Reform education sector

The poor arrangements for this year’s School Leaving Certificate examinations which began last Friday is no doubt a grim pointer of the country’s deteriorating education system. The main reason for this unfortunate state of affairs is obviously lack of "competence and accountability" on the government’s part. The quality of the existing education system does indeed raise serious doubts regarding its relevance in the present times.

This must be looked into seriously. More importantly, it must be noted that the imperative of making education compulsory for national development has never posed so great a challenge as at the present.

The government allocates more than 15 percent of its annual budget to the education sector. Two years ago, a national achievement survey revealed that the government spends more than 90 percent of the education budget on salary, allowances, provident fund and pension for government teachers alone.

Such expenditure no doubt leaves very little for either infrastructure development or research and training programmes. As a result, there has been very little by way of improvement in the education sector. It is also true that government schools always produce poor results at the end of every session.

This is so because of the absence of local level initiatives to improve the functioning of public schools. The fact still stands that more than 50 percent of the local illiterate population and children remain out of schools because they belong to the most deprived sections of society. While it is true that private schools continue to expand and thrive, the standard of government schools has continued to deteriorate even though successive education policies have favoured a common school pattern.

In such an environment, how can it be possible to make the public education system more accountable and efficient? Firstly, the government has failed to realise that district education officers are neither competent nor have they devoted their time to drawing detailed plans. Secondly, local political leaders frequently interfere with the administration of government schools. Lastly, the government has never attempted to reform the education system in accordance with the country’s needs.

The pattern of development in the education sector has brought to light glaring disparities. Education strategies and programmes have evolved more on the basis of cost considerations than with a view to meeting the country’s needs. Thus, the pledge to provide compulsory education to every child below the age of 14 was never implemented in earnest because it was envisaged more as a cost saving mechanism than a desirable objective to be achieved. Like in the past, the government cannot ignore the problems related to not only providing education for all but also improving its quality.

It therefore must form a high level committee that can come up with recommendations for reforming the education system. If this does not happen, the country will continue to suffer due to lack of quality education and more, it may also not be able to fulfill its pledge to educate all Nepalis.

Right to info: Forgotten legislative duty

By Rishikesh Wagle

One of the most important features of the constitution is that it has guaranteed the Right to Information. This right was not granted even by the democratic and liberal constitutions which were framed before 1960s. The revolution in Information Technology has revealed the importance of information and enabled the people to receive information easily. The traditional concept of freedom of expression has been felt to be insufficient without right to get information of public importance, especially on government activities.

The traditional British concept, generally known as negative concept of information is; everyone is free to get information except those in which secrecy is to be maintained by law. It does not guarantee the right to get information. The American Supreme Court held that freedom of information is a part and parcel of freedom of expression. Freedom of expression cannot be enjoyed fully without access to information of public importance. Secrecy is not only basically undemocratic but also shields, preserves and continues administrative errors. The American Congress took a progressive step and enacted the Freedom of Information Act, 1996. The Act empowers not only American citizens but also foreigners to get information on matters of public importance. The American concept is called positive concept; it upholds the principle that in a democratic system, people have the right to know the activities of their representatives. After conscious and objective evaluation of such acts, they can make appropriate decisions in periodical elections. The flow of true information enables authorities to correct and reform their decisions on the basis of the inputs they receive from the public. People can provide better intputs only after receiving correct information.

Our Constitution makers were well aware of the importance of information and they incorporated it in Article 16. The Article states, every citizen shall have the right to demand and receive information on any matter of public importance. It further states that nothing in the Article shall compel any person to provide information on any matter about which secrecy is to be maintained by law. The Constitution lays a heavy duty upon the legislature to make laws that balance the flow of information with secrecy of the information which ought not to be made public for reasons of national interest. Matters related to strategic importance, investigation of crime, diplomatic relations and trade secrets cannot not to be made public without scrutiny. But there is no law that regulates the process and procedures regarding how to demand and receive information.

The Supreme Court is empowered to enforce the Fundamental Rights. Without a certain law providing fixed procedures to demand and receive information, this right cannot be easily enjoyed. Ordinarily, the Supreme Court need not be appealed to get information, but because of the lack of law, people are denied this right. In Gopal Shivakoti vs HMG (NKP 2051 at P. 255) the Supreme Court held that there could be no right without remedy. The court will provide appropriate remedy to enjoy fundamental rights by fulfilling the gap. The court felt that there is a void of law regarding secrecy of official information and procedures regarding information. The Official Secrets Act, 2039 has not yet been implemented. In this case, the court named eight claused procedures to provide information to petitioners regarding Arun - III project. These rules enable petitioners to inspect the concerned documents and copy them after payment of actual cost of copying. If HMG feels it necessary to refuse inspection and copying of the document, the petitioner shall be informed about the grounds of refusal within three days. If the petitioners is not satisfied with the refusal or grounds of refusal, he can ask the Supreme Court to resolve the dispute within seven days. According to the decision, the final say on secrecy or publicity lies with the court. In the same case, the court directed HMG to solve the difficulties caused due to non-commencement of the law related to the secrecy of documents. Commencing or amending the present legal provisions or providing new legislation in the field could do this.

The process of getting information through court order is impracticable if not impossible. The law should provide a clear and prompt method of getting information from the concerned public authority within a reasonable limit of time depending upon the nature and importance of the information. In the present situation, due to lack of fixed procedure of getting true information, the flow of information is mostly based on guesses, non-institutional and unofficial sources. The media also has no special legal privilege to demand information. Their accuracy cannot be empirically verified. In the information market, there is high possibility of infiltration of biased opinion for vested interests. The same fact is reported differently in different media. This may be due to various reasons but the most important is lack of easy access to true information.

The legislature is under constitutional duty to make a law giving the right to information. Court orders cannot supplant legislation but should supplement the law. Now, legislative inaction has caused adverse effects due to infiltrated information. This cannot be cured easily. Sometimes they are incurable. The reliability of information from public officials is always suspect and sometimes inaccurate also. One decade has passed since the new constitution.

Ruling and opposition party members are busy discussing various matters. But they have forgotten their constitutional obligation to make the right to information easily enjoyable. In the British House of Commons, they are moving from negative to positive approach. Our positive constitutional approach has been defeated by legislative inaction.

Running things is so very easy

By Arun Gupto

Running things are so very easy these days since the political bosses have shown us how to run a government. Following the same strategy, running a school, for instance, too is an easy work. Here are some tips from a person whom I do not know at all, but I can imagine what he or she might say to us about running a school or even a college.

"I have a school and a college. I employee people, I give money to the wretched employees, but I do not care about basic human ethics. I do not give medical leave. If the employee is absent for one day, I cut two day’s salary. There are casual leaves, but an employee can take one at a time. I have a very sadistic system which I love the most: report cards are distributed on holidays for which the employee is not paid, but if he or she is absent, I cut two day’s salary. I do not care about any labour laws, private or government. It’s fun to run a school because there is nothing to fear from the passive employees."

There is no exaggeration in this declaration. Most of us know these tricks and we consent and compromise, and this is how life "runs" on. You can also become the boss by opening a private institution and personalizing the whole system at the office. Personalization is our recent way of running an institution in the name of privatization. People are in need of jobs so you have rules of your own. Who can tell these owners that privatization is a professional approach that emphasizes work ethics and at the same time accepts and has to accept the basic norms of employment laws. Rules do not come out of the whims of a person or two, unless you happen to be the boss.

I know many teachers in the valley's schools, many are my former students. I sometimes meet them. And with a few exceptions, most of our educational institutions have whimsical regulations. This situation raises insecurity among teachers, but many of them are not in a position to challenge the authorities.

So we have developed a tendency to run anything. If you have half a dozen post-graduates, form a group and throw in an application to one of the universities and register a college, a graduate school. The farcical thing is that months after registration, the syllabus has not yet been finalized. One evening, an acquaintance came to me. He had opened up a graduate institution. He asked me to prepare an English course of study for the college. I was very confused. "You do not have an English syllabus for your students?" I asked. "No." "And the university that gave you registrations, they certainly have, why don’t you use your university’s," I suggested. "No, they do not have any course. They gave us registration even though we did not have time to make an English syllabus. But that’s not a problem, you just jot a few lines for me," He coolly said. "But how can I make a graduate English course for a university programme?" I asked confused. "You are taking things seriously dai," he was equally surprised.

We both were surprised. I, with the educational farce and he, because I took education seriously. "From tomorrow the classes are going to begin and I need at least the first term course tonight."

"Making a course of study is a serious matter. It is the job of your university. Its research, it takes planning, it takes months of effort, it involves the future of students." He looked at me and he was again surprised, I was overreacting, he must have thought. "Running things are so very easy these days" he whined.

The bottom line
Army, police or both ?

By M R Josse

Prime (and Defence) Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s recent disclosure that he is in favour of "activating" the National Defence Council (NDC) to "resolve" the Maoist issue has triggered a fear psychosis in some quarters even while spreading confusion all around.

Fear: While many have interpreted Koirala’s statement as suggesting that an army offensive against Maoist insurgents is imminent, utterances by Home Minister Govinda Raj Joshi meanwhile indicate that it will be the police -- not the army -- that will be thrown into frontal battle against them.

Although the knee-jerk propensity of tackling a revolutionary Marxist movement primarily through fire-power is characteristic of arch anti-Communist Koirala, it is not very clear what he means when he says that he may have to "activate" the NDC to "resolve" the Maoist issue.

Since the NDC is composed only of the prime minister (chairman) and the defence minister and the "pradhan senapati" or army chief as members, what prevents Koirala, the NDC chairman and defence minister, from ordering -- straight-away -- the chief of the army staff to get his boys into action?

Could it be that he would have first to seek the King’s approval? Going strictly by the book, that doesn’t seem so, as it is clearly stipulated in Article 118 (2) of the Constitution that "His Majesty shall operate and use the Royal Nepal Army on the recommendation of the National Defence Council".

Or, could it be that there are some other operative -- and extremely sensitive -- factors that have not been explicitly stated in public?

Whatever they may be, it will be germane to recall that, not too long ago, the army chief was dragged into public controversy after his confidential briefing to the then prime and defence minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai was leaked to the press.

The crux of the issue then was the army chief’s purported, commonsensical opinion that the army could be used to quell the Maoist insurgency -- provided it had the backing of all parties.

That, obviously, raises this question: will a NDC decision on army mobilisation against the Maoist insurgency be supported by parties other than only the ruling one represented on that body?

Armed police: Turning to Joshi, let us begin by noting that the home minister has not only hinted that a new special security force would be created for the purpose but that parliamentary approval would not be sought, as that "might take a year."

As per media reports, the new force is expected to be composed of more than 15,000 personnel. It is to be armed with sophisticated -- and costly -- weaponry and given special training for countering the insurgents’ challenge head-on.

Incidentally, the above move is entirely in keeping with IGP Achyut Krishna Kharel’s repeated public exhortations that an armed police force of between 15-25 thousand be raised immediately and equipped with modern weapons to do battle against the Maoists, whose "People’s War" has entered its fifth year.

Interestingly, more recently, Joshi declared: "Only the home minister and the home ministry was active thus far. But now even the National Defence Council will be active."

It is thus not absolutely clear whether the NC government headed by Koirala will use the army or the police -- or both -- against the Maoists. What has been noticed, though, is that the government continues to blow hot and cold, simultaneously: it talks tough even while saying it is still desirous of a dialogue.

The first basic step of calling for a cease-fire and then consolidating it, prior to initiating any meaningful dialogue, has apparently not even been considered. Instead, the rebels, who have been playing ducks and drakes with the police for over four years, have been asked to meekly surrender their arms -- even before "talks about talks" with the government can begin!

And, now, the government has reportedly decided at a cabinet meeting on April 10 to establish military barracks in six districts affected by the Maoist insurgency.

On the other side of the divide, the Maoists’ have shown their utter contempt for the government by calling for an "armed shutdown" (which took place on April 6) the very day that Koirala was donning his prime ministerial robes for the fourth time.

Rebels, meanwhile, continue to demonstrate their chilling ability to attack at locations and times of their choice, as the recent ambush in Surkhet where six policemen were killed indicates.

Contributing to the general ambience of unease over the recent moves and declarations by the government vis-a-vis Maoists is Koirala’s ridicule of the police force’s "defunct" intelligence system and his admission that "their" (meaning, the Maoists’) intelligence is much superior to the police’s.

So, too, are widespread reports that the Nepali Congress itself is divided on how best to grasp the Maoist nettle.

Robin Cook’s visit: Even accepting that more fire-power is the answer, can one naively assume that a new police force, armed with automatic weaponry but hamstrung by low morale, can be a match for the battle-tested, highly-motivated revolutionaries who have seen their movement grow from strength to strength and who have noted the disarray of the central authority in Kathmandu -- and the divisions within the ruling party?

Can a combined army/police operation be ably coordinated, given the two organised security groupings vastly different mental make-up, training and traditions?

Those are only some nagging doubts that surface even as one reads that British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook will be dropping by soon to "also discuss the country’s Maoist insurgency with political leaders", as reported by AFP (TKP, April 15).