Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, March 28:

The government is in need of more funds if it is to achieve the education goals and objectives of the next five years beginning 2004. The education sector (with the sub-sectors) need a total of $82 million for the five years to meet its goals.According to the draft paper on the education sector for discussion at the upcoming Nepal Development Forum, if the resource gap is not fulfilled it would be difficult to achieve the various policy goals and objectives of the education sector.

In order to bridge the gap, the pre-consultation meeting for NDF-2004 will be held on March 31. The Nepal Development Forum will meet in Kathmandu on May 5 and 6.

The sub-sectors of education are Education For All (EFA), Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, Technical and Vocational Education and Higher Education.In order to achieve the EFA goals, a resource gap of $29 million needs to be filled. According to the EFA 2004-09 core document, it needs $815 million. Of the total budget, $480 million (59 per cent) is allocated for recurrent expenditure, which will be borne by the government; $335 million (41 per cent) is allocated for capital expenditure.

However, there is a resource gap in the proposed capital expenditure.The government has made a commitment to invest $56 million, and donors, through different bilateral agreements, have agreed a support of $104 million.Though the donors have agreed to provide an additional $158 million, a resource gap of $29 million remains.

The government is in the hope that the EFA gaols will be achieved as the Dakar Framework guarantees that countries committed to EFA will not be constrained by lack of resources.

Secondary education sub-sector is getting support from DANIDA and the Asian Development Bank for Secondary Education Support Programme.

But there is $35-million resource gap regarding implement developmental activities such as teacher training, curriculum and textbook, supervision, planning and monitoring.

The other sub-sector, Technical and Vocational Education, needs $10 million to establish two polytechnique institutes, two technical schools and expansion of school annex programmes in an additional 60 schools.There is no donor support for higher education in the current year and a resource gap of $20 million for the next five years has been estimated.In order to fill the gap, some government education sector programmes are underway.The programmes in the tenth plan seek to achieve a few objectives through prioritised intervention.

These include ensuring primary education for all as a national commitment, implement programmes on literacy and non-formal education, providing compulsory teacher training and technical education.The government has allocated 14 per cent of the total budget for education.