Mahabir Paudyal rightly portrays the public education system in Nepal as a disaster (Reviving Public Education, Oct.16). Education Minister Gopal Man Shrestha has made matters worse.
Personally I feel good that children of our leaders study in good schools—a missionary school in the case of children of former speaker Onsari Ghari. But on a lighter note, I happen to have firsthand experience of the Maoist war on ‘bourgeoisie education’. The night Maoists bombed a missionary school, St Joseph’s School, in my hometown in Gorkha is still vivid in my memory—and these hypocrites now don’t hesitate to send their children to missionary schools.
I can only imagine what the thousands of youths who were once forced to leave school and wage war against bourgeois education may now be thinking. Most of them are now in the Arab world, working 18-hours a day, for the betterment of their family.
The writer talks about lawmakers (also the owners of private schools) influencing the public education policy. This is natural in a state whose fate has been left in the hands of god. But I do acknowledge the role of private schools in delivering quality education. It is because of these institutions that at least some of our brothers and sisters are in elite universities like Harvard, Columbia and Princeton. My own cousin is at Harvard. Perhaps he would not have made it had he not attended a private school in Kathmandu. Good schooling is important for one’s career. In one of the talk shows, Dr Swarnim Wagle (now the vice-chairman of National Planning Commission) credited good schooling for his subsequent achievements. He had gone to Budhanilakantha School.
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The situation of public colleges is as bad as public schools. Visit any college of Kathmandu—Amrit Campus or Tri Chandra Multiple Campus—you will see how recklessly these institutions have been handled. Professors there are on extended study leaves and rarely return after the completion of their studies, campus-chiefs are nominated on bhagbhanda, and students are eying posts in Free Student Union (FSU). Study is secondary issue for them.
What saddens me is not reckless handling of Education Ministry by Gopal Man Shrestha. We have, after all, seen how education ministers from a party that never tired of talking about transformation during the decade-long war fared in government.
I am saddened by leaders like Gagan Thapa and Rabindra Adhikari who don’t hesitate to attend petty functions organized by college students and congratulate student leaders for their vandalism.
We need politicians and policymakers who can stand above dry facts and seek truth from within. Let us not count the number of children enrolled in schools but rather concentrate on the quality of their education. The subject of public education should not be left to politicians and journalists. It should be a concern of us all.
The government should channel university funds to public schools. We don’t need unemployed youths with useless college degrees.
Sijar Bhatta
Student Leader, Amrit Science College
Lainchaur, Kathmandu
We can improve our public schools by enrolling our children there—and the author should be the first one to do so. I wonder if he has. We need to punish public school management committees which recruit temporary teachers based on nepotism and favoritism. We need to give priority to public school graduates in government jobs (government officials choose private schools for their children but they want them to apply for government jobs). There should be a mandatory provision on annual teachers’ progress report, teacher training and competence test. Finally, we must ban politically affiliated teacher and student unions.
Prem Thapa
Republica Online
If we bar public school teachers from politics, that in itself will solve 90 percent of our problems. Teachers in public schools do not teach because teacher unions are there to protect them should they ever err. Politicians want teachers to work as political cadres during elections. So they will always politicize public schools.
Sagar
Republica Online
Our public schools are in such a poor state because there is a lot of confusion over their utility. Who, after all, needs these public schools? Wouldn’t it be much better to convert all our public schools into private ones so that they too have to compete for good students and teachers? The poorest students can be given scholarships to support their education. Worst of all options would be to continue with the status quo and to continue to allow these public schools, underfunded and underequipped, to continue to produce hoards of educated unemployed.
Sambat Mainali
Republica Online
