Kathmandu, July 31

Though there has been huge investment in the education sector, public schools have failed to maintain the quality of education. It’s not only public schools, even students in private schools are facing lots of problems. However proper attention hasn’t been given to issues related to education.

Recent data released by the Education Journalist Group — covering a period from August 2016 to January 2017 and involving seven newspapers — showed that newspapers were not giving enough attention to the education sector. Among the 1,181 news materials related to education, 666 education news items covered the educational scenario outside Kathmandu Valley, while 515 news items were related to the education in the Valley.

According to President of EJG, Dipak Dahal, most of the print news were based on events and programmes while a few were investigative. There were 668 news items published were event-based, while only 493 were investigated by reporters.

“This trend has weakened the country’s education sector. Being the fourth estate, the media has some responsibility with regard to improving the education sector of the country,”he said. Only four news items made it to the front page of daily papers and only four editorials had been written on the education sector. There were 214 feature-based coverage on education while 134 items were opinion-based.

Among the seven newspapers, 115 news items were related to the curriculum and books, 40 news items had to do with closure of school, corporal punishment 33, health and nutrition 23, and 27 news items were school-based and 25 items had to do with quality education.