The food for education programme is proving to be a success in 11 districts and that has prompted the government to expand the scheme to three other districts. A survey found that the enrolment rate in the 11 districts had shot up by 28 per cent, which is by any reckoning an impressive performance. Under the programme, each female student registering 80 per cent attendance receives two litres of oil a month in addition to 110 gm of pudding a day. Successful enrolment has also prompted the government and the World Food Programme to increase the Oil for Education for the girl child quota and 32,600 more female students in Bajhang, Bajura and Accham will benefit from the scheme. That will bring the total strength of beneficiaries to 135,300 girls.

Unbelievable as it might sound, two litres of oil a month is all too precious to parents steeped in poverty but a small price for the government to pay for educating the masses. The rate of girl child enrolment in Nepal is far less than that of the boys. Thanks to gender discrimination, female child in many parts of the country do not receive educational and other opportunities equal to the male child. If such programmes as scholarships, free clothes and incentive packages are luring students to schools as testified by a Ministry of Education official, the government must do everything to expand such schemes to areas where the overall enrolment rate is below the national average. Literate women are more education-oriented and are hence more likely to send their children to schools and raise a relatively prosperous and healthy families.

It is for the government to encourage parents to send their sons and daughters to schools. But in doing so, it is vital to strengthen the education sector by providing trained teachers, adequate infrastructure and quality instruction both in rural and urban areas. No less important is the need to ensure that students get textbooks on time. Institutionalised education system, without which short-term literacy drives trail off mid-air, must be the driving force behind all these efforts. Inadequacies in education are all too familiar which cannot be left unattended. If freebies are helping in luring students to schools, so be it. But it must be ensured the students learn lessons and not just go to schools for the handouts.