Kathmandu, November 2:

Compared to last year, the government is providing more funds to proposed secondary and lower secondary schools.

More funds are being disbursed to these schools to make them sustainable.

Hari Lamsal, deputy director at the Department of Education (DoE), told this daily today that the government has made a provision of providing lump sums for such schools. These types of schools need to be encouraged, he said. The proposed government schools do not get government teachers’ quota.

The government had begun providing Rs 40,000 per level (secondary and lower secondary levels) for such schools since last year. This year, the DoE has begun providing a total of Rs 70,000 for proposed secondary schools and Rs 45,000 for proposed lower secondary schools.

Each of these schools also gets Rs 40,000 per level under the school improvement plan and Rs 20,000 for library construction. There are 1,905 proposed lower secondary schools and 967 proposed secondary schools.

The proposed governments schools are those that are yet to get licences to run lower

secondary and secondary-level classes.

These schools are funded by government till grade five. Communities concerned are providing financial help to run secondary and lower secondary schools after getting approval from respective district education offices.

Ram Prasad Basyal, undersecretary at the Education Ministry, said the government has begun providing licences to those proposed schools, which have fulfilled certain criteria. Earlier such schools used to face financial crunch, he said, adding: “Their condition has improved a lot following the government policy of providing funds for them.”