The quality of education in the country’s state-run schools, according to expert opinion, has declined since the government took full control of them more than three decades ago. A host of factors are responsible for the poor state of teaching in those schools; one is the long public holidays, which make the total number of school days even less than the minimum of 180 days deemed essential in a year. In recent years, the frequent strikes called by the Maoists or by the teachers’ associations and the bandhs and blockades by others have made things much worse. Though private schools somehow make up for the loss by taking extra classes on public holidays, the authorities of government schools do not provide this facility to their students.

However, in this gloomy situation, the Nepal Teachers’ Association, in a celebration of World Teachers Day with the slogan ‘Quality teachers for quality students’, is set to endorse a long overdue resolution calling for reducing the number of holidays such as those for festivals, summers and winters, so that school classes are at least run for 180 days in an academic calendar. However, it is the duty of the state to ensure the teaching for a minimum number of classes and provide a conducive environment for education free from terror, coercion, abductions, and petty politics that hold the educational system to ransom. Though belatedly, the government has, with foreign prodding, rightly started the process of handing over the public schools to the communities. This measure can be expected to improve things.

The government must not harp on quality eduction without taking solid steps to improve quality, by providing good teachers through proper recruitment, training, etc. To attract good teachers, it also needs to make the teaching profession lucrative enough to entice competent people. The politicisation of teachers has to stop, too, to achieve the desired results. Teachers must be evaluated purely on the basis of their performance rather than on extraneous considerations and accordingly rewarded or punished.