A Lesson From Nepal: How to Fail Your Students Part II

In part II of this two-part blog, I shred the contents of a grade 12 chemistry paper the students took last month. It's full of mistakes showing how little attention to details the examiners and board have paid in creating it. The contents also show how the syllabus has NOT been revised and updated at all to reflect newer practices and topics that have evolved over the last few decades etc., indicating how the whole point is just to put the students through a wringer.

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A Lesson From Nepal: How to Fail Your Students Part I

A look at how the board managing the grade 12 examinations have failed the students. The examinations, originally slated for May, was cancelled and, finally, in October, rescheduled for November. The examination, supposed to consist of questions papers in the new format, did go ahead in spite of the student not having seen any sample papers prior to it.

What's more, analyzing the chemistry paper, it had some major issues. The whole exercise, as far as I am concerned, has amounted to putting the students through a wringer.

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Questioning the Questions Grade 11-12 Students Must Tackle, And My Solution

Even NOW as someone who majored in and taught chemistry, were I to pretend to be a grade 11 or 12 Science student in Nepal and take their Chemistry examination, I will likely not get a good grade. I wouldn't be surprised if I even fail. The reason? The questions are just completely off and what is expected as responses are also ridiculous.

What many in Nepal still struggle to understand is that if we teach students how to think, they can learn, on their own, ways to commit to memory what they must to pass examinations, something I am trying to get across in my teacher education program.

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Nepal Education: Our Textbooks Hinder Learning!

Pretty much every Nepali school textbook I have seen and read about, I have decided, actually hinders children's learning, forget promote -- and contribute to -- them! In this blog post, I show how a fifth grade textbook completely misses the mark.

The solution? Do away with the local and national level examinations in grades 8 and 10 and eliminate textbooks.

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