Kathmandu, April 28:

The government has brought a policy to register the alternative education institutions like madrasas, gumbas and vedashrams with public guthis so as to bring such institutions into the educational mainstream.

The implementation of the Nepal Act Amendment Ordinance on Education and Sports has now enabled such schools to register with public guthis and avail of the related benefits. The policy will come into effect from this academic year.

“After registering such schools with public guthis, the government can track their exact number and also provide grants if they ask for it,” said Laba Prasad Tripathee, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education and Sports “The government can provide teachers to teach particular subjects like Nepali, science and mathematics after these schools’ registration with public guthis. The students can also later shift to the national education system if they so wish.”

These alternative education institutions follow a schooling system of their own, and if students there want to pursue their education in the mainstream system they cannot do so as the alternative school system does not strictly follow the national curriculum.

“We still don’t have exact data on the number of such schools, as most of them are not registered with the Education Ministry,” said Tripathee.

It is estimated that 1,25,000 students are enrolled in the 2,000 gumbas and 1,500 madrasas in the country.

According to the draft paper on the mainstreaming programme for madrasa and gumba education prepared by the Curriculum Development Centre, around 1,500 gumbas are registered with the Monastry Management and Development Committee where there is no representation of the Education Ministry.

There are 20 schools under Nepal Veda Vidyashram. Of these, six are high schools and have been churning out SLC graduates since 1986.

Tripathee said that the policy would help achieve the target of 100 per cent enrolment rate by 2015. Even now, 14 per cent children are out of school.

Jeewan Sharma Poudel, deputy director at the Department of Education (DoE) said that national conferences on bringing these educational institutes into mainstream educational system have already been held.

The draft paper, formulated a year ago on the mainstreaming of madrasas, gumbas and ashrams, clearly states that such registered public institutions will be given free national curriculum textbooks, training will be provided to teachers (Lamas and Maulvis), education material would be provided and teacher quotas allotted for public gumbas and madrasas.