Revamping Education
MINISTER for Education Amod Prasad Upadhyaya
said that the government was working to revamp the entire education sector of the country
in order to enhance the quality of education and produce more qualified and skilled
manpower. The Minister of Education, addressing a function in Kathmandu the other day,
said that the government has already prepared a bill, aimed at promoting community
participation in the management of the education sector, to be presented in the
Parliament. The government, as part of its overall decentralisation programme, has taken
this move because it has realised the need for active participation of local community and
civil society in the education sector. Decentralization of education had long been
demanded in order to improve the quality of education and to ensure that education is
accessible to all people, especially to the vast majority of the population residing in
the rural areas. As education is the backbone of development, this sector has been
accorded top priority by the government in terms of budgetary allocations and other
resources. As a result, some positive achievements have been notched up in this sector.
Literacy rate has gone up and the number of enrollment in school and university levels has
increased. The people are also starting to send their children to schools.
Yet, there is still much room for improvement
as our education sector is marred by numerous problems. With more emphasis being placed on
quantity, the quality of our education sector, compared to international standards, leaves
much to be desired. While there are huge numbers of educated people who are unemployed,
the country has to bear with an acute shortage of skilled manpower. As remedial measures,
the government is presently giving more emphasis on vocational and technical education in
order to produce the skilled manpower needed to expedite the nation’s development
drive. Also, since politicisation of our educational institutes is hampering
government’s efforts to upgrade their quality, Minister for Education Upadhyaya has
hinted at this and further said that the government was committed to making educational
institutes free from politics in order to create a conducive teaching and learning
environment. Undoubtedly, Minister Upadhyaya’s remarks do indicate the
government’s seriousness in ensuring qualitative education for all. However,
considering the downward slide noticed in the nation’s education sector over these
years, what needs to be pointed out is that only bold measures, implemented in a strict
manner, could bring about the required environment deemed necessary to infuse a modicum of
quality into the nation’s education sector so as to produce the skilled manpower
needed by the nation to man and drive its development endeavours.
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