Kathmandu, January 23:

The Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) has formulated a three-year plan to be effective from this year concentrating more on making grade 12 the school level exit point along with others.

The government has planned to implement the programme of making grade 8 as the exit point for primary level education and grade 12 as the exit point for schooling from 2009. “Necessary preparations to this effect must be started from this year or the target will not be implemented,” said Laba Prasad Tripathee, spokesperson at Education Ministry.

“The three-year plan concentrates mostly on increasing the access to education in the rural region and to expand the quality educational institutions so that every child has equal access to education,” said Tripathee. The Ministry will forward the plan to the cabinet after a week after thorough discussions.

The three-year plan has aimed to provide autonomy to national examination board by merging both School Leaving Certificate examination board and Higher Secondary Education Board (HSEB).

Regional levels of the National Examination Board will conduct the examination of grade 10 while the same board will conduct the grade 12 examinations on a national level.

The plan has also concentrated more on non-formal education with the motive of increasing the literacy rate to 63 per cent from present 49 per cent.

It has also focussed on expanding the open alternative education programmes including those in the 28 Maoists cantonments along with the construction of 600-village education planning programmes in the first year.

The plan also concentrates in literacy programme to the marginalised group such as Raute, Kusunda, Bankiria, Raji, Kisan, Hayu etc. The plan also stresses on providing scholarships to Dalits, Rs 300 per child to each school based on School Improvement Plan (SIP) along with providing food for education to 26 districts including 5 districts of Karnali.