Kathmandu, September 7

Ministry of Education has announced its plans to develop 1,000 community schools into ‘model schools’ across the country within the next seven years.

School Sector Development Plan has introduced a seven-year plan as envisioned by MoE to further improve the education sector.

Dr Mukunda Mani Khanal, under secretary at MoE said, “The government has already started developing model schools as part of SSDP.”

The ministry recently sent circulars to all district education offices informing them of the criteria for selecting potential schools for this scheme. He stated that these model schools will be equipped with highly qualified teachers, libraries, laboratories, hostels, subject specific classrooms and separate head teachers.

“These model schools will aim to impart quality education,” he said.

SSDP will place its focus on School Sector Reform Plan’s various unfulfilled agendas and work on recovery from the last year’s devastating earthquake. “As these schools will have subject-wise teachers from Grade IX to XII with quality learning environment, the students are expected to excel,” Dr Khanal added.

According to the said proposal, the model schools will have hostel facilities with a certain percentage reserved especially for female students as well as the less privileged.

Similarly, these schools will receive grants from the government depending on need basis.“The schools selected in the first phase will be allocated grants ranging from Rs 500,000 to Rs 700,000, while further grants will be provided accordingly on need basis,” he said, adding, “If the school encourages children from Dalit and other minority communities to study science in higher secondary level, they will be provided more grants.”

He stated that the ministry will select around 240 model schools by this academic year.

Vocation subjects such as agriculture, electric engineering, animal science and others will be mandatory in model schools with a sharp emphasis on students’ learning outcomes.

Chevening scholarship for 13 Nepali students

KATHMANDU: The British Embassy in Kathmandu on Wednesday announced the names of winners of 2016/2017 Chevening Scholarships.

This year a total of 13 Nepali applicants were awarded with the UK Government’s prestigious scholarship. Scholarship awardees include Aman Shrestha, Amit Kumar Karna, Bhaskar Awasthi, Bishwaraj Bhattarai, Ghana Shyam Khadka, Manoj Paudel, Dr Nitin Nischal Bhandari, Ravi Lal Sharma, Ritu Mishra, Saurav Shrestha, Sushmit Sharma Bhattarai, Tanuja Shrestha and Vibek Manandhar.

According to the British Embassy, these scholars will fly to the UK this month to study Master’s degree in various UK universities.

Chevening is a fully funded scholarship program that includes university tuition fees, monthly stipend, travel costs to and from the UK, arrival allowance, homeward departure allowance, thesis grant, grant for study materials, study travel allowance, cost of one visa application and travel grant to attend Chevening events in the UK.