Kathmandu, May 3

Minister of Education, Science and Technology Giriraj Mani Pokharel today suggested to the government that schools across the country could release the pending results of grades I to IX and then start admitting students for the academic year soon, ‘if the COVID-19 scenario did not exacerbate in the country’.

Minister Pokharel said this at the meeting of the High-Level Coordination Committee for the Prevention and Control of COVID-19.

Puran KC, personal assistant of the minister, quoted him as saying, “Since all public and private schools have already taken examinations from grade I to IX, it would not be problematic to publish the results without gathering students and teachers at schools.” KC also said Minister Pokharel stressed in the meeting that if they published the result, schools could admit students to higher grades on the basis of the result by calling limited number of students and parents to the schools at one time.

“Public schools could also automatically admit students who have passed and distribute books so that students could at least get updates about their course in the new academic year.”

The minister, however, has been repeating his stand that schools should be the last among all facilities to operate completely after lifting the lockdown. Talking briefly to THT Pokharel said, “We may hold examinations of Grade X, XI or XII a few weeks after the lockdown is lifted by strictly following quarantine requirements, but teaching-learning activities are not likely to begin anytime soon.

Tika Puri, President of the Private and Boarding School Organisation Nepal, also said they had advised the minister that schools could make public the results and also admit new students a few days after the lockdown is lifted. “But, beginning schools is likely to take more weeks as we need to be sure that the virus will not reappear and all students who have migrated to their hometowns can join the school in time.”

Ministry sources, however, are still clueless on when they can hold the examination of Grade X also called Secondary Education Examination.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on May 4, 2020 of The Himalayan Times.