On a Nepal report card, NG stands for "Not Graded" and is the well-defined outcome for any subject where a student scored below the grading floor of 35 marks - it carries a grade point of 0.0 and means that subject needs to be lifted through NEB's grade-improvement route rather than being a whole-exam fail. NE is a different and less standardized matter: it appears on some report cards, is commonly read as "Not Eligible" (usually tied to something like attendance or exam eligibility) or used as a placeholder, but its exact meaning is not fixed across every school and board the way NG is. This post explains NG authoritatively, treats NE honestly for what it is, and tells you how to confirm the exact meaning rather than assume - because the wrong assumption about a single code on a report card can send a family down the wrong path.
NG: Not Graded, Explained Properly
NG is the clear one, so start here. Under the National Examination Board's letter-grade system, every subject is converted from a raw mark out of 100 into a letter grade using one fixed scale. Anything below 35 does not reach the lowest graded band and is recorded as NG.
The key facts about NG:
- It means below 35 in that subject. D, at 35 to 39, is the lowest passing grade; NG sits just under it at grade point 0.0.
- It is per-subject, not per-exam. An NG applies only to the subject where it happened. Every other subject is graded normally and stands on its own.
- It has a route forward. Instead of the old whole-exam fail, NEB provides a grade-improvement or supplementary exam that lets a student re-sit the specific subject to clear the NG, without repeating the year.
For why this replaced the old SLC fail line and how D differs from NG, see is a D grade a pass or fail in Nepal.
NG is not the modern spelling of "fail." It is a per-subject "not cleared yet" state with a defined path to fix it - re-sitting that one subject through the grade-improvement route while the rest of the result stands. The exact procedure and eligibility have been revised over the years, so confirm this year's rule with NEB or your school.
NE: What It Probably Means, Stated Honestly
NE is where you should be careful, and where an honest post has to resist the urge to sound certain. NE is not part of the core NEB grade scale in the table above. It shows up on some report cards and results, and its meaning is less standardized than NG.
The most common readings you will encounter:
- "Not Eligible" - the student was not eligible to sit or be graded in that subject, often for a reason like insufficient attendance, an unmet internal-assessment requirement, or an administrative eligibility condition set by the school or board.
- A placeholder or pending marker - used to indicate a result that is not yet finalized, an absence, or a component still to be recorded, depending on the school's own conventions.
The honest position is this: because NE is not a fixed part of the NEB letter-grade table, different schools and systems can use it to mean somewhat different things. It is genuinely less standardized than NG. So while "Not Eligible" is the most likely expansion in many cases, you should not treat any single definition as certain for your specific report card. Read NE as a signal to ask, not as a value you can decode on your own.
NG vs NE at a Glance
The single most useful takeaway from this table is the last row. NG has a standard action attached to it. NE does not - the right action is always to confirm before assuming.
How to Confirm What a Code Actually Means
Since NE in particular can vary, do not guess. Take these steps in order:
- Check the report card's own legend. Many mark sheets print a key at the bottom explaining their abbreviations. This is the most authoritative source for that specific document.
- Ask the school's exam coordinator. They configured the report card and know exactly what each code means in their system and why it was applied to a given student.
- Confirm with NEB for board-level results. For SEE or +2 results issued by the board, the board's own published guidance is the final word.
Resist acting on a code before you have confirmed it. Reading NE as "failed" when it actually means "eligibility pending," or reading NG as a whole-exam fail when it is a single-subject outcome, both lead to the wrong next step - and the correct next steps are quite different.
Why Schools Should Track These States Distinctly
For a coordinator, the lesson here is that "no passing grade yet" is not one state but several, and they must be tracked separately. A student below 35 (NG), a student who was absent, a student pending a supplementary exam, and a student flagged ineligible for a subject all look similar on a printed page but have different causes and different next steps. Folding them into one label is exactly what creates parent disputes and audit problems later.
Getting this right means the report card, the parent portal, and the internal records all agree on why a subject has no final grade - and that the code shown carries a clear, documented meaning rather than an ad-hoc abbreviation nobody can explain a year later. If you also need to explain the numbers alongside these letters, see the complete NEB grading and GPA guide and, for the common parent question about percentages, how NEB GPA converts to percentage.
The Bottom Line
NG means "Not Graded" - a subject mark below 35, grade point 0.0, cleared through NEB's per-subject grade-improvement route rather than a whole-exam fail. NE is not part of the core NEB grade scale; it most often means "Not Eligible" but is used less consistently, so treat it as a prompt to confirm with the report card's legend, the school, or NEB rather than a code you can safely decode alone. When a single letter changes what a family should do next, confirming beats assuming every time.
Gurukul tracks NG, absence, pending-supplementary, and eligibility as distinct, documented states - so every code on a report card has a clear meaning across the parent portal and school records. See the platform or book a free demo.
