NEB (National Examinations Board, Nepal) Grades 11-12
Established as Higher Secondary
Education Board of Nepal, of late the government has reconfigured the programme
in grades 11 and 12 and so has the name NEB come in place of the HSEB which was established in 1993. Although
the name is suggestive of administering all the examinations under the public
sector, the NEB looks after all those activities like syllabus design, affiliation
and supervision of new schools at Grades 9-12 that were rendered by the
previous board (HSEB).
Grade 11-12 programme is an A-level, the IBDP,
the CBSE, and the ICSE equivalent programme designed and implemented by the Government
of Nepal as the finals of the Secondary Education Examinations. Compared to the
boards and programmes above, the NEB curricula are more specifically
streamlined to ease the pathways of the students towards preparing them for
competitive examinations and qualify for higher studies in the streams of medicines,
engineering, the ICT, management and even prepare for the PSC competitive
examinations. In this sense, it is very close to the CBSE board programme.
Despite the growing trend of going abroad for higher education, and the
presence of foreign programmes like the IBDP and A-Levels, most Nepali students
decide to join the NEB for several other factors besides the dominant factor
aforementioned.
Education in Nepal like health is very expensive compared
to many south Asian countries. Since the government has far fewer public schools
that care for grades 11-12 students, they are bound to join the private schools
mostly available in the city or town hubs. The cost for grades 11-12 science
programmes are nearly twice as much as it is for management studies and
one-third the same for humanities on average. There is a growing trend of
enrolling in the Management stream followed by Science and Technology and the
least, average (other under-performing) students, join Humanities and Social Sciences. Most
students from the rural and even the towns and cities outside the capital enrol
themselves in the NEB affiliated colleges based in the capital, Kathmandu. The reasons are pretty
obvious, schools that provide competitive materials and resources outside the
capital are a handful in number and so are the professionals that deliver the
materials as per the need and the guidelines of the curricula.
Despite an expensive programme, many schools
that run the A-level and the IBDP, the vogue of enrolling in these programmes
is increasing in Nepal as they form a basis to pursue international exposure in
the academic programmes run by universities of high repute in the US,
Australia, the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Finland, Sweden and several other
European nations.
Therefore, the best advice for those aspiring
and smart students who can afford expensive programmes and would like to pursue
higher degrees in foreign universities should go for the IBDP, followed by the A-levels. Another group of students who are equally smart learners and hard-workers
and those who dare to crack the competitive examinations and build a career in
medicines, engineering, IT, management, or other vocational and professional fields largely in their own country or the region should opt for the NEB or the CBSE boards. The ICSE board is less likely
to admit students in Grade 11, otherwise, it is also a prospective board for
students who would like to pursue their higher studies abroad. Whatever said
and heard, nothing can bar or prevent a smart or a gifted learner from opting for
any programme of his or her choice anywhere and making the best out of it.
Hopefully, you are able to be satiated with some of the dominant
queries that might have arisen in the minds of the parents, and the students who have
recently sat for the Grade-10 board examinations and also those who care about research and plan for their final years of Secondary Education.
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