Our leaders rather than taking guardianship of a few children should focus on implementing effective measures to improve school enrolment

This year’s school enrolment drive is in full swing. The compulsory children enrolment campaign, which started on April 14, the first day of Nepali New Year, will continue till April 28 as per the plan of the Ministry of Education. Most political leaders, including Prime Minister KP Shrama Oli and his Cabinet members, have taken the guardianship of one or two children of the most impoverished and underprivileged communities to enrol them in public or community schools where education is free up to the secondary level. In a symbolic move to kick-start the enrolment campaign, PM Oli took guardianship of two children – Rupa Kumari Khatwe and Pawan Marik Dom – and enrolled them at Ram Dulari Secondary School in Kalyanpur Municipality, Siraha on Wednesday. These two kids hail from a Dalit community. He also took guardianship of two children in Mugu when he visited the Rara lake from where he addressed the nation on the occasion of New Year. CPN-Maoist Centre Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Minister for Education, Science and Technology Giriraj Mani Pokharel and some other ministers as well as Nepali Congress lawmaker Gagan Kumar Thapa, UML lawmaker Krishna Gopal Shrestha and Chief Minister of Province 3 Dormani Poudel have so far announced the guardianship of children from poor families. In Siraha, the education minister said the government had a plan to declare the country “fully literate in two years”.

Something is better than nothing. This is a novel idea that the political leaders have come forward to offer their guardianship for the education of at least one or two children in the community schools. This certainly, we hope, ensures education to some children. A latest report made public by the Department of Education has revealed that as many as 300,000 children, particularly from mountain districts and eight districts in Province 2, are out of school. Most of the children who do not go to school come from the Dalit, marginalised and ethnic communities because of vicious poverty, lack of awareness, cast discrimination and language barrier, among others. These are the major challenges the government has to address them with short- and long-term policies and programmes in the education sector.

What the government and the politicians need to understand is that a one-time enrollment campaign and taking a guardianship of one or the other child will not address the root causes of children not attending the schools. The leaders, it seems, have taken the idea of guardianship very lightly as they have not spelt out how they will give continuity to it. Taking guardianship of a child for education involves lifelong emotional and familial attachment. The guardian must be in constant touch with his ward and his/ her parents as well as with school principal, who should also keep informing the concerned guardian about the child’s progress in studies. It is also unclear as to how long the leaders are going to provide financial and logistics supports to these kids. The main question is: Will they follow up and visit the schools where their kids have now been enrolled? Will they make sure that their wards will not dropout in the future?

The last word

The death of Raja Mama Kusunda, the last Kusunda-speaking member of the near extinct tribe, on Wednesday, has left the Kusunda language in peril of dying. The 65-year-old was the only person who could speak the original form of the Kusunda language. Experts had warned long ago that the language would become extinct if immediate efforts were not made to save it. Raja Mama was said to have contributed a lot to promote the language.

Death of a human being is always tragic, but death of Raja Mama is even more tragic, as along with him the language too has died, or if not, could die soon if no efforts are made to save it. A language carries a heritage; it is the reflection of culture and the community. Death of a language could mean losing crucial knowledge about the community’s history, culture, or even knowledge about their local environment. Apart from Kusunda, there are several other languages which are listed as endangered in Nepal. There is a need to pay proper attention to these dying tongues and make investment to protect them which are on the verge of extinction.