Tika R Pradhan

Bhaktapur, May 23:

In the 22 years of its operation, the informal education drive launched at the Bhaktapur municipality has seen it all — ups and downs, rain and sunshine. Currently it has hit rock bottom. In its glorious days as many as 44 groups with 25 students in each group of adult males or females or school drop out children used to take classes but now the situation is pathetic with only one group with 18 students taking classes. So much so the two year course has been tailored to a one-year class. The informal education drive was launched 22 years ago, after the historic city of Bhaktapur was declared Bhaktapur Nagar Panchyat, and with no peoples’ representatives at the municipality, the programme is rapidly losing its momentum.

“Once as many as 44 groups with at least 25 people in each took classes. But this gradually went down after the municipality operation was handed over to the government employees after the term of the elected peoples’ representatives finished,” said Ambica Dhoubadel, administrative head of the Bhaktapur municipality.

“Earlier peoples’ representatives at all 17 wards of the municipality used to facilitate and encourage people to go to the informal classes conducted by the municipality but these days there is nobody to encourage the people,” she added. The Bhaktapur municipality was giving continuity to the programme launched when the country was run under the party-less Panchyat era. Two year duration informal classes were run in three categories — adult males, adult females and dropout children —in every wards of the municipality and now it has been tailored to a one-year course. Executive officer of the municipality Badri Nath Ghimire, however, declined to comment on why the classes could not run smoothly. He said the municipality is mulling to develop a similar campaign through the Community Learning Centres in coordination with the District Education Office and District Development Committee,

as the municipality alone cannot run the classes.

Former mayor of the municipality Prem Suwal said, “Few people who graduated from the literacy class joined school and also completed the School Leaving Certificate while many attended various skill-developing training and are now living a good life generating income out of it,” he said. Suwal further said that the campaign could not run smoothly in absence of the peoples’ representatives.