Higher secondary education board today published notice asking for proposal from SMS and IVR service providers for publishing the results (HSEB results of 2070) of grade 12 and grade 11 including chance examination. According to HSEB source, HSEB is preparing to publish the result of grade 12 within Sharwan third week.
In ths same notice HSEB also mentioned that result data will be given to telecommunication service providers only to publish it in website. So if interested telecommunication service providers such as NCELL, UTL, Nepal telecom etc can host results on website and the results will not be available in online websites of Kantipur, The Himalayantimes, Nagarik news nor it will be available in any popular educational portal of Nepal including edusanjal.com.
The company which want to publish the results of grade 11 and grade 12 via SMS has to pay nonrefundable amount 55,000 and those which want to host results both by SMS and IVR have to pay nonrefundable amount NPR: 82,500. Service providers are also asked to bid for higher amounts.
See the notice below:
So any commercial providers invest money for making profits. Will thse service providers will be able to make profit by paying that hefty fee?
These service providers will have to make profit by the result data they will be hosting. As they have already invested atleast 55,000 to get license to host results, if one sms cost only 2 rs (one rupee will be taken by NTC) and 1 lakha students viewed result from that SMS providers number, they will make profit of only 45,000. As they will be also investing for promotional campaigns and allocating resources to host results the real profit wont be around 5/10 thousands. If the SMS service providers is new, which number students do not know, they will surely bear the loss. The loss will be worsened as NTC it self will send sms to each user telling the format to view results from their number.
But there will be atleast 4/5 service providers. So to lessen the loss and to maximize profit the cost of SMS will be around NPR: 5 or even more.
As SMS service providers are less likely to earn form this service but this is a good business for Higher Secondary Education Board. Our preliminary calculation shows that HSEB will earn atleast 5 hundred thousands from this newly started business.
- But the business of students result data questions the moral and ethical responsibility of HSEB and its officials?
- Does its not responsibility of HSEB to faciliate students and to make their result public in such a way that all students can view their results easily and even without paying cost?
- Does not HSEB has already collected hefty sum from parent inthe name of affiliation and exam fee?
- Why is HSEB curbing educational websites to host results?
- Why are they charging nonrefundable fee of rs. 55,000 form sms service providers?
- Is HSEB a profit making business house or its a institutions which is established to cater quality education to students?
This hints that how pathetic is the thought process of our think tanks who are in the position to change the face of education of Nepal. We wish More company to bid for the grade 11/12 result data so that HSEB can earn lots of money form that. It will be no-suprise if HSEB officials were found calculating and celebrating the monetary gain of this business model when the whole Nepal is in depression as lots of students again failed in those exam.
After all HSEB is now turning into a business house! What ever will be the fail/pass percent the earning from this model will be the same.
