The wide range of percentages of marks within a single grade will mean that two students with clear differences in knowledge may fall into the same grade Every year the same story is repeated. When the results of the School Leaving Certificate examinations, also known as the Iron Gate, are announced more than fifty per cent of the students fail. This shows that much of the investment made for education goes to waste and education is a sector which is allocated a lot of funds in the budget. To resolve this dilemma the Ministry of Education is to introduce a letter grading system in the School Leaving Certificate examination from this year in the general stream as well. Since the last year, the grading system has been applied to technical stream. The main intention of this is to avoid the use of the terms pass and fail while grading the students. Under the numerical grading system a large number of students fail the exams, thereby the country loses much as a large amount of expenditure is made for the education sector every year. The Office of the Controller of Examination has formed a nine-member committee to work out the details of implementing the letter grading system. It may take some time for us to get used to the letter grading system as it is new at the school level whereas in a number of colleges the letter grading system has been in force. This grading system is used in exams conducted in many countries. Under this system students scoring between 90 to 100 per cent get an ‘A’+, those with 80 to 89 per cent get an ‘A’, 60 to 79 per cent a ‘B’, 40 to 59 per cent a ‘C’, with those scoring 25-39 per cent a ‘D’, and 25 to 38 per cent ‘D’, and scores below 24 per cent are to be given ‘E’ as grades. The letter grading system was introduced last year under the pilot phase under the technical and vocational stream. This was conducted in 99 schools and this grading system proved to be a success. Interestingly during the letter grading system used in these exams no student scored ‘E’ and only one student got a ‘D’ which means that the student did very well. There were 3,256 students giving the exams under the technical and vocation stream. This letter grading system will be a relief for many students who will be appearing for the SLC examinations from now on. Since no student will fail they will be under less pressure while preparing for the exams. Schools previously would compete to get the maximum number of distinctions in the SLC examinations. The categories would consist of distinction, first division, second division and passed under the numerical grading system. Good scores meant that more students would flock to get admission to these schools. In such an environment the commercialization of education could clearly be seen. It has come to knowledge that bribery was resorted to so that more students got good scores. However, the number of grades, which stands at five at present, needs to be increased to make the grading more accurate and more truly reflective of the academic abilities of the students. The wide range of percentages of marks within a single grade will mean that two students with clear differences in knowledge may fall into the same grade. Towards the top grades, the ranges of percentage marks should be narrowed, because the higher one gets the more it will become difficult to gain an extra percentage than at the lower rungs of the grades. Road reconstruction The 2.66-km Maitighar-Tinkune road section under the Kathmandu Valley Road Improvement Project was constructed three years ago. But the bridges over the Dhobi Khola and the Bagmati River are to be built this fiscal year. This is just one of the many examples of the delays in construction work that the government has undertaken in recent years under the road project in question. Defective planning, lack of proper coordination, and poor working ways have led to such long delays. In the past, the government went on a demolition drive against buildings constructed violating the building code on public land. The work was made more complex by the need to lay new sewerage and drinking water pipes, apart from the need to remove telephone and electricity poles to more suitable spots to make way for the road expansion. The government has been seen to be quick in demolition work but rather slow in reconstructing the roads, many of which have been in a bad condition.