There is a lot of soul searching to be done by the education stakeholders. The main problem is the absence of the teachers in the class. In the private schools, the result is comparatively better because the teachers' presence is much better. In the government schools, it is very low, and that is responsible for the huge numbers of failures
Nepal's education, in general, and higher education, in particular, are in a state of paralysis. This is a very worrying scene because the development of a nation depends primarily on the quality of education. The exodus of large numbers of students to foreign countries shows the loss of people's faith in the education system of Nepal. The flight of a huge amount of foreign currency has also put severe pressure on the already shrinking foreign currency reserves in the country.
School education has been operating, but its indicators are not encouraging. Almost 3.4 and 7.7 per cent of the school-going population are outside the school in primary and basic education. At the secondary level, the situation is still more depressive. Only 54 per cent of the students carry on at this level. About 43 per cent of the students quit their studies without reaching the tenth standard. Moreover, 83 per cent of the students leave school in 12th standard.
The average score in mathematics, Nepali and English has also been plummeting over the years. These scores of class five in 2012 declined from 53.3, 59.7 and 53.6 to 48.7, 46.3 and 46.8 in 2015. In addition, only 38 per cent of the students scored over 70 per cent in the Secondary Education Examination, and 41 per cent scored less than 30. The percentage of absence in the government schools is near to 20 per cent, showing how irresponsible the teachers are when they are supposed to set the standard of responsibility.
The recent results of 10+2 reveal that only 48 per cent of the students have been eligible to join the Bachelor courses. This shows a downward trend in the quality curve of school education in Nepal. COVID has been held responsible for this educational slump, but how long can we ascribe it to COVID while other countries have already come out of this trap?
Higher education has been very pitiful in view of the fact that only 15 per cent of the eligible students join this stream. The pass rate of higher education is just 25 per cent, leading to a colossal wastage of resources. This is natural given that the universities remain under padlock for most of the time.
It has been reported that the office of the Vice Chancellor of Tribhuvan University, the most towering university of Nepal, remained closed for 300 days in the last one year. The University trinity, the Vice Chancellor, the Rector and the Registrar, have been working from a makeshift office for most of the time. The classes have been operating, but they have been hampered very greatly due to the long time absence of the university office bearers.
Who is responsible for this depressing state of affairs? It has been ascribed to a non-functional education policy in some quarters. The education policy of Nepal has a long history. It goes back to the year 1955 when a commission was set up under the chairmanship of Rudra Raj Pandey following the success of the People's Revolution that showed the political exit to the autocratic Rana Regime.
Recently, a High Level National Education Policy Commission was formed under the chairmanship of the then Minister for Education, Science and Technology Giri Raj Mani Pokharel in 2018. This policy has outlined a lofty vision of civilised, healthy and socially justified manpower production for the development of the nation, quality education for overall development and socio economic transformation. It has put forward nine national objectives for education, 10 recommendations and a 24 paragraph roadmap for transformation.
The Government of India also formulated a new education policy in the year 2020. The Chairperson of the Commission was Professor Krishna Swamy Kasturirangan. He said that the new policy was multilingual. There was a nationwide online sharing of the policy during the time of COVID-19. The President of India also took part in the deliberation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the new policy as something which teaches how to think than what to think.
The difference between the two commissions was that whilst the Nepali one was chaired by a political person, it was chaired by an academic person in the Indian case. Moreover, the interaction with the stakeholders was not as intense as it was in the Indian case.
Can the policy be used as a whipping boy all the time to hide one's failures? There is a lot of soul searching to be done by the education stakeholders. The main problem is the absence of the teachers in the class. In the private schools, the result is comparatively better because the teachers' presence is much better. In the government schools, it is very low, and that is responsible for the huge numbers of failures.
In higher education also, the class incidence is rather low due to politics dominating it since the democratic era that dawned for the second time in 1990.
The frequent conflict between the students' unions leading to the closure of classes has been the main culprit in the decreasing quality of education.
It is sad that the universities in Nepal, whose Chancellor is the Prime Minister himself, and the Minister of Education the Joint Chancellor, have been passing through a very depressing phase of its history. It clearly shows that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education have not been putting their acts together for the smooth functioning of the universities.
In India, particularly in Delhi, government schools have been preferred by the students rather than the private schools. Even in Nepal, in Bhaktapur, Medha Secondary School has been doing very well, and it has been attracting students from the private schools.
Some of these best practices should be emulated by the education authority to improve school level education in Nepal. To merely dump blame on the education policy is like poor working man quarrelling with his tools.
A version of this article appears in the print on September 6, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.