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Kathmandu Thursday October 04, 2001 Ashwin 18, 2058.
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Education to undergo profound changes
Teachers to be licensed, public schools to levy fees
By Binaj Gurubacharya
KATHMANDU, Oct 3 - Thousands of government
school teachers will be required to apply for a license to teach once the Bill proposing
seventh amendment to the Education Act is passed by Parliament. Another significant aspect
of the Bill is that public education, which is mostly free today, would cease to remain
free for middle and higher secondary levels.
Once the Bill is in place and a licensing
mechanism established, all the public school teachers throughout the nation will face
tough licensing exams that is designed to flush out those with fake education degrees from
institutions across the border.
The proposed Bill, a copy of which has been
obtained by The Kathmandu Post, has already been debated, discussed, amended and endorsed
by the Population and Social Committee of parliament and is expected to be approved by the
House of Representatives before the current Session is prorogued next week.
The estimated 150,000 government school
teachers, and even those who are currently employed even in permanent positions, will be
issued a temporary license within six months of the Bill becoming an Act. They will be
required to apply and take the test within the next five years from the date the new law
is enforced.
Failing to do so, they will be automatically
retired but will be given the benefits received through normal retirement procedure.
All new teachers will be required to be issued
with the license before taking up teaching jobs in government-run schools which will now
be called ‘community schools’ instead of public schools.
There have been numerous cases where teachers
have been caught working without proper education training and degree. Many of them were
found having bought fake certificates from colleges and universities in neighbouring
Indian states.
Not just the teachers but many other professions
have been hit by this kind of practice and there have been numerous government measures to
check the trend.
However, only few people have been actually
caught whereas estimates of fake certificate run much higher than the ratio of people
actually caught. In the education sector, it is as high as 30 per cent.
The new mechanism would not only flush out the
teachers with fake certificates but also the incompetent and unqualified people now
currently teaching in schools across the nation.
In another major change, the Bill would also
enable these schools to charge fees to students. Only the primary level education will be
free. This would mean that the students in secondary and high schools would be required to
pay fees to be enrolled.
The move would totally reverse the policy
enforced by previous governments that has made education in all the grades of public
school almost free. Education tools such as books have also been made free up to the fifth
and seventh grades.
Now books would be free only up to the third
grade. Critics say such a move would discourage poor parents from sending their children
to schools and the already low literacy rate could take a steeper plunge in the years to
come.
And to discourage the growing case of
politicisation of the education system, teachers will be barred from taking part in any
election of political parties or organisations affiliated with it, work in these
organisations and represent these parties.
The schools can expel the teachers for political
involvement, coming to work intoxicated, absent for over 15 days without a notice and
failing to fulfill basic duties.
Private schools will now be called
"institutional schools" and will be brought under the tax net as they would now
have to be registered under a trust or as a company and lose all the privileges,
concessions and waivers enjoyed by these schools.
These schools will be categorised and then the
government will fix the fees they will be able to charge. This could to some extend
control the "out of reach" fees charged by most of the private schools.
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