Making Nepalese classrooms more interesting?

According to a 2012 flash report of the Department of Education (DoE), 82 percent of children enrolled in Grade 1 reach Grade 5 while 32.5 percent of students quit school by the time they reach grade 8. The situation is worse at the secondary level. Over 55 percent of students are out of the school system by the time they reach grade 10. The highest dropout rates are in grade one (7.9 percent), grade eight (7.1 percent) and grade six (6.3 percent) for grades one to eight, according to the report. Aiming to control the high dropout rate and bring out-of-school children (OSC) back into the school system, the government has decided to launch special enrolment and retention programmes in 27 districts with special focus on eight Tarai districts with the highest number of OSCs. 

“Along with new enrolments, a special campaign aimed at minimising the high dropout rate by creating an environment for the students to continue their education will be conducted,” said Lava Deo Awasthi, DoE director general. The month-long campaign, scheduled to begin on April 15, aims to mobilise teachers’ unions, mother groups, children’s clubs and forest consumer groups. The campaign will be held in two phases and will welcome students with garlands for the first 15 days, followed by a door-to-door programme in the second half starting from May 1. Awasthi said NGOs and INGOs working in the education field will also be mobilised in the campaign with each of these organisations given a certain area and target.

The DoE is planning to increase the enrolment rate at the primary level to 90 percent through the new drive in the eight Tarai districts, said Awasthi. The programme will target bringing 66,526 students into the school system and controlling their dropout rate. The department has directed all District Education Offices to ensure that no student is out of the school system. In order to boost the ER, the government has also announced cash incentives. Students from Dalits and marginalised communities as well as poor families will be provided with special scholarships. The DoE pointed out that various factors including poverty, long distances to school, disability, illness, language barriers, politicisation, migration and children’s dislike for school are the main reasons for dropouts. 

“Our assessment shows that we can retain students to a large extent by improving the academic environment in schools,” Awasthi said. “From this academic session, the DoE will focus in making classrooms more interesting.” 

Now, I have known Dr Awasthi since 2009 when the SSRP was first launched and intend to ask him to ensure that we at NSA are involved in this "programme" too. So I encourage everyone to write to him too, especially with some views on how he can "make classrooms more interesting", because giving garlands and paying children to enrol in schools has NOT worked for the last 3 years. Adopting a "bums on seats" approach does NOTHING to improve retention. It's the TEACHERS who need to be more interesting, so DO please write to him via the Department of Education which shows his email address as lava.awasthi@gmail.com