SEE Through Results

Results of the Secondary Education Examinations (SEE) 2024 are out. Only 47.86 per cent of the students made it through the exams. Over 52 per cent have been categorised as 'non-graded', meaning that they cannot get admission in grade 11 until they improve their grading through upgrade examination. The fact that the majority of the examinees have failed warrants serious soul-searching among all the stakeholders in the education sector – policy makers, guardians, teachers, syllabus designers, students, stakeholders and all related in one way or the other – to get to the bottom of what went wrong.

Since 2014 through last year, the results had been published in a grading system, which experts say, allowed even the ineligible students to get through. This resulted in the academically weak students enrolling in higher education. Instead of getting students to study hard, it is said to have lowered the qualification bar to get admitted in grade 11. Many students, by their own admission, had built a psychology that they need not work really hard to pass the exams with flying colours and that even with low grades they would be admitted to a college. When such students went higher and higher in colleges, their academic performance got only poorer. 

But with the implementation of the Letter Grading Directives 2022 everything changed. The details of pass and fail have started appearing in the mark sheets like before 2014. Experts unanimously agree that it's far better to stop such consistently underperforming students at lower grades. In this regard, the newly enacted system seems to have done a good job. That said, they mustn't be deprived of a second chance to prove themselves. And this is exactly what all the non-graded students have in store: they have the opportunity to reappear in the upgrading exam soon, and passing it means they have cleared the hurdle to join their already-pass peers in grade 11. Schools must work diligently to ensure that their students won't miss out on this opportunity.       

What we are really concerned about, however, is the lacklustre performance of public schools. Of the total failed, students from such schools account for 88.12 per cent, and that seems understandable. What can be expected from a school where students without their text books reach classrooms midway through the year? Or the school where even the basic infrastructure – like labs, library, IT resource – which are taken for granted in their private counterparts, is sorely lacking? Or the students, who have to get to school across the river through risky tuin, and in the event of floods, school gets closed? 

That being said, we cannot absolve the teachers there. They enjoy better pay and perks compared to their peers in private schools, so it's incumbent upon them to deliver quality education no matter what. News that such teachers, rather than being responsible for their students' performance, they go to school merely to pass the day or to bask in the sun has made frequent headlines. This shows that many of them are not accountable to their profession, subjects and students. 

At the same time, the education system also shares the blame. The three-hour exam can never ever determine a decade's worth work, calling for an evaluation system that cumulatively assesses throughout. Of course, many of the examinees failing to make it for now will go on doing exceptionally well in vocational or technical courses or in any of their chosen field. So they should take this setback not as the end but rather just a beginning, the first step in the long journey.