Mark sheets - why do they rule our lives?

The class 12 board exam results were released this week in Nepal. Only 38% of students passed. The pass mark for each subject is 32%. For those students who failed, they are questioning what happened? What went wrong? What next?

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. The system is clearly broken.

Mitrataa had 14 students sitting for these exams. Only 5 passed. That puts us right on the average. Of the 9 who failed, 5 failed more than 1 subject. Of those who passed, we had 1 distinction (over 70%), 2 first division (60-69%) and 2 third division (between 40-49%).

We are extremely proud of the students who passed, especially the 2 girls from the village areas. Congratulations!  

One of our class 12 girls, Deepa Tripathi, shared her thoughts on the importance of that terrifying piece of paper - the mark sheet.


There is a saying that knowledge cannot be judged with the help of a single certificate. But this saying doesn’t exist in practical life in Nepal. Even if we read for 13 years or more, nobody asks us about what we gained or what knowledge we learned. It is also assumed that we don’t need any extra knowledge. All we need is a mark sheet with high scores in every subject. At present, the mark sheet holds the most important place for our futures.

Talented and brilliant students are not called talented even if they have an ocean of knowledge. They are only considered excellent if they get good percentages in their exams. I wonder how the knowledge of a person can be judged by a single sheet of paper. Every parent’s dream is that their children always get high scores. But nobody cares about their children’s good behaviour or practical experience for life. We have to pass our exams by hook or by crook.

Every student today is compared only according to their mark sheet. And what happens in real life is that we don’t get the marks according to our expectations. We think that the exam today was good but the mark will be opposite. Even the laborious students don’t get the results they expect. And the main reason is often ignorant and corrupt teachers and schools.

Lastly, we shouldn’t care only about our mark sheets. We have to enhance our knowledge practically. And educational institutions should go for technical and practical and ethical knowledge too.