Kathmandu, February 5:

The pre-primary education in Nepal is struggling to sustain because of the poor government policy and limited resources, Ted Birch, representative of the Olof Palme International Centre(OPIC), said today.

OPIC is a partner for the Pre-Primary School Project Nepal (PPSPN).

According the evaluation made by the PPSPN team, “The Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres are facing problems in its expansion and execution of its work.”

Kjell Kampe, international consultant for the team, said that the pre-primary teachers lack proper training and incentives and this has failed to entice them.

The pre-primary teachers are only paid with Rs 1,000 per month, which is far below than the salary of the primary level teachers, and they are provided with the mere eight-day basic training to run the classes.

The Department of Education has established 16,523 ECD centres in Nepal.

Speaking at a programme organised to reveal the research findings today, Lava Dev Awasti, under secretary of the Ministry of Education and Sports, focused on the need for proper cooperation between the international partners and the government to solve the problem of sustainability of the ECD centres.

He further stressed on the need for joint cooperation between the local communities and the government to run the ECD centres.

The PPSPN has helped train more than 4,000 pre-primary teachers and this has helped women get employment opportunity in the remote areas said Nirbikar Shrestha, coordinator of PPSPN.

He also emphasised on the need for ECD centres to improve the quality of primary education and reduce the drop-out ratio of the students in the level.