Finland does not introduce national exams until Grade 9, and its students consistently perform among the best in the world
With the formation of the new government after the Gen-Z revolution, Nepal has been experiencing rapid policy changes. However, if it wants to achieve real and lasting progress, it cannot afford to undergo any changes that are short-sighted and implemented from a narrow point of view. For instance, changes in the educational policies should take into account the entirety of an educational landscape, including the psychology of both its students and teachers at all academic levels.
When the new education minister announced the removal of traditional exams up to Grade 5 on March 28, it was a welcome step, an acknowledgment that young children learn better without the shadow of high-stakes failure. But a reform that protects children until Grade 5 and leaves them unprotected in Grade 6 is incomplete.
The recurring challenge in Nepal's education system is the failure to align policies with their implementation pathway in pursuit of their long-term objectives. The curriculum established by the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) in 2076 BS reflects a coherent philosophy of low-stress, child-centred learning: exams are eliminated in Grades 1-3, internal assessments are moderated in Grades 4-5, and the Continuous Assessment System (CAS) ensures that learning remains ongoing rather than concentrated in a single evaluative moment. The new model extends this no-exam policy up to Grade 5, but it stops there abruptly.
A child who spends five formative years being told that learning is exploratory and that failure is not a threat will, for the first time, encounter the real possibility of failing a formal exam in Grade 6. This is not a gradual shift but a jump, what we might call a pedagogical whiplash: psychological shock and confusion produced by two incompatible systems meeting without a bridge between them. This jump is further exacerbated by the Grade 8 Basic Level Examination (BLE), a high-stake, single-moment evaluation that delays and redistributes rather than eliminates student stress.
What makes this particularly costly is the missed opportunity sitting between them. Grades 6 and 7 carry no national examination, two full years that could have served as a deliberate transition corridor, gradually introducing formal assessment and building the psychological readiness that Grade 8 demands. Instead, the curriculum treats Grade 6 as if the child arrived prepared, without acknowledging where they are coming from.
This misalignment extends further. The curriculum that emphasises child-centred learning and stress prevention does not, in its stated objectives, keep the child at the centre. The existing guidelines are based solely on national objectives, including national identity, economic productivity, labour market preparation, social cohesion, information technology, and human rights, with no guidelines focussed on the child's individual development whatsoever. This is particularly striking for a primary education curriculum, the stage at which a child's relationship with learning is first formed. This is an important omission. Stress, in this light, is not only a product of poor assessment design. It is a product of a system that has never fully asked what the child needs for themselves.
Another critical issue with this policy is the lack of effective measurement. The policy objectives of preventing stress, fostering holistic development, and improving learning remain symbolic without a clear tracking system with concrete criteria that allows teachers, particularly in under-resourced schools, to make consistent and defensible assessments about student progress. The no-exam policy requires simultaneous new investment in teacher training and assessment frameworks.
The reform's own logic points towards the answer. The existing framework already allocates 40% to CAS (Continuous assessment system) in Grades 6 and 7; that allocation remains hollow without concrete criteria, structured review, and trained teachers to make it function as the transition it was designed to be. Grades 6 and 7, currently treated as an unmarked entry into formal education, should be redesigned as a deliberate transition corridor. Within this corridor, assessment should carry informational weight before it carries punitive weight.
Rather than full retention, subject-specific remediation is a more precise and humane response to failure: a student who struggles in one subject retakes it while continuing to progress with their peers in others. To support this, a structured review process, in which subject teachers and the student collectively evaluate classroom performance, would make assessment a conversation rather than a verdict, distributing the psychological weight of evaluation across the year rather than concentrating it in a single high-stakes moment. This is precisely what prevents the sharp stress spike: the gradual introduction of consequences, familiar enough to prepare, but measured enough not to overwhelm.
Finland does not introduce national exams until Grade 9, and its students consistently perform among the best in the world. This shows that academic rigour and gradual assessment can coexist.
In addition to this, the transition should incorporate structured attention and observation exercises across subjects. The logic is simple: a child trained to notice what is immediately around them is a child settled in the present rather than consumed by anxiety about future consequences. In Science, this means asking students to describe the texture of a leaf before learning the name of its species. In Social Studies, it means observing the state of the roads in the school's neighbourhood before discussing civic responsibility. In language studies, it means listening to the sounds outside the classroom window before beginning a writing exercise. Regular practice of this kind builds the internal readiness that formal examinations like BLE (class 8) and SEE demand, the ability to read attentively, think patiently, and stay calm under pressure. Over time, these become natural habits of mind.
As with CAS, the effectiveness of these processes depends largely on the teachers implementing them, making investment in teacher training a precondition.
The minister's reform is an important first step towards an education system that takes children's well-being seriously, and it deserves to be completed so that it does not abandon the children it protects once they pass Grade 5. Completing it means designing Grades 6 and 7 as a deliberate transitory phase.