Improve Quality

PRIME Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba inaugurated the 13th general meeting of Nepal University Teachers’ Association (NUTA) recently in Kathamndu in which he called upon professors and educators to work seriously for the improvement of the education system in order to provide quality education. Prime Minister Deuba’s appeal to raise the quality of education came at a time when there have been debates and discussion about the deteriorating quality of Nepal’s education system. Education is very important for the country’s development. Only educated, informed and skilled human resource can contribute to the development of the nation. It is the education that creates such educated, informed and skilled manpower. Unless the standard of education was improved, nation cannot achieve sustainable development in the economic and social fronts. In view of this, His Majesty’s Government has accorded high priority for the development of education in the country. The government has declared primary and secondary education free. Several other efforts have been made to raise the literacy rate and improve the education system. As a result, the literacy rate has increased tremendously. Under the policy of the government to provide education opportunities to all the people within a few years, there has been significant quantitative development in the field of education. However, the quality has not improved in the same proportion. Almost 50 per cent students who enroll in grade one drop out before completing grade ten. The situation is poor both at the school as well as university level. There are several reasons behind the lack of qualitative development of education in our country. Political interference in the education institutes is one of the major reasons for the deteriorating quality in education. Thus, it is the need of hour to give more attention to the qualitative development of our education system. For this, educational institutes first need to be made free from politics and conducive teaching and learning atmosphere needs to be created for the quality education. The government efforts alone may not be sufficient to achieve this goal. All political forces, academicians and the civil society should make equal contribution for making our education system more qualitative and dignified. But those who are involved in the education sector need to take the lead role for the quality development of education system in the country. At the same time, involvement of civil society in managing and monitoring the education system also needs to be promoted. Civil society needs to be made more responsible for the management of educational institutes and monitoring their performance. This would definitely contribute to raise the quality of education in the country.

Nepal & WTO Regime

PARTICIPANTS of the programme "WTO and Its Impact on Agriculture and Food Security" held the other day were of the opinion that Nepal needs to identify its areas of comparative advantages and formulate timely rules and regulations to tackle the World Trade Organisation-related issues. Nepal, which is said to be all set to join the WTO, is participating as an observer in the forthcoming WTO Ministerial Conference at Doha, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The WTO, the successor of GATT, is the logical outcome of the changed global economic scenario which, in turn, has been brought about by the market forces unleashed by the globalisation of trade and commerce. As such, WTO, just like its predecessor, the GATT, has come up with its own set of policies, rules and guidelines that all its members must scrupulously abide by in the years to come. Similarly, it has also laid down some stipulations that nations desiring to gain its membership need to fulfill. Needless to point out, Nepal is in the second category. And if we are to go by the observations made by various sections of Nepalese engaged in trade, commerce and industry concerning the WTO regime, it so seems that Nepal, a cash-crunched, resource-strapped and one of the least developed nations, has yet to put its WTO accession act together.

One possible reason for this could be the lack of expertise by Nepalese concerning the new trade regime that Nepal is duty bound to comply with once it becomes a WTO member. As all know by now, WTO regime is slated to cover almost the entire gamut of economic, commercial and trade activities. Another could be Nepal’s own economic configuration which is agro-based, thereby leaving it wide open for WTO clauses governing agriculture and agro-products. Yet another could be its current trade and commercial activities that revolve around niche products like carpets, garments and handicrafts—and which, sooner or later, are bound to fall under the purview of the new trade regime. Once Nepal becomes a WTO member, all this, and more, would not absolve it from the stipulates of the new trade regime. But not to join WTO could be detrimental to the nation’s economic, trade and commercial interests. Hence, Nepal not only needs to do its WTO homework thoroughly but, in conjunction with other LDCs, also explore all available avenues to forward their unique problems and challenges in the forthcoming Doha ministerial meet.