Ministry for final touch
KATHMANDU, Jan 26: The Ministry of Education has forwarded the Education Regulation to the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs after approval from the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
As per the spirit of the Education Act, some additional Rs 27 billion is needed annually to implement the Education Regulation, which was awaiting approval from the Ministry of Finance, according to MoE sources. However, the MoF estimated Rs 65 billion additional amount to implement the regulation.
“Now, the MoF has approved the regulation after raising some financial concerns which would be addressed phase-wise,” said the MoE officials.
“We forwarded the draft of Education Regulation to the law ministry on Tuesday to give it final shape,” said Dr Hari Prasad Lamsal, spokesman at the MoE. “The draft of the regulation will be sent to the cabinet after the law ministry approves it with necessary revision,” he added.
The government allocated Rs 116 billion for the education sector in the current fiscal year. The final draft of the Education Regulation was submitted about a month ago to the MoF.
The new education regulation has proposed adding about 30,000 teachers for schools including child development centers, which are considered as the pre-primary schools.
The government has allocated only around 12 percent of the total budget for the education sector for this year while Nepal in international forums has pledged to allocate 20 percent of the total budget for the education sector, said Suprabhat Bhandari, president of the Guardians' Association Nepal. “The government should allot 20 percent budget to the education sector if the state realizes its responsibility to improve the quality of education,” he added.
The draft of the Education Regulation has different provisions to include grades 1-8 as basic/elementary education, grades 9-12 as secondary education, private schools to pay government scale salary to teachers, free secondary education, transfer of school teachers among others.
Education Regulation to be forwarded to cabinet in a week
