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MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS Promises To Fulfill
For millions of poor and disadvantaged children of Nepal, who had seen dreadful life in the last 12 years of intensive violent conflict, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) promises many things to them including the access to education, getting enough food, eliminating gender disparities and living a healthy and prosperous life. After getting easy access to primary education in the last five years, millions of children have already benefited from MDGs but there are still many millions who are yet to go to schools. As the year 2015 is less than ten years away, the challenges before Nepal is to reach to all the children living in different parts of Nepal . Despite limited progress, the road ahead is bumpy
By KESHAB POUDEL
For 15-years-old Suntali Sunar, a dalit girl (untouchable), resident of Chandanpur village of Lalitpur district 50 kilometer south of capital, completion of primary level education (grade five) turned to be a boon as the education brought tremendous changes in her family life. Just simple ability to read and write has been enough for her to salvage from so many social and economic discriminations.
Living in isolation for centuries, going to school for dalit children like Suntali is a recent phenomenon. But her completion of primary level education has not only changed their social status but also helped them to achieve self reliance. Being an illiterate woman is a curse in rural Nepal where a woman has to marry in earlier age as well as early pregnancy causes death threat during child birth. Being a disadvantaged Dalit and girl adds more miseries.
Suntali is the third daughter in her house and one of her elder sisters died a couple of years ago due to complication at the time of giving birth. Her second sister who is now sixteen, has a six months old daughter.
“I am a few lucky girls in our community who go to school and complete primary education. I want to complete at least secondary level education,” said Suntali, who is helping her family members in household works. “We used to be cheated by middlemen while making deal to sell our milk. Now I am able to calculate all things.”
This happy story is not for all. Even the dalit and disadvantaged children living in capital has to face all kinds of discriminations and disparities. The students, most of whom are children of disadvantaged people and Dalit, of Sarada Lower Secondary School a few meters away from Tribhuwan International Airport have many painful stories to tell. Constructed 15 years back, the classroom and school building are in miserable physical conditions.
“I am not sure whether I will continue my school or not. If my mother wants me to be in home to complete the household chores, I will have to give up education,” said Sarla Nepali, whose mother works as a sweeper in Kathmandu Metropolitan.
Lying just opposite the Royal Nepal Gulf Club, where most of Kathmandu ’s elite and diplomats gather almost every day, nobody seems to notice miserable schools building. At a time when Nepal is pursuing its effort to attain the MDGs by 2015, these children are reminder about how the situation looks like.
Following the preparation of its first progress report on the MDGs in 2002, a number of steps have been taken since then to align the MDGs with the national planning process targeting girls like Suntali and Sarala. Under a special program, the government allocated a huge amount of money to attain the universal primary education by 2015 focusing more on backward, dalits and girls.
Among the disadvantages group of children, Suntali is among tens of thousands of girls who are benefited by this program. Although programs related to MDGs were initiated a few months after the intensification of conflict, these targeted programs have brought tremendous changes in education sector in rural parts of Nepal .
While the importance of MDGs has been recognized and most of the targets and indicators have been incorporated in the Tenth Plan/ Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (2002-2007), the government investment in education sector has also gone up. Reaching out to children of poor and disadvantaged community, the government has been launching enrolment campaign through Welcome to School Initiative and recruiting more female teachers particularly from Dalit and disadvantaged communities. All these efforts have led to encouraging results: net primary enrolment rate has reached 86-87 percent in 2005/ 2006, less than one percent below the official target.
According to the Ministry of Education and Sports, the overall primary cycle completion rate improved from 50.4 percent in 2003/04 to 68 percent in 2005. “Despite certain achievements, given the recent progress of the net enrolment rate in primary education, it seems less likely that Nepal will achieve the target of universal primary education by 2015. Furthermore, unless special initiatives to reach children from disadvantaged families are introduced, it will be difficult for Nepal to maintain the same pace of improvement and reach 100 percent- the MDG target.
MDGs is world’s time bound and qualified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions – income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, exclusion – while promoting gender equality, education and environmental sustainability.
“Significant challenges remain in increasing equity in access and in improving the quality and efficiency of education at all levels. The adult literacy rate is still only about 43 percent and some 20 percent of eligible children are not enrolled in primary school. Among out of school children, the largest proportions are girls and children from poor and disadvantaged families living in remote areas,” states Asian Development Bank’s Country Strategy and Program Nepal 2005-2009.
With the student of 200 children including 100 girls, Sarada Lower Secondary School is not only the example, there are many other schools around the country where children of dalits and other disadvantaged communities have yet to get entry.
“We have high drop out in the school but some of our students even completed the secondary education after completing lower secondary from here,” said Saraswati Vaidya, assistant headmaster of the school. “Most parents did not send their children to school to work as household workers.”
Students who get the opportunity to continue their study feel proud for completing the education. “I am first child in my family to complete the grade seven. I can read and do all transactions myself. Our family used to rely on others for all transaction till few years back but now I can do all those things for my family,” said Geeta Nepali whose two elder sisters dropped their education after completing grade five. At a time when the government is planning to narrow down the education disparity between the boys and girls at all levels, the reality at the ground shows dim results.
Other problems, too, are coming together including huge demands of money. Produced by the National Planning Commission, an apex government’s development body, and the United Nations Development Program, the Millennium Development Goals Needs Assessment for Nepal 2006 shows that the government must make a public investment of US$ 12.6 billion over the next decade if the goals are to be reached. More than half that money must be channeled to reducing hunger, improving education and developing infrastructure.
The total cost of attaining the MDG on education for 2005-2015 amounts to NRs. 334.5 billion (US$ 4,778.9 million). The average annual cost amounts to NRs 30.4 billion rupees (US$ 434.4 million). Although many donor countries are pumping a lot of money, the resources are still inadequate.
“We must focus on key challenges identified in the Needs Assessment: project development space, significantly improve infrastructure, especially in rural areas and invest heavily to reduce hunger and boost education, especially for girls. The climate of uncertainty must be addressed if Nepal is to secure greater confidence within the international community, and achieve the Millennium, Development Goals within nine year,” said UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative Mathew Kahane.
Published by United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), the Millennium Development Goals Progress and Challenges in South Asia 2006 points out that Nepal has made rapid progress towards universal primary education and gender parity, but there are persistent gender, caste and ethnic disparities, and girls from low income and marginalized groups are doubly disadvantaged. According to the report, Dalit girls are almost twice as likely to be excluded from school as higher caste girls.
Among children in poor households, the percentage of 6-10 year olds and 11-15 year olds out of school is 36 and 42 percent, respectively, and more than two-thirds of these are girls.
“We must think of MDGs, not as abstract concepts or statistical aggregates, but as the lives, the opportunities, the futures, of individual children, women, and men, of our daughters and sons. When I visited a village, not at all remote, in Saptari district last month, I was struck by the women telling me that, after only a few years experience of a social mobilization effort, they now thought that their daughters should not be married off at the age of 12- but at 15 or 16; that perhaps primary and some secondary schooling might be good for the girls,” said Matthew Kahane UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nepal.
Nepal has achieved much progress in education sector in the last fifty years and the progress in the last fifteen years has been remarkable. When Nepal entered into a modern world in 1951, Nepal could boast a literacy rate of only 2 percent, 321 primary schools and 11 high schools constituted the whole of its public educational establishment.
According to Economic Survey 2006, which was published by Ministry of Finance, by 2005, literacy rate had mounted to 60 percent, the number of primary schools (1-5 grades) 23,435 with enrolment of 4.5 million, lower secondary schools (6-8) 7097 with 1.3 million students and secondary schools (9-10), 4102 with 586,177 students.
“The government is ready to invest additional money to the education sector. Since we need to invest huge money in reconstruction and rehabilitation, we need support from international community to attain the goal,” said finance minister Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat.
With an aim to improve the lives of people like Suntali and Sarala, the world leaders unveiled MDGs in 2000. In September 2000, world leaders set the key goals and target in the Millennium Declaration. There are eight major goals and 18 time bound targets to be achieved by 2015. Universal primary education is one of the target set by MDGs. According to the target, by 2015 children everywhere, boys and girls alike will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
“Despite such devastation in the last 12 years, we have made many progress and the country is in a position to attain the MDGs in all front including in universal primary education,” said Dr. Jagdish Chandra Pokhrel, vice chairman of National Planning Commission. In universal access to primary education, the enrolment ratio is on track at 84 percent. The ratio of children completing up to fifth grade has also increased to 60 from 38 percent in 1990.”
The Tenth Plan/ Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (2002-2007) envisaged the extension of education in the spirit of Education for All (EFA) at par with MDGs. The EFA program 2004-2009 is expected to cope with the country’s low literacy and the low access of girls, dalits, ethnic communities, disabled persons and people living below the poverty line – and to achieve the goal of education for all by 2015.
“Despite some progress, Nepal ’s education system has been unable to enhance the access of women, disadvantaged indigenous communities and Dalits. Less than half of all children complete the primary cycle and only 10 percent of those entering grade 1 reach 10 even after repeating several times and less than half of the secondary level students pass the School Leaving Certificate (Grade 10),” writes Nepal Millennium Development Goals Progress report 2005.
Conducted by Central Bureau of Statistic under the assistance of the World Bank, Nepal Living Standard Survey 2004 found the most noticeable association is seen between literacy rate and per capita household consumption. According to survey, 75 percent of the population in the richest quintile is literate while only 25 percent is literate in poorest quintile. In the urban areas the literacy is higher than in rural areas.
In the last few years, the enrolment of girls has increased drastically but the number of literate women is still low. According to the Ministry of Education, 65 percent of Nepal ’s women are illiterate, making it difficult for them to participate in decision making. It seems that the goal of eliminating gender disparity at all levels of education by 2015 appears hard to achieve.
In rural parts of Nepal , efforts are going on to eliminate the illiteracy. From formal education to informal literacy camps, people are taking initiative. The women of Jeevanpur Village Development Committee of Dhading District have shown how communities are actively taking part in eradicating illiteracy campaign.
As soon as they complete the household chores at eight in the evening, women carry their books to nearby community house. As soon as Kanchhi Tamang, 35, a local teacher lit a kerosene lamp, group of women of different age groups joined the class. Launched by a local non-governmental organization, many women - who have never got opportunity to go to school, are literate now. The government is currently spending about Rs, 317 million (US$ 4.5 million) annually on adult literacy as the number of primary school children.
“My eye is now open and I can read and write. I can run a bank account,” said Kanchhi Tamang, mother of three children. All other women, too, have similar feeling like myself.”
Suffering from prolonged conflict for more than a decade, Nepal , one of the poorest countries of the world, is still far behind to attain MDGs in universal access to primary education and in eliminating gender disparity at all levels of education in stipulated time.
R ecent studies have shown that education is key for the transformation of society. From improvement of health to sanitation and poverty alleviation and to end the gender disparities and other social discriminations, increasing the access to education is the must.
However, progress in Nepal ’s education sector – a key to attain Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - is too slow and Nepal is not in a position to achieve MDGs to achieve universal primary education by the year 2015. Lack of education perpetuates poverty and poverty keeps children out from schools.
Although a peace deal has already been signed to end the decade old conflict, it will take a long time for the stabilization in the education sector. This is bad news for millions of Nepalese because education is basically concerned with their everyday problems of producing enough food, enlightening their children and of living healthy and peaceful life. MDGs are closely linked with all of these causes that helped in exacerbating the situation of conflict like social disparity, exclusion and gender discrimination. Therefore, attaining the goal in education is crucial for least developed and conflict-torn country like Nepal .
” In the last decade, Nepal has seen a rise in people’s income, life expectancy, and literacy levels but over half the adults in Nepal are still illiterate. I believe that Nepal can still attain the MDGs and Asian Development Bank along with other international communities have shown interest to support Nepal ,” said Sultan Hafeez Rehman, country representative of Asian Development Bank.
Provided the internal peace and proper environment, Nepal ’s friends have shown willingness to support education efforts to alleviate the poverty for women like Suntali, Sarala and Kanchhi. Education is the key to transformation and salvation.
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