The worsen Education system of Province 2
By : Prabhakar Jaiswal
1. Introduction
Education forms the foundation of an equitable society. Quality education will turn the students of the country into competent individuals and responsible citizens. It will equip them with the necessary mindset, values, skills, and knowledge. A country that successfully imparts high-quality education enjoys countless benefits, and many countries in the world have already set the example.
1. Introduction
Education forms the foundation of an equitable society. Quality education will turn the students of the country into competent individuals and responsible citizens. It will equip them with the necessary mindset, values, skills, and knowledge. A country that successfully imparts high-quality education enjoys countless benefits, and many countries in the world have already set the example.
As it is seen in context of province 2, 90 percent of the education is theoretical. There is no space for creative learning and thinking. The educational environment has totally been worsened. The problems associated with the education system of Province two is lack of adequate budget, lack of modern teaching materials, lack of policy implementation, defective examination system, poor physical facilities, lack of teacher quality, political corruption and Palikas' responsibilities. These all points were shorted-out after the survey of four schools in Dhanusha district of two Palikas, Ministry of Social Development, Education development central Unit, Dhanushadham Municipality and Bateshwor Rural Municipality. These schools are:
a. Lack of adequate budget
Though there was seen in some improvements in the physical structure of school but it was not sufficient for the fulfillment of school needs. Still too many lacks are found in physical structure, they are not made according to the needs of all students. The lack of funds for school construction may be related to inadequate budget processes that do not sufficiently distribute funds between educational sectors of Palika and the schools of Province 2.
Budget needs to be planned and executed with transparent practices and comprehensive documentation, and public reports of education budgets should be made available for the general public.
b. Lack of modern teaching materials,
The appropriate funds for teaching and learning materials are not supplied. the schools are not considered, but ignored. The children will not have the opportunity to benefit from the advantage of e-Learning concerning their future. Some of the challenges facing lack of e-Learning materials in schools are below:
Therefore, there is almost no policy communication from top to bottom, which has resulted in the poor implementation of policies.
In framing policies, there are hardly any consultations and negotiations with the stakeholders.
Nepal has been transitioned into federalism. The new constitution has given rights to the local government (LG) to frame policies–including the education sector– on their own. But it was seen in the current time that local government has been failure to formulate policy and failure to provide support to school from each and every angle.
d. Defective examination system
The negative feedback effect of the grading system is blatantly obvious. It is because a student had received a poor grade that he/she shall feel ashamed of himself, and either try better the next time to please the teacher and to please the system or give up on academics altogether.
There is not much difference in the external examination system of 8th, 10th and 12th class but the copy of the foreigner's grading system and the liberal class promotion, the students have not much focused on their studies.
e. Lack of teacher quality
The teacher who is teaching in the schools are not efficient enough, how can we expect students to be brighter? Government needs to train the teachers properly and pay them to their full potential if it wants to see a change in Education system. Not all the children are same. The teacher shortage in each and every school is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought. When indicators of teacher quality (certification, relevant training, experience, etc.) are taken into account, the shortage is even more acute than currently estimated. The quality of an education system relies substantially on the quality of the teachers and the principals. The acute shortage of properly qualified and trained teachers, and consequently, the poor learning levels at schools is an issue that needs to be addressed. Provincial and local government often fail to invest enough on the development of teachers.
f. Political corruption and Palikas' responsibilities
Education is not always about becoming a big, rich person. It should be about humanism. The problem that each school faces in large scale is political corruption in the education system. Political corruption is the use of power by local government officials. So many amendments and policies are made, commissions are set up, but the ground of realty is rarely seen. The school makes a school improvement plan and submits the school improvement plan to the municipality/rural municipality, but the school has not received proper support from the municipality. At the provincial level, when it was informd in the ministry, it was said that power is limited to local government. If the local government has been given full power, then looking at the condition of the school, it is seen that the local government has supported very little in the development of the school. Nothing further has been developed towards Inclusive education. The question that may arise here is what happened to the budget for education? During the Covid period, school was completely closed, while Local Government was funded by the central government to run digital education in schools. Looking at all aspects, it was seen that the local government did not fulfill its responsibility and seemed completely incapable of developing the education sector.
Things that the local government could not do was listed below:
Unless there is a clear policy formulation, good cooperation between the Local Government, the provincial government and the central Government, we cannot even imagine development in education.
- · Dhanush Janta secondary School, Dhanushadham
- · Bhanu Ma. VI. Kisanpur
- · Janpriya Ma. VI. Bateshwar
- · Laxmi Ma. VI Bateshwar
2. Problems
a. Lack of adequate budget
Though there was seen in some improvements in the physical structure of school but it was not sufficient for the fulfillment of school needs. Still too many lacks are found in physical structure, they are not made according to the needs of all students. The lack of funds for school construction may be related to inadequate budget processes that do not sufficiently distribute funds between educational sectors of Palika and the schools of Province 2.
Budget needs to be planned and executed with transparent practices and comprehensive documentation, and public reports of education budgets should be made available for the general public.
b. Lack of modern teaching materials,
The appropriate funds for teaching and learning materials are not supplied. the schools are not considered, but ignored. The children will not have the opportunity to benefit from the advantage of e-Learning concerning their future. Some of the challenges facing lack of e-Learning materials in schools are below:
- · Inadequate technology infrastructure.
- · Budgets constraints.
- · Inadequate internet connection.
- · Consideration of e-Learning policies.
- · Training skills are not provided to teaching staff.
- · Lack of e-Learning curriculum developers.
c. Lack of Policy Implementation
In the context of Nepal, people’s views, opinions and concerns are hardly taken into consideration while making policies, including in the education sector. In most cases, the policy-making process is driven by political agenda.
The policies have also failed because of the lack of proper communication about the provisions up to the grassroots level. Although there are changes in policies time and again at the center, the changes are hardly communicated at the bottom or to those who are directly related with the provisions. To give an example, the policy of preparing School Improvement Plan (SIP) was envisioned and it is currently in operation, but our school stakeholders–headteachers, teachers, school management committee (SMC) and PTA chairs and members– are unaware of the process and lack such capacities in majority of the cases and they have no idea about how to go about it. So much so that resource persons fail to do the job in some cases.Therefore, there is almost no policy communication from top to bottom, which has resulted in the poor implementation of policies.
In framing policies, there are hardly any consultations and negotiations with the stakeholders.
Nepal has been transitioned into federalism. The new constitution has given rights to the local government (LG) to frame policies–including the education sector– on their own. But it was seen in the current time that local government has been failure to formulate policy and failure to provide support to school from each and every angle.
d. Defective examination system
The negative feedback effect of the grading system is blatantly obvious. It is because a student had received a poor grade that he/she shall feel ashamed of himself, and either try better the next time to please the teacher and to please the system or give up on academics altogether.
There is not much difference in the external examination system of 8th, 10th and 12th class but the copy of the foreigner's grading system and the liberal class promotion, the students have not much focused on their studies.
e. Lack of teacher quality
The teacher who is teaching in the schools are not efficient enough, how can we expect students to be brighter? Government needs to train the teachers properly and pay them to their full potential if it wants to see a change in Education system. Not all the children are same. The teacher shortage in each and every school is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought. When indicators of teacher quality (certification, relevant training, experience, etc.) are taken into account, the shortage is even more acute than currently estimated. The quality of an education system relies substantially on the quality of the teachers and the principals. The acute shortage of properly qualified and trained teachers, and consequently, the poor learning levels at schools is an issue that needs to be addressed. Provincial and local government often fail to invest enough on the development of teachers.
f. Political corruption and Palikas' responsibilities
Education is not always about becoming a big, rich person. It should be about humanism. The problem that each school faces in large scale is political corruption in the education system. Political corruption is the use of power by local government officials. So many amendments and policies are made, commissions are set up, but the ground of realty is rarely seen. The school makes a school improvement plan and submits the school improvement plan to the municipality/rural municipality, but the school has not received proper support from the municipality. At the provincial level, when it was informd in the ministry, it was said that power is limited to local government. If the local government has been given full power, then looking at the condition of the school, it is seen that the local government has supported very little in the development of the school. Nothing further has been developed towards Inclusive education. The question that may arise here is what happened to the budget for education? During the Covid period, school was completely closed, while Local Government was funded by the central government to run digital education in schools. Looking at all aspects, it was seen that the local government did not fulfill its responsibility and seemed completely incapable of developing the education sector.
Things that the local government could not do was listed below:
- Could not arrange teacher
- The physical infrastructure of the school could not be improved as required
- could not provide the required resources, tools and materials to school
- Lack of school monitoring
- Digital class could not be conducted during Covid time
- The school management committee could not be formed in the school timely
- Necessary educational materials and skilled manpower for inclusive education could not be provided
- It could not help in the development of technical education
Unless there is a clear policy formulation, good cooperation between the Local Government, the provincial government and the central Government, we cannot even imagine development in education.
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