Like in preceding years, we are heading for another massive school-enrolment crusade across the country—as the school academic year kicks off in the middle of April. The objective of such campaigns is obvious: to bring into school all children who are out of school. The government mobilizes all concerned stakeholders—school teachers, parents, civil society organizations, child clubs, etc in each school catchment neighborhood with a variety of activities and slogans for the welcome-to-school program. [break]
This month-long program includes door to door visits, finding out which children are missing school enrollment, meeting parents, and convincing them to send their children to a school, ultimately contributing to the goal of “Education for All By 2015”. Nepal invests two million rupees each year, per school, on this school enrollment program. Indeed, the major chunk of development budget has gone to education for years. But the result has not been up to expectations.
A government report points out that only around 5 percent children of school going age—5 to 15—remain out of school. However, community mobilizers, education right activists and experts believe the report is false, since many more children are out of school than the report states. It’s true that in many school catchment areas, almost all children of school-going age are seen attending school, but in many communities, more children are found out of school, heading towards a dark future.
Children from dalit and disadvantaged communities, and children with disabilities are disproportionately left out of the school, in violation of their right to education. Children from highly disadvantaged communities like Chepang, Jirel, Jhangar, Koch, Santhal, Kisan, Raji, Maji and Bote are likely to be deprived of access to education and the advantages it brings. Studies point out that children of the Dalits in Terai, particularly Dom, Dusadh, Musahar, Chamar, Khatwe, Dhobi, and Tatma are far behind in this regard, and so are the children who live in extreme poverty and geographical remoteness. Children from dalit communities in hills and mountains also are deprived to a large extent. Girl children have historically been among the most excluded from education.
Besides the low school enrollment rate, the dropout rate and grade repetition rates are other alarming problems in our education system—throughout the country, 10-15 percent children (if not more) are estimated to drop out before accomplishing basic primary education. Remote communities or districts are the most afflicted by this problem. Needles to say, better school enrollment, retention of children in school, and a lifelong interest in education is found in those areas or communities where there is significant presence of NGOs and cooperation between the government and NGOs.
The major reasons for low school enrollment and high dropout rate are poverty and children being assigned chores at home like taking care of younger siblings, grazing cattle, and other farm tasks. Inability to see any use of education, language barrier, discrimination on the basis of caste, class, gender, disability, unequal teacher-student ratio, and lack of the infrastructures are other contributing factors. Higher dropout rate among girls seems to be due to gender discrimination, distance between school and home, work pressure at home, sexual violence and other discriminatory behavior. For example, most school buildings either do not have toilets, or available toilets do not accommodate girls with physical disabilities. As a result, most of them do not go to school.
Just a few weeks ago, I asked a local disability organization to send 50 deaf children each from Kailali and Banke Actionaid so that they could attend a bridge course in order to enroll in school. Local organizations were able to find the children sooner than later, proving that there are several deaf children out of school in many pockets. Similarly, there must be children with other types of disabilities like visual impairment, physical disability or intellectual disability, who are also deprived of school.
It is difficult to predict how many children with disabilities are in school, but approximately 60 percent of such children are deprived of education in Nepal. One of the vital reasons for disabled children missing from school is the lack of appropriate teaching and learning strategies. Though Nepal has a policy of teaching children with disabilities in mainstream schools, in practice such children are taught largely in a few segregated schools or resource centers attached to select mainstream schools. These classes catering to 10 children each, and children of different ages are taught together in a single class. Not many children gain access to these schools or centers, because of the limited number of seats, the cost and distance associated, and lack of awareness in parents. Evidence shows that inclusive education (teaching disabled children in mainstream schools with minimum adaptation) can be more effective, reaching a vast number of children. Inclusive schools are found to be more cost effective and academically and socially effective than special schools.
Such contradictions between policies and practices impede the achievement of one of the millennium development goals: Education for all.
Nepal declared free and compulsory primary education in all government schools many years ago. But schools are still charging pupils in one way or another, leading to high dropout rates in children living in extreme poverty. In several areas, scholarships and other encouraging facilities allotted to children from such families have not been awarded. Schools are given a certain amount to cover the cost for administrative activities and with other expenses incurred. As a result, headcount of students enrolled in the school has become a major playing field among concerned stakeholders. In other words, schools having more students are eligible to receive more money, a source of fund that is unfortunately misused in many schools. Teachers and school management committee members are enthusiastic about enrolling more students, and just as interested in increasing the retention rate. More often than not, they fake the record, use the fake records to demand resources, and use the funds elsewhere. Indeed, this practice is still widespread. Such schools are not accountable and transparent regarding their performance and financial expenses.
Basic education is an inherent fundamental right that enables a person to exercise all other human rights and fundamental freedoms. Every child of school-going age must have this right, and denying it for whatever reason is a severe violation of human rights. The government must have a strong monitoring mechanism, collaborating with parents and concerned stakeholders to regulate schools and discourage any sort of corruption in schools. The recent moves to merge schools having students below the standard numbers, and exchange school supervisors for cross monitoring are welcome steps, but are not enough. Good governance, where the schools are transparent and accountable for their performance, should be ensured by parents and relevant stakeholders to pave the way not just for school sector reform but also to bring children from poor and excluded communities to school.
Availing all children of quality primary education should be the focus of development agendas, including poverty reduction, rather than a token agenda like enrollment campaign. I hope the upcoming school enrollment campaign will be fruitful, but unless the parents from excluded communities internalize the importance of education, it is unlikely to bear fruits. A massive awareness on this subject is the need of the day.
The author is associated with ActionAid
meenraj.panthee@live.com
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