The NSEP is a plan to harness coordination between and among the federal, provincial and local levels towards the common goals and objectives. The success of the NSEP will, therefore, depend upon how articulate and feasible the proposed mechanisms for intergovernmental coordination will be. For this, engagement of the political level in the process of preparing and finalising the plan is paramount
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MOEST) has been preparing a long-term school education plan to succeed the currently ongoing School Sector Development Plan (SSDP) in July 2021. The proposed name of the plan would be New School Education Plan (NSEP), which covers school education, from one-year pre-primary education to grade 12.
Broadly, there are two purposes for the new plan.
A comprehensive longterm school education plan, which is fully aligned with the SDG4 global and national agenda, is necessary.
The institutional setup under the federal system as envisioned in the constitution also needs further strengthening. The new system should facilitate coordination and collaboration across the three tiers of government in line with their exclusive and concurrent powers and mandates. Till date, school education in Nepal is jointly funded by the Government of Nepal (GoN) and a number of Joint Financing Partners (JFPs) under the Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) concept. This modality is expected to continue in the NSEP. As the current COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the economy, this demands either readjusting priorities or looking for more resources.
Hence, the NSEP may need increased external support for the years to come. Constitutionally, the school education responsibilities are assigned to the local government level. For this, funds are channeled from the federal level to the local government using intergovernmental fiscal transfers.
In addition, local- and provincial governments supplement these funds through funds from revenues and discretionary (equalisation) grants.
The main challenge in this regard is to establish a systematic way to harmonise local level planning and budgeting processes against key result areas of the NSEP. A prerequisite for this is ensuring ownership of the local level government in the finalisation of the NSEP. In this regard, the NSEP must provide clarity in the following areas: Mechanism and modalities to support teachers to enable them to improve their teaching practices, assess students' learning, apply relevant technology and carry out assigned duties and responsibilities.
Free and compulsory quality basic education: Strategies to identify, enroll and retain children in school that up to now have remained out of school or dropped out for various reasons and support them to complete their basic education with relevant learning outcomes. Capacity development of head teachers and school management committees (SMCs) to enable them to carry out their duties and responsibilities effectively and efficiently. The success of the NSEP will depend upon the mechanisms to be agreed upon to facilitate the above-mentioned areas.
A more comprehensive approach under the NSEP is needed to improve the enrollment, retention and student's learning. For this, reengineering the existing programmes is required.
This will also include addressing the root causes by providing incentive packages to needy households.
A variety of options must be available so that local governments can contextualise these based on a need-based analysis.
Furthermore, intergovernmental coordination and collaboration mechanisms need to be developed and put in place to facilitate joint planning and budgeting across the different tiers of government.
An important aspect which is missing at present is the sector's capacity to undertake monitoring and supervision at the school level. There are inadequate staff members, who are only engaged in deskbased activities, rather than involving in quality-focused field-based monitoring.
Local governments should also be motivated to go beyond the current practice of monitoring to joint monitoring with the implementers.
MOEST and its agencies from the federal level should carry out sample monitoring and analyse these to arrive at corrective measures. A mechanism to use the monitoring data should be in place at every level. At present, the absence of resource centres and resource persons has created a vacuum in teacher-support mechanisms.
Inadequate school supervisors cannot engage in classroom-based observation to supports teachers.
This raises the need to revisit the mechanism to provide on-site professional support to the teachers. In addition, subject teachers' committees and a mechanism for mentoring, coaching and counselling of teachers must be put in place. A strategy for appropriate application of ICT in education is another priority where the NSEP should provide a clear vision on how development and access to digital materials, teacher training and education governance should be rolled out in a context-sensitive manner.
The NSEP will require a strong institutional capacity development plan to ensure adequate capacity of the local levels to manage school education as per their mandates. This should include establishing a base line, preparing a costed roadmap and putting a mechanism for monitoring in place. In addition, preparing reports and disclosing through an appropriate mechanism are equally important. The NSEP must further engage the provinces to ensure that the resources available within this tier can be tapped into and mobilised in the priority areas. Overall, activities relating to coordination can be kept under the jurisdiction of the provinces. In conclusion, the NSEP is a plan to harness coordination between and among the federal, provincial and local levels towards the common goals and objectives. The success of the NSEP will, therefore, depend upon how articulate and feasible the proposed mechanisms for intergovernmental coordination will be. For this, engagement of the political level in the process of preparing and finalising the plan is paramount.
Lamsal is Joint Secretary, MoEST
A version of this article appears in the print on July 5 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
