Challenges and solutions to Nepal's education problems!

An article in My Republica yesterday has raised just about every question you would want about the pathetic attempts to improve Nepal's education system. Written by Ram Sharan Sedhai it is initially based on Nepal attaining one of the essential Millennium Development Goals, "Universal Primary Education", and the fact that this is highly unlikely by 2015 as proscribed. Mr Sedhai has pulled no punches and speaks out against poor leadership, a lack of teacher training, incorrect pedagogies applied, budget mismanagement and inadequate policies, poor resources, and a distinct lack of coordination between government, charities, INGOs, NGOs, businesses etc.

I have summarised his key points below and it is heartening to note that he has offered solutions as well as being critical. I have extended an invitation to meet up with him during April and will post again when I hear from him.

If you want to read the article in full click Republica and you can email the author at ramsharan.sedhai@gmail.com

The Challenges

1. A lack of visionary leaders which in turn leads to insufficient budget to meet the growing needs, absence of pragmatic policies and programs to enrol and retain children in school, a lack of teachers’ management, and the government’s failure to stem inflation among others force school-going aged children to stay out of school.
2. Poverty has multiple impacts on education. A family which cannot afford even two meals a day hardly sends its children to schools that do not provide a day meal. Children suffering from malnutrition, chronic hunger, and having witnessed the siblings die from hunger and of easily treatable diseases like cholera and diarrhea are most unlikely to attend school.
3. A lack of coordination among the government agencies and the national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). There has been a huge misuse of financial and human resources due to duplication in work resultant of such non coordination. Hence, the literacy campaigns carried out by the successive governments has failed to deliver.
4. Incompetent school management committees (SMCs) resulting in a lack of monitoring and evaluation or school governance.
5. Teachers are most critical but they are largely unaccountable. Teachers absenteeism is one of the biggest problems, many are untrained and most are not motivated to put into practice what they have learned.Most of them are politically active.
6. A lack of child-friendly pedagogy or child centred learning methods applied.
7. Token representation of women in SMCs, few female teachers though mandatory, a lack of proper sanitation, violence against girls in, to and from schools. 
8. Waiving children's fee alone does not render basic education free. The associated costs are manifold and very high. The opportunity cost has riddled primary education since there are no policies for enabling the poor parents to educate their children and no legal provision for taking action against those who do not educate.
9. A lack of teaching in mother tongues at primary level, limited textbooks available in native languages, and absence of trained or native speaker teachers are other reasons behind low enrolment, high repetition and drop-out rates. Similarly, incentives like day meal and cooking oil are confined to a very few places, and scholarships are discriminatory.

Solutions & Ways Forward

1. The government should formulate long-term policies and development plans to give impetus to its painfully slow and disrupted development process. There should be legal provisions for ensured annual incomes of the poor parents to enable them to educate their children compulsorily.
2. Special outreach programs for the children with disabilities, religious and ethnic minorities, Dalits, conflict victims, street children, trafficked, domestic helpers and HIV and AIDS-infected and -affected should be introduced. Similarly, the government should allocate 20 percent of the national budget and 6 percent of the GDP for education, end the lengthy and cumbersome process of releasing budget to schools, make education completely free, increase school opening days from 220 to 260 days and run schools in the Tarai during the day in summer.
3. Bring an end to extreme poverty and hunger, providing special care, treatment and diet to the HIV and AIDS-infected and -affected people, and special provisions for children with disabilities, religious and ethnic minorities and Dalits should be introduced.
4. There should be a strong mechanism for holding teachers, SMCs, parents-teachers’ associations and the stakeholders accountable for enrolment and retention of children, and a competent monitoring and evaluation body needs forming to weed out the ills of the whole school education system.
5. There should be complete coordination and collaboration between government agencies, national and international NGOs, public-private partnerships, to avoid duplication in work, to channel funding directly to education, to pool resources and invest productively. There is a strong need for founding a National Civil Society Education Fund.

The Caste system and education

A quite relevant and topical article has just appeared in Republica newspaper in Nepal. Entitled Caste System and Pedagogy it describes the roots and history of the case system and attempts to debunk a lot of the popular beliefs about it being rooted in the Hindu religion.

"The Caste system is interpreted as having been validated by the Hindu religion and scriptures. Fundamentalists have it that caste is in religion. But none of the Hindu scriptures seem to have stood for this system. In Ramayana lord Rama advocates the end of discrimination by taking bayar (jujube fruit) from Saubari, a woman ostracized by the sages for being untouchable and who then lives in isolation at the edge of a forest, and by liberating her. And in Bhagwat Gita Lord Krishna ordains that “elephant, cow, dogs, and Brahmins are the same for a wise man,” thus, speaking against discrimination. School education of this era must teach such realities and history to its children. And the products of this education will hopefully be able to eliminate caste based discrimination."

Read the full article at Republica

The article goes on to assert that there is a distinct lack of teaching about the caste system in Nepal's education curriculum which he believes is perpetuating the system to the advantage of Brahmins and Chettris for example and to the detriment of Dalits in particular. We would tend to agree with this and are trying to do something about it but at times it is a lonely battle. For example we have no influence whatsoever on the curriculum and it would be wrong of us to try and manipulate it in individual schools. But there may be a way! The government has just introduced "values" as a curriculum topic and we intend to introduce the technique of P4C to 120 teachers from 6 Dalit community schools in April. It shouldn't be too difficult to have groups of teachers and children discussing diversity and discrimination for example in philosophy based sessions.

If you agree then please post a comment below.

Probably the best email in the world!

We all have good days and bad days. We all have days with bits of bad and bits of good. Some days are a mixture of VERY bad and VERY good, hopefully in that order, and we seem to be having one! Having heard that we were not to receive the £72,000 grant we had applied for to computerise our schools we received an email from Chiri Babu Maharjan in Kathmandu. Chiri is the chairman of the Bal Bigyan school management committee and we had recently written to the Principal of his school asking if they had any knowledge of formalised literacy tests we could use to seek evidence of our progress. Chiri replied on behalf of the school as follows:

"Dear Brian,

We believe that we do not have any method in practice for measurement of literacy tests in Nepal.  However, we firmly believe that there have been many improvements noticeably seen in our community school, particularly after we have received good support from Nepal Schools Aid (UK).  They are many, however the following are the main ones:

1. Currently we have a total of 301 students from pre-primary to Grade 8.  This number is so far the highest over the school's history of more than 50 years.  Recently, the District Education Office had forcefully merged quite a few contemporary schools of Patan due to lack of students.  But, Bal Bigyan enjoys a comfortable position
2. Girl students have been increased tremendously over the period of last 3 years.
3. Bal Bigyan has been able to provide quality education at free of cost.  Most of  the students are also receiving books, stationery and uniforms freely.  Parents have been relaxed from economic burden. One can see big smiles on the students and parents.
4. Drop-outs and absenteeism have been substantially less.
5. Parents liked adoption of English as teaching method and have shown their interests in enrollment of their children in the school.  It was not like that previously.
6. We expect that over a priod of next 3-4 years, our students will be able to compete with other students from the renowned and expensive schools.
7. Renowned schools of the adjoining areas have now shown their interest for enrollment in higher classes of the graduates of this school.  Indeed these days they visit in person for that purpose.   
8. Local community and NGOs/INGOs have also extended their cooperation in providing potable water system in the school that includes digging a deep well, installation of an expensive filtration plant, and providing overhead tanks.  A nice student friendly library has also been established in the school recently.  Lay down of school infrastructures will be continued in days to come.
9. These days Bal Bigyan has been popularly known by other schools for its Tutors who are providing excellent trainings to teachers from other local schools. 

On behalf of the students, SMC and teachers, I take this opportunity to thank you and your team for the great support that Bal Bigyan is receiving from NSA."

I don't think I need to add anything to this unedited section of his email. 

UK Minister increases aid to Nepal

Just like London buses you wait for ages then TWO turn up, UK Minister of State For Overseas Development makes TWO visits to Nepal within 9 months of being appointed. I can't remember his Labour Party predecessor visiting at all! Good news all round too as he increases UK aid to Nepal by around 50% rising to a 90% increase within a couple of years. 

A report in today's Himalayan Times states:

"With an allocation of £331 million, the UK government has committed to support Nepal over the next four years (2011-2015) in the plan in various sectors including the country’s peace process.

According to a DFID statement, the money will be used to support the peace process, help strengthen governance and improve security and access to justice; help poor and excluded people benefit from economic growth; help deliver better health and education services; help Nepal adapt to climate change; reduce risk from disasters, including earthquake; and to Improve the lives of women and girls."

We don't always agree with DFID's allocation of funds for development in Nepal, too much being spent on "the peace process", whatever that means, or on building a school in one area that costs millions. We do write to them and try to bear influence but UK civil servants plus Nepali politicians are a powerful bureaucratic force!