More women would be economically empowered with the skills and knowledge they would gain by attending the non-formal education classes

The latest figures released by the Non-Formal Education Centre (NFEC) show that the number of literates has increased, and astonishingly, of the total literate people from adult education in Nepal around 75 per cent are women and 25 per cent are men. In the year 2014 the number of literate women   were 3.73 million compared to literate men who numbered only 934,529. This is in sharp contrast to the figures for the year 2010 that showed the illiterate were 5.17 million in the country and out of them 66.37 per cent were women and only 33.6 of them men. No doubt, Nepal has made tremendous progress in making more people literate since the launching of the National Literacy Campaign in the fiscal year 2008/09 to increase literacy. Progress in dealing with illiteracy since 2000 has has increased globally but there are many challenges ahead. Nepal, it appears, has succeeded to a satisfactory extent in this endeavor. So far, as many as 92.5 per cent of the adults have received basic literacy classes, although there were dropouts, with the government spending a hefty amount of Rs. 6.14 billion since the inception of this campaign in 2008. As of now there are 29 open schools run by the NFEC, 333 Adult Non-formal Schools and 2,151 Community Learning  Centres throughout the country.

Among others, the reason for fewer men participating in these literacy classes is attributed by some to the men hesitating to attend classes where the majority are women to learn the basic reading and writing skills. Plans for providing further education for neo-literates are also being mooted. However, it is felt that there should be special textbooks for the adult non-formal schools as there are none. Particularly encouraging is the fact that many newly literate adult women are all set to study further. These would mean that more women would be involved in the development mainstream. More women would be economically empowered with the skills and knowledge they would gain by attending the non-formal education classes. Some women have organized themselves and formed cooperatives in coordination with their ‘classmates’, and they have already started income generating activities in their hometowns and villages. Meanwhile, more men should be encouraged to join the literacy classes and keep up with the women folks who have overtaken them now. Literacy is a must to achieve the development goals being envisaged worldwide.

The objective would be to achieve inclusive and quality education and also valuable lifelong learning for all. Meanwhile, it is disturbing to learn that as many as 757 million adults worldwide are without basic literacy skills and out of them two-thirds are women. It is also a matter of worry that the number of children not attending school has risen over the years. Such a situation should not be allowed to prevail. As far as Nepal is concerned, we Nepalis seem to have done well in reducing the number of illiterate people. It is realized now that progress cannot be achieved without making the workforce literate. Making more adults literate should be carried out on a war footing. This skill is one to be proud of and it helps improve the quality of life by providing new opportunities and also highly useful knowledge.

READ ALSO: Women outnumber men in adult literacy

Road delays

Failure to utilize the budget has been a perennial problem for project implementation in Nepal. On the one hand, Nepal lacks enough resources to invest even in basic projects and programmes; on the other, most of the national budget goes into regular expenditure, such as paying the salaries of the employees. Even after that, what has been made available for development almost always remains under-utilized, leading to freezing of the budget at the end of each fiscal year.

Road projects in the country are no exception. It takes too long for any of our road projects to be completed and repairs done thus leaving the condition of most of the roads in a bad condition. Take the example of the fiscal year 2014-15. 51 percent of the foreign assistance in the road projects could not be spent. Among the worst performers are the Sitapaila-Dharke road, Narayanghat-Mugling section (under the Nepal-India Regional Trade and Transport Project), Road and Traffic Security Project, Road Improvement Project, and SASEC Road Connectivity and Road Sector Development Project.

READ ALSO: Roads damaged in earthquake to be repaired for Indra Jatra festival