Development Planning
Focus On Decentralised Process

By Mukti Rijal

THE country is now discussing the tenth five-year plan as the ongoing plan period is coming to an end. Since the concept of planned development was initiated in the country during the late fifties, the nation has made tryst with a total of nine periodic development plans so far. None of the previous plans implemented in the country have achieved their targets. Nor the goals of the plan have been so designed as to see that the country is able to invest resources to address the real development concerns.

The focuses of the plans change with every periodic planning exercises, so the gains and achievements scatter across the sectors without reinforcing the process of fulfilling the goal. A focussed well-designed national development plan can make a big difference as had done in the then Soviet Union during the late twenties. In fact, the communist Soviet Union earned praise and the planned development concept got substantial support especially to give boost to the economy of the underdeveloped countries taking the achievements of the Soviet Union into account. Western liberal economists had revised some of their economic premises and made some adjustments in their approach to evaluate achievements of the planned development.

However, the centralised develop-ment paradigm strongly mooted and maintained in the Communist Soviet Union failed to sustain the pace of development, and the economy was forced to come to the stage of stagnation. The socialism practised in the Soviet Union failed disastrously which also gave support to the argument that the centralised and bureaucratised development cannot sustain to meet the economic aspirations of the people through efficient and appropriate allocation of resources. Milton Friedman in his book titled ‘Capitalism and Freedom" writes." In the Soviet Union, economic totalitarisms was combined with political totalitarianism. Even in the Russia under the Tsars it was possible for some citizens, under some circumstances, to change their job without getting permission from political authority because capitalism and existence of private property provided some check to the centralised power of the state."

It is also in order to quote John Kenneth Galbraith who in his book titled ‘Economic Development in Perspective’ writes. "For some, planning was the sine qua non of progress. For others, it was the quintessence of evil. Organisations and political parties have flourished to promote planning. Others came into existence to oppose it. He adds, "The theory of planning originated in close alliance with the theory of socialism-one of the reasons why the word planning was so long regarded in nonsocialist quarters with uneasiness."

We have the democratic form of government and people are both politically and economically free. The concept of planning and centrally planned development is said to be irrelevant in the modern democratic and neo-liberalist context. However, planning has a need and advantage in the context of the development for a poor country like Nepal where state should lead and encourage development through wise and efficient allocation and administration of the fund. Moreover, planning has been deemed necessary in the context of Nepal to prevent exploitation, ensure social justice and meet the national goal of development. It is also necessary to ensure that political power and would not be arrogated by the owners of the capital.

Though, the rationale of planning, as argued above, exists in Nepal, it should not be maintained in the form of centralised planning as part of the conventional straitjacket. It should be furthered in the form of decentralised planning so that central government has to prepare a vision for development and local bodies and institutions undertake the management and implementation of the development process. The previous plan documents, especially the Eighth Five Year Plan and Ninth Five Year Plan placed emphasis on poverty alleviation through decentralised planning of development. But if the achievements of the plans are evaluated and measured, not much has been accomplished. The participatory decentralised development planning is yet to be shaped and organised properly. The local bodies are yet to get capacity and mandates to shoulder the responsibility of development of the country. Since we are discussing the approach and modality of the Tenth Five-Year-Plan we should concentrate on how the process and mechanism of decentralised planning is strengthened. We have so far put emphasis on central targets and achievements, let us new shift our focus and give decentralised development a chance to bail us out of the crisis of poverty and underdevelopment.

Testing Teachers

By Prakash Dahal

UNTIL yesterday, teachers tested students. Now, they are to be examined. The Government is soon to push a bill through parliament which will require testing and licensing of teachers. The country’s 150 thousand pedagogues have to prove their ability that they are pedagogically sound to hold chalk and dusters inside the classroom. A service commission will re-examine them. On successful test, they shall be issued licenses.

They say a thirty per cent of school teachers carry fake certificates. They purchased them from academic kleptocrats who run a trade of selling certificates, across the border.

The academic kleptocracy like kleptocracies rampant in other sectors have been largely tolerated in the country.

In the past, huge investments were made to mend the country’s education sector. The Sterling Pound and the American dollars pumped in by ODA, USAID and UNICEF, to name a few, built the hardware. Efforts in refurbishing the academic software nearly always proved no better than whipping a dead horse.

Institutions like Science Education Project, Secondary Education project, and Primary Education Project, Radio Education Project, and Distant Education Project leaned on foreign grants and loans. They rose and fell on the flow foreign assistance. The building and complex still stand there.

The buildings changed but the building dwellers didn’t much like the fashion in Kathmandu changes but the fashioneer don’t.

The Britishers and Americans erected buildings under bilateral agreements and sent the likes of Dr. Mike Connely and Clark with bunch of VSO and PCVs for methodological input. Many teachers herded into the British Council auditorium couldn’t read aloud My English Reader, the book they have taught their students for years.

They stammered holding the book with trembling hands and perspiring profusely.

The overseas experts watched them in frustration. They couldn’t dare to ask, " Hey, where did you get your certificates from?"

They did what they were paid for suspending any such thoughts that would require them to ponder whether their efforts would bear any fruit.

They possibly gave their feedback to the high-level authorities, and the latter patiently received however confining them to the acoustic faculty and never allowing them to storm their mind.

Because, they could do nothing about it as domestic political compulsions always out-weighed any effort in lifting the dwindling education. They couldn’t ever risk incurring displeasure of these teachers who helped them run their political trade. They found it too tempting to tell them, ‘ Hey, I can’t help you no matter how much you pay because you paid for your certificates".

Then the Berlin wall fell and it fell everywhere. The free market capitalism gushed in. They let the private people run schools and take care of children.

The government didn’t pull down its own shutters completely rather it set them in the race with the private schools. A few better pedagogues jumped into the private bandwagon and the load of crap remained.

The government was happy because they provided the country with an alternative options for schooling children- the private schools. Those who could afford could buy good education for children, and those who couldn’t cursed their fate.

Once an Edinburgh educated linguist under political beret swinging on a revolving chair of an education project commented on the pathetic state of public school education in these words, " We are a small country needing very few quality manpower and they are adequately supplied. Many of our children read in good schools of India and abroad. They cater to the nation’s need."

This suppose-to-be an academic authority revealed the dishonest state of affairs in an honest way. He told the crude reality albeit in black humour, " These public schools are meant to produce office clerk and political activists. And, they are good enough to do that. Why should you worry?"

Over the past few decade, since the country adopted what they call new education system drifting from the British and modeling on American, too much money has been pumped into education sector. Most of it went for infrastructure building and a little in quality growth.

Little or no achievements were made in quality as that is there for every one to see. Not that the experts flying in the country on dollars and sterling didn’t develop software, they did but found very few using or willing to use them.

They also knew why there were a few and unwilling. Some of them were rudimentary, the others were recognized not in terms of their pedagogical but political delivery.

Everyone knew it. The politicians, the educational authorities, the overseas experts and the school authorities. The outsiders thought it was none of their business, the insiders knew it and therefore enrolled their children away from home. That is how the wheel of public school education rolled on.

Better late than never. The government somehow has come to realize that it is the software where the defects lie. And, they have decided to re-examine it. Unfortunately, it took over a decade ruining a whole lot of generation before they finally identified the problem.

They have identified the problem but whether they can remedy them remains the most crucial issue. If they can, then one must think that they have started thinking the national way. If they can’t, then a few more generation of impoverished and unaffordable children should bear the brunt. The nation has no option other than to press ahead with the reform. Can it do so?