Kathmandu, May 18

At an interaction organised by Department of Education and UNESCO here today, local level representatives accused the Ministry of Education of being reluctant to coordinate with the local levels in managing school education.

Gopilal Singtan, chief of Kanjosom Rural Municipality, claimed that due to ministry’s unwillingness to hand over its staffers and resources to the local levels, local government had been facing difficulty formulating necessary regulations and work procedure to manage school education.He said the health and agriculture ministries had already handed over human resources and infrastructures to the local levels, but the education ministry was delaying the process.

Deputy Mayor of Chautara Sangha Municipality Januka Parajuli said federal, provincial and local governments had the right to formulate acts and regulations as per their necessity. “But, we are still not given the authority to appoint, transfer and sack teachers,” she said, adding, “We are planning to merge seven public schools of our local level due to the lack of students, but local people and different citizen groups are opposing our plan.”

Juna Basnet, deputy mayor of Suryabinayak Municipality, said, “We have been working for the welfare of the municipality and to provide quality education, but it is difficult to change the perception of the community.”

Speaking at the programme, Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya, secretary at the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, said local levels had been given full authority to improve the quality of education in public schools. There are 80 per cent public and 20 per cent private schools in the country.