Education
For All
AS THE country marked the 26th Education Day
Friday, it was an opportunity to mull over the shortcomings in this sector. The country
spends heavily on education, about 13 per cent of the government budget, but the returns
have not been very encouraging. Problems abound right from primary education. Immediately
after the World Summit for Children in 1990, the government embarked on a mission to
provide universal access to basic primary education by the end of the decade. Although net
primary school enrollment has increased by leaps and bounds, it suffers from a number of
problems, such as a high dropout rate, meaning the young students don’t complete the
primary school cycle, lower enrollment of girls and high repetitions. All this is leading
to a waste of resources, which means allocation of more budget isn’t the solution to
the anomalies in the education sector. Also a shift of the present education system
towards vocational training, as advised by education experts, that would provide jobs to
the hundreds of thousands of youths entering the workforce annually, would be making
better use of the available resources. One of the biggest problems facing the country is
commercialization of education in recent years, which is keeping good schools out of the
reach of the economically weak sections of the society. College education has become even
more out of reach. While those who can afford opt for private schools that provide a
better education, the government is left with the task of looking after millions of
children who cannot even pay the bare minimum fees, which is creating a social divide.
Given the resource constraint of the government, free education, as demanded by the
different political parties, is a hollow slogan that makes political sense, but not an
economic one. With the government budget going almost entirely to pay for teachers’
salaries, there is little money left to improve physical facilities in the schools.
Therefore, the only way out is to raise a reasonable amount of fees. But doing this has
become very difficult. Countries that invest heavily on human resources have gone on to do
well economically as illustrated by countries like Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and
Sri Lanka. Cool heads need to sit down to think how this can be achieved in Nepal as well
without putting too high a burden on the government, the parents and the private sector.
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