It is strange that in all the discussion of SLC results, no one has said the obvious-that this year there was a serious effort to stop cheating, so the proportion that "pass" with the help of such expedients was proportionally less. With rampant cheating, pass percentages were always dubious. I have been involved at every level of Nepali education for 21 years and there is only one major problem with it. The children with peak learning ability, those of primary-school age, are not given the best-trained, best-paid, most able teachers. Instead, English teachers who cannot speak or read a word of English, maths teachers who don't understand place value struggle, often bravely, to teach these children. They have no role-model, only their own similarly poor primary school experience, and no training in primary age teaching. Give children a happy, exciting time in their first three school-years, and SLC will be an open door.

C Stone
Thapathali.