A report released last week by The Asia Foundation gives a detailed analysis of the mismanagement of health and education services in 13 VDCs of six districts and (surprise, surprise) concludes that the capacity of institutions at the local level and the quality of services they provide have not improved after 13 years since the Local Self Governance Act went into effect, depriving the people of the democratic dividend.
Baburam Bishwakarma of the Centre for Investigative Journalism comes to a similar conclusion about government neglect in improving the quality of education at the local level. For example since the incentivisation scheme was invoked to increase the number of children entering schools, government-run schools in the districts have been inflating the number of students enrolled in order to cash in on the state's incentive programme. Therefore people up and down the line in the bureaucracy and local political parties are on the take, and everyone gets a share.
The story, published in Shikshak magazinethis month, exposes how the Ministry of Education couldn't be bothered to deal with it!. The plan to improve the quality of education and ensure accountability by transferring management to local communities has backfired, with a powerful few capturing school management committees and pocketing kickbacks from construction of school infrastructure and procurement of books and stationery. I include here the link for Shikshak but only my wife can read it in our house, so if you are not Nepali ..... hard luck!
(http://www.teacher.org.np/index.php?)
So, to give you a flavour of the Asia Foundation report (all 39 pages of it) here are a couple of paragraphs from the section on Education. As you will see it gives an opinion about both poor physical infrastructure and poorly qualified teachers.
(http://www.asiafoundation.org/publications/pdf/1167)
The Education Sector
Despite the intent of the LSGA to enhance educational performance by devolving relevant authority, the performance of the education sector faces major challenges, including the politicization of faculty through labor unions, hijacking of SMCs agenda by local elites, and in the absence of local elections, the exercise of political power in communities moved from the conventional spheres of political contestation through elections to local bodies to other community-based organizations such as SMCs.
The education sector in Nepal is extremely politicized, more so perhaps than any other service sector. Collusion manifests primarily through political interference in areas involving significant funds, such as construction of school buildings or other large procurements, or where they can gain politically by engaging in patronage politics, as in teacher recruitment and disbursing locally administered scholarships.
The intent of devolving the education sector was to improve academic standards in the nation’s public schools, but the rampant diversion of resources has produced the opposite result. As a result of all this, despite the nation’s huge investment in educating its citizens, parents across the country who can bear the cost prefer to send their children to private “boarding” schools.
Low quality of education.
The poor SLC results are one indicator of the failure to provide quality public education in Nepal. In addition to the extreme politicization of the schools and the failure to represent the true interests of stakeholders, two other factors play an important role in this failure. The political corruption of teacher recruitment results in poorly qualified faculty and politically appointed teachers who are focused on politics instead of pedagogy.
The corruption in school construction and other procurement processes means that students are forced to study in a compromised environment, negatively affecting their capacity to learn. As a result of all this, despite the nation’s huge investment in educating its citizens,
parents across the country who can bear the cost prefer to send their children to private “boarding” schools.
IN SUMMARY: This is a damning report and further evidence of corruption, failing responsibility, and also collusion, all contributing to the downward spiral of the quality of education in Nepal. From management committees, Principals, teachers, District Offices, all the way up to the Ministry of Education, ALL must take the blame for the failure. As the report says, and as many of us know, the billions of £££ poured into state education since the formulation of the SSRP alone in 2009, has had very little impact. The finances have been there all the time, but just not spent on education!
No comments:
Post a Comment