Kathmandu, April 1:

Headmasters and school management committee (SMC) members of community-run schools today demanded that the government reassure them that it would provide promised funds on time.

At an interaction programme on community-managed schools, organised here by the Department of Education, Ganesh Shrestha, school management committee chairman of Dibya Jyoti High School, Chitwan, complained that the schools were yet to receive last year’s fund. “We want definite assurance from the government so that we can convince the Maoists that we have not been fooled,” said Shrestha.

He said neither the government nor human rights activists or even journalists had made any effort to open eight community schools that have been locked since March l5.

Dhol Bahadur Basnet, principal of Gupteshwor lower secondary school, said the directives on the handover of school management committees to the community should be made rephrased. “The difficult wording of the directives have confused most of the schools,” said Basnet.

A total of 23 schools of the Dolakha district are being run by the community and receiving constant threats of closure by the student wing of the Maoists.

Bimal Pradhan, former resource person at Ilam District Education Office, said the government should concentrate on improving the quality of those schools whose management has already been transferred to the community, in order to lure more public schools to this scheme.

Mohan Gyanwali, president of the Nepal Teachers’ Association, said lack of homework was the main reason behind less output seen from the handover of school management to the community for the last three years.

“The teachers, the key players who can make the scheme

work, were not involved in any discussion,” said Gyawali. “It might be just a project but schools should not be treated as mere experiments by donor agencies,” said Gyanwali.

Janardan Nepal, director general at the Department of Education, admitted that discussions with teachers and other stakeholders could not take place due to lack of time.

Only 2,281 schools’ management has been handed over to the community since 2003, after the World Bank-funded Community School Support Project was launched.

The authorities had aimed to hand over the management of 2000 schools this year, but the process has been applied to less than 200 schools so far. The government has set a target of handing over the management of 8,000 schools to the community by the end of 2007.