Students never fail

“Why do many students fail in the national level examinations?” This question repeatedly gets prominence whenever the boards—be it National Examinations Board (NEB) or Tribhuvan University (TU)—publish the results of examinations of different levels. Yet, the issue remains unsolved and thus, resurfaces every year.

With just a 50.91 pass percentage, three points higher than last year’s, with their tails up, NEB published the results of grade twelve examinations. Despite dismal results with close to half the students failing, to get the narrative in its favor, the NEB may bask in the glory of its minuscule improvement, compared to last year’s results. But this falls into the shadow of the lives of 49.09 percent of the total young minds that have been put to a halt, disqualifying them from enrollment in the university.

Issues

Such a high share of academic failure is indeed a national tragedy and as well as a bloody blow to our educational system. This isn’t the first time to have such depressing results. Over the years, NEB results have been hovering around fifty percent; the story is even darker in the case of TU, the oldest university in the country.

In Nepal, there’s a tendency of labeling students as ‘failures’ when they fail to get the minimum threshold in the standardized tests. In a true sense, the students never fail; technically, they just get the answers wrong. It’s indeed the parents, teachers, schools, curriculum designers, textbook writers, question paper setters or the entire education system that actually fail.

There is a chronic issue with our education outcomes. Behind this, there are scores of reasons, including inappropriate student-teacher ratio, lack of teachers' training, lack of community-school partnership, lack of school-university partnership, teachers’ affiliations with politics, politicized teachers’ recruitment process, and inadequate monetary & non-monetary incentives for the teachers and so forth.

In rural settings, there is a chronic shortfall of teachers to teach core subjects like English, Science, and Maths. This may be one of the reasons why 1,09,527 students failed in English alone this year. Even the existing teachers are bound to spread over multiple, crowded classes of different levels. Added to this, owing to nepotism in the teachers' recruitment process, the quality of the teachers has been questionable; also, due to a lack of training, and professional development workshops for the teachers, they aren’t up-to-date pedagogically. 

In the urban areas, most of the teachers work on a part-time basis and they are bound to moonlight. With divided minds and efforts, the outcomes become dismal. Added to this is, the gap between the curriculum designer, textbook writers, question paper setters, examiners, and teachers, contributes to chronic education outcomes; if this gap is bridged, the failure rates can be curbed, to some extent. Currently, there are 3,522  under-resourced community schools to run the classes for grades 11 and 12; the government doesn’t provide enough funds, except salaries of 6,000 teachers hired in temporary positions.

Consequences

While TU has already made a call for merger applications from its constituent campuses owing to an already surfaced student crunch, with close to half of the examinees who failed to meet the requirement to have access to higher university education, it’s quite easy to predict that the Nepalese universities will be thrown into a deeper level of student crunch and thus, results in fewer number of graduates. This will further lead to a more extreme level of workforce crisis in the country. The learning centers are already facing the brunt of an acute shortfall of teachers, and according to a study conducted in 2018, there is a requirement of 7800 additional teachers to teach in grades 11 and 12.

In addition,  a yearly trend of 60,000-70,000 students flying out of the country, an estimation of the conservatives,  for better economic and educational opportunities will add fuel in the fire- less passing rate; the Nepalese universities will be hit-hard with extreme levels of students-dry. With the exodus of teenage students, the country will not only lose youth power and energy but will also lose at least $1.5 billion that flies out of the country with them.

The ministry’s statistics show that about 400,000 students flew out of the country in the last one decade, until last year, and there has been geometric growth after the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions by the developed countries. The statistics show that as many as 110,000 students received No Objection Certificates (NOC) last fiscal year to study in 72 different countries. This exodus of teenage students is a great loss for the country from economic, and as well as the perspective of the youth power.

Furthermore, forty-nine percent of the students who have been put into the non-graded category, will not only lose their self-confidence but will also have to face the brunt of psychological ailing. While many of them may drop out of academics forever, others may choose to fly out of the country for physical work or others may unfortunately get indulged in wrongdoings; either way, it’s a threat to the country.

Way forward

Such a high share of failure is a national tragedy. The poor education outcome is the reflection of our poor, flawed education system.  The government, including the wider fraternity has to pay attention to resolve this grave issue; otherwise, the nation will have to bear irrecoverable losses in the future. 

The depressing results have not only posed a question about the life of young minds, but also challenged the letter grading system that was introduced six years ago without much preparation, strategy, and investment to pull it off. It’s also the reflection of the politicized teacher recruitment process and successive governments who turned their deaf ears and blind eyes to refine or restructure our existing flawed system.

To curb the failure rates, teacher recruitment must be done through a more competitive, healthy, and transparent process. In addition, to maintain professional conduct among the teachers, they must be discouraged to have political affiliations. For the same, Kathmandu Metropolitan City has recently enforced new regulations across the valley to discourage teachers from having political affiliations. With such enforcement across the country, schools can be made more autonomous and apolitical yielding better learning outcomes. 

Similarly, in rural settings where there is a shortage of qualified teachers, through school-community partnerships, the issue of poor learning outcomes can be resolved. For this, through the initiation of the local government, health or banking professionals from the local community, for example, can be tapped into to teach subjects like Science, Maths or perhaps, English in the morning. Moreover, in the urban setting, teachers’ recruitment must be made on a full-time basis with adequate training, monetary and non-monetary incentives.

The ax that is not sharpened for a long time, fails to chop the woods efficiently. So, it’s imperative to brush up on the skills and knowledge of the teachers to enhance overall learning outcomes of the students. For the same, a local government can forget partnerships with the universities to launch teachers’ development workshops or pursue higher university degrees through the arrangement of scholarship schemes. Also local governments can partner with the EdTech companies for expertise and knowledge sharing to make the teaching-learning process more fun, engaging, and productive through the implementation of multimedia in the classroom to improve the overall learning outcomes.

In Nepal, there is a tendency of launching the courses or programs without much preparation; this should bring to an end in the future. The boards should ensure the teachers across the country go through the rigorous training on the curriculum or new course before it’s launched or implemented; this may aid to yield better results.

49.09 percent—that’s not the figure that students failed; they never fail. So, to ensure the success of our education system, we need to work in-hand-hand to strengthen it. With this, not only can the future of young minds be secured in particular, but also of the future of the country at large; together, this is feasible.

The author is Kathmandu-based teacher 

Time to tap the youth power

“What’s your plan after completing high school education?” Recently, I asked this question to a group of 12th graders sitting for national examinations. Unsurprisingly, a majority of them said they were planning for higher education abroad. In the last fiscal alone, 112,000 students took No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the government for pursuing higher education abroad. During the reporting period, around 13,000 students went to India (Nepali students do not need NOC for pursuing education in the neighboring country). With more and more youths leaving the country for higher education abroad, Nepali universities are witnessing a drastic decline in student enrollment, forcing them to mull over suspension of existing programs or merger of campuses. Unemployment, underemployment and the lack of quality education are three key reasons pushing Nepali youths abroad for better education and economic opportunities. According to Katel and Sapkota (2018), outflow of Nepali students to the USA for higher education increased by 14.3 percent in 2018. Most of them didn’t return home after graduation, causing a significant brain drain. A sizable workforce required for national development has gone abroad in search of better opportunities, causing a shortfall of both skilled and semi-skilled people across all industries. Sadly, a growing number of research scholars at universities are also preparing to embark on their academic journeys abroad and settle where they get the most lucrative incentives. According to the World Bank’s World Development Report of 1998-1999, “sustained economic growth and improvements in human well-being is determined by knowledge, and not capital.” Hence, in today’s knowledge-based economy, outflow of educated, skilled workforces is but natural. If the government does not develop policies and programs to stem this outflow, the country is sure to face a disaster. Brain drain has taken a huge toll on Nepal, though there are bright sides to it as well. Citizens leaving their country for work contribute to the national economy and development by sending in remittances. National development can get a boost if those endowed with knowledge and expertise choose to return home. However, remittance inflows are no match for the loss of human capital. Also, there is no hard evidence suggesting that educated diasporas do send money home. It’s also possible that remittances might not be channeled toward the areas needing them the most. Despite several downsides of outbound mobility of young educated people, it’s in the best interest of the nation to utilize their knowledge and skills as much as possible for the economic growth and enhancement of the national education system. For this, the government must formulate policies to retain highly skilled workforces or to attract the diasporic workforce or intellectuals based abroad through various incentive schemes. The government has to devise strategies to counter this drain. This may include restrictive policies designed to make migration more difficult, compulsory national services and incentives meant to encourage skilled human resources to remain in the country by making migration less attractive. Also, compensatory policies can be used by taking the individual migrant or the receiving country to compensate for the loss of human capital in the country. In a digitally connected world, underemployed and unemployed educated youths can easily explore alternative career options around the globe. This does not mean imposing a ban on outbound mobility as the move will not be pragmatic. Moreover, the government may also not be in a position to offer their highly skilled expatriates the same incentives they have access to in developed countries. In such a scenario, the government can encourage the diasporic intellectuals to transfer their skills and knowledge to their home country. For this, the government should map the diasporic demography and tap into skilled human capitals. Their professional, educational, social and cultural experiences can be used for the benefit of the country. Their inputs can have a positive impact on policy formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. In countries like Egypt, Ghana, the Philippines, Australia and India, governments have facilitated dual citizenship and voting rights to encourage or engage their expatriates in policy formulation and development process. Analogously, national development strategies include expatriate networks as formal partners. This strategy can be adopted in Nepal as well. Voting rights guarantee diasporas access to the home country’s political decisions and in several cases have their specific interests represented. For example, the Italians living abroad have the right to elect by mail 12 representatives in the Parliament and six senators to represent the interest of the Italian community abroad. As the outbound mobility of Nepali students is rapidly growing, the government ought to embark on an exercise to bring back these students after completion of their higher education by offering incentives.  In the mid-90s, the Chinese government introduced such a policy to attract students based abroad, leading to a 13 percent increment in the number of returnees annually between 1995 and 1998. In a globalized world connected by the internet, diasporic professors based in industrialized countries can be encouraged to take university classes in their homeland through virtual platforms. Instead of not letting the citizens seek opportunities and settlement beyond the native country, the government should seek to improve policies and work for mutual benefit through partnership with diasporas. Also, we need to change our mindset of viewing diasporas as ‘lost’. Instead, they should be re-engaged through strategic diasporic initiatives such as formal mentoring programs, investment, trade programs, and cultural initiatives. Also, the government must help create an enabling environment for the investors and encourage them to invest in industries. Otherwise, failure to absorb a growing number of graduates in the market will exacerbate brain drain. When skilled workforces are underemployed or unemployed, emigration is bound to follow. With an increasing number of skilled and highly educated youths emigrating to developed countries, Nepal is experiencing a knowledge, creativity and innovation deficit adversely impacting national development. Given this context, the government should shift its focus on retaining skilled and educated youths in the country, attracting those based abroad back home or utilizing their expertise and skills in the interest of the country through digital platforms.  For this, the government must counteract emigration-friendly policies of developed countries or develop incentive schemes to attract the skilled individuals based abroad by offering competitive pay or through their engagement in different development initiatives. As many diasporic intellectuals are more likely to engage in quality research, they can be re-engaged into research activities in the country. This will not only strengthen Nepal’s higher education system, but also help reformulate policies and create more jobs, thereby contributing directly to national development. With the use of diasporic skills, experiences, and knowledge, Nepal’s goal to position itself as a middle-income country by 2030 doesn’t seem an unachievable dream. The author is a lecturer in the English department at Vinayak Siddha College, Kathmandu