEE. The results cannot be considered better as long as the share of those securing below 2.40 continues to be higher,” he told the Post. Education experts also have raised questions over the reluctance of the board in implementing a new directive which said the students must get through the theory and practical tests of each subject separately to be considered to have passed the particular subject.

However, the results were prepared based on the directive issued in 2018 which says one securing 35 marks in theory and practical combined is considered to have passed the particular subject. Except for mathematics, all other subjects have practical marks.

In 2020 and 2021, the board had issued the certificates to students based on the internal evaluation in the respective schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The overall results were far better than earlier years during the period. However, it declined last year when the board held the in-person tests.