After legislation, policies are a vehicle through which the goals of an organisation and its programmes are run and interests met. Effective policies largely determine the success in the area of achieving goals. The indigenous nationalities allege that the government’s policies on education have more or less failed to attain the goal of attracting more of their children to schools. True as it is, the enrolment rate of children from the communities in question is among the lowest in the country. The WFP-assisted programme that provides food and oil for those attending school has been a phenomenal success in the hills and the Tarai as well. But it has drawn flak from the indigenous communities to the effect that it has enticed the children to schools only for the freebies and that it does not inject educational zeal in them.

While some of the accusations labelled against the existing policies are valid, it fails to sink in why a major policy overhaul would all of a sudden give a new impetus to a decades-old effort that has addressed the educational concerns of the said communities to some extent. It is a good idea to review and list the finer details of the policy and its results. But it is not fair to conclude that the existing educational policy has not at all encouraged the enrolment of the children from the indigenous communities. Policies in Nepal appear as quickly as they vanish. But for the tardy implementation of them, a good number of policies would have been more productive. It would, hence, be more meaningful an enterprise if renewed stress is laid on implementation aspect of the already existing policies.

Forget policies, even court orders are not implemented in full earnest in Nepal. That habitual sluggishness has trickled down to every conceivable realm and the educational sector is no exception, either. It had better be acknowledged that quite a few of the department’s efforts are worthwhile and have gone a long way in imparting education to the masses, the indigenous nationalities included. However, education is tied up with the economic well-being of the people and vice-versa. Educated families lead a better life than those who are not. The government must heed the Janajati’s gripe and address specific concerns if the educational targets are realised in true sense of the term.