Although the government spends billions of rupees every year on school education, government data shows that 16 percent of students enrolled in Grade 1 remain in the same grade. According to data from the Ministry of Education and Sports, Center for Education and Human Resource Development, out of every 100 students enrolled in Grade 1, only 80 still remain when they reach Grade 2. On average, 16 students repeat the grade, while four students drop out.
As per government policy, the continuous assessment system is still being implemented 100 percent from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Generally, when this system is adopted, students do not fail in class. However, the fact that such a large number of students repeat the same grade has raised questions over the current investment in school education and the student evaluation system.
According to the data, the number of girls repeating grades is slightly higher than that of boys. However, the dropout rate is slightly higher among boys than girls. At the school level, after Grade 1, the grade repetition rate is highest in Grade 8. In this grade, 12.6 percent of students repeat the class.
In Grade 2, 8.7 percent of students repeat the class, while the rate is 7.5 percent in Grade 3, 8.8 percent in Grade 4, and 8.5 percent in Grade 5. Similarly, 8 percent of students repeat Grade 6, 7.8 percent repeat Grade 7, 7.4 percent repeat Grade 9, and 2.7 percent repeat Grade 10.
As the grade repetition and dropout rates have not decreased, out of 879,469 students enrolled in Grade 1 ten years ago, only 457,303 had reached Grade 10 last year.
Anaprasad Neupane, Director General of the Center for Education and Human Resource Development, says the repetition rate is high because students are enrolled in Grade 1 without properly studying at early childhood development centers. At present, there is a provision requiring children who have completed four years of age to stay at an early childhood development center for at least one year.
However, in private schools, there is also a practice of enrolling students before they have completed three years of age. Among the total students enrolled in Grade 1, only 77.51 percent come with experience of ECD (Early Child Development). Director General Neupane says that when students are enrolled in Grade 1 without ECD experience, their learning ability is weak, and due to this impact, they have to repeat Grade 1.
According to Herambaraj Kandel, Principal of Bishwo Niketan Secondary School in Tripureshwar, students sometimes repeat Grade 1 because they have not reached the required age for admission to Grade 1. Kandel said, “Apart from this, students in our school do not repeat Grade 1 for other reasons.”
The highest share of students enrolled in Grade 1 without any ECD experience is in Madhesh Province, at 32 percent. The lowest share is in Gandaki Province, at 14 percent. The governance reform agenda issued by the government mentions that the practice of conducting internal examinations for students up to Grade 5 will be stopped from this year. As an alternative, the government is preparing to adopt an internal evaluation system in a way that does not put psychological pressure on students.
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