Kathmandu, February 23

Higher Secondary Education Board has decided to introduce letter grading system also in Grade XI and XII examinations from the new academic session.

A meeting of HSEB Council chaired by Education Minister Giriraj Mani Pokharel yesterday decided to introduce letter grading system in Grade XI and XII.

Earlier, the Office of the Controller of the Examinations had decided to introduce letter grading system in School Leaving Certificate examinations, while a week ago the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training also decided to implement the letter grading system at various levels.

Chaitanya Sharma, vice chairperson, HSEB today said they took a policy-level decision to introduce letter grading system but the number of grades will be finalised later. “We are going to form a technical team of five people, including HSEB representatives, experts from universities and education ministry officials to decide on the matter.”

The OCE had decided to award nine grades A+, A, B+, B, C+, C, D, E and N to SLC examinees on the basis of marks scored in the examinations. However, the CTEVT has yet to decide on the number of grades to be awarded to students.

A+ meaning ‘outstanding’ will be given to students scoring between 90 and 100, A to students scoring between 80 and 89, B+ to those scoring between 70 and 79, B to scores between 60 and 69, C+ to scores between 50 and 59, and C to scores between 40 and 49.

Likewise, D would be given to scores between 20 and 39, E to scores between 1 and 19 and N meaning ‘not graded’ would be given to students who remained absent or were expelled.

A+ will be equivalent to four GPA, A to 3.6, B+ to 3.2, B to 2.8, C+ to 2.4, C to 2.0, D to 1.6, and E to 0.8.

Sharma said the technical team would be given a month to conduct study on letter grading system in the plus-two level.“Students obtaining lower than grade ‘C’ won’t be enrolled in Grade XI,” he added. CTEVT also decided not to take students obtaining below grade ‘C’.

Similarly, the HSEB Council meeting held yesterday also decided to allow HSEB to run Distance/Open Education in Grade XI and XII.

A five-member committee has been formed under Khagraj Baral, director general of Department of Education, to develop working procedure and identify practical difficulties for implementing the decision.