Education And Federalism In Nepal

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Subject: Education and Development Submitted To: Dr. Pramod Bhatta By: Bishnu Prasad Mishra, M. Phil. 4th Batch, 2008

EDUCATION AND FEDERALISM IN NEPAL

Nepal is going to write new constitute for federal Nepal. It is expected that the new constitution will secures equal dignity and respect for all Nepali citizens, regardless of ethnicity and caste, the voters also clearly supported parties that seek to create a federal Nepal. Much of the current discussion of federalism focuses on the geography and economics of federalism and on socio-cultural issues of ethnicity and language. Through this initiative, I try to highlight some potential areas to be considered in the process of educational federalism. I will highlight the discussion of education functions – that is, how might the current structures and responsibilities for carrying out education functions be affected by federalism. In its School Sector Reform Plan, the government has identified the following themes that might be considered ‘functional areas’: School Structure, Gender issues in education, Open education, Education for vulnerable children, Issues of inclusion, Governance and Management (role and responsibility of central and local government), Access and Quality, Gender and Inclusion, Monitoring and Evaluation, Capacity Development, Institutional Arrangements, Financing, and Public participation (MoE, 2008). I will concern the areas that government indentified. The overall aims of this initiative are therefore to provide an education perspective on federalism, particularly on how powers and responsibilities might be distributed between the central and regional governments, and stimulate and encourage discussion about how inclusive, high quality education can be delivered in a federal context. Let’s open the discussion from the question that what federalism is. A federal republic is a federation of states with a republican form of government. A federation in turn means the composition of a number of self-governing states united by a federal government. Alternately, a

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federal republic can also be defined as one in which authority is divided and shared among different units of government. Thus, theoretically, federalism is the antithesis of centralization and unification of a country. To borrow an analogy from Physics, federalism is a centrifugal force where individual units want to fly away but are held together by a centripetal force. Federalism is designed to achieve some self-rule and shared rule amongst all the constituent member states (Regmi, 2008). School level curriculum This is another potential area for concerning in the educational restructuring. It is already mentioned that the secondary education should be related to the world of work. To this purpose, one of the functions of secondary education is to produce skilled manpower needed for the labour market. In order to facilitate this function, it is necessary to relate the secondary curriculum to the labour market, and productive and service sectors. In addition, it is suggested to incorporate community development services in the curriculum so that students learn to fit in the society and student will be able to understand the social phenomenon and social dynamism. There should be the provision of implementing local curriculum. The local curriculum could be at the state level. It could take any form depending upon the needs of the state or locality. Industrial development is a must for every developing nation. Such development related goals could only be possible through technical and vocational education. Technical education not only builds entrepreneur skills, it also contributes in nation building and improves local production. In the context of Nepal, it is blamed that the education system is designed in the manner so as to accord more emphasis to theoretical aspects rather than preparing a mass of skilled and self-reliant individuals (Timilsina, 2008). There should be a number of vocational training centers under the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) catering to vocational requirements and these training centres should be extended in the rural regions of the country. For an overall development of the nation the rural population too should have technical and entrepreneur skills to create better earning opportunities in their own villages. Vocational education should be given

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top priority to achieve the Nepalese dream of a country where everyone has a job and earns a good salary. It is better to share India’s’ experience. In 1986, Indian Government announced a new education policy, the National Policy on Education (NPE), which was intended to prepare India for the 21st century. The policy emphasized the need for change and intended to raise education standards and increase access to education. To this end, the government managed to utilize public fund the central government declared that the responsibility of maintaining quality and standards of education is the state responsibility. The state, however, retained a significant role, particularly in relation to the curriculum. The central government committed itself to financing a portion of development expenditure, and around 10 percent of primary education is now funded under a centrally sponsored scheme (Lall, 2005). In Nepal, The previous education reform were not guided by the guidelines agreed visions emerged from rigorous exercises based on academic and intellect. One of the scholar stated that education reforms were guided by individuals who happen to grab significant positions both political and managerial without much knowledge and commitment to educational reform (Khaniya, 2007). Hence there is need for rigorous exercises and dialogues with the stakeholders to overall reform in school education. Similarly, Khania (2007) stated that school education is generally found to be guided by the idea that it is the preparation of higher education rather than guided by the idea of making and individual competent enough to do thing independently on his/ her own. To put it another way, we tend to accept school education as a preparation for college education instead of making it independent and self-completing. The school education should be reformed in order to make it serve the needs of the learners for world of work day to day life. Education should enable the learners to cope with higher education. But all the students graduated from school level education do not continue their study. This tends a question that why pupils learnt many things at school level which they never used later. This is the question of content that incorporated in the curriculum. In this context, it can be suggested that school education as a whole should be reviewed in order to bring about necessary change. For this purpose, it is important to consolidate what has been accomplished so far and further expand the horizons of our school education with new

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visions for New Nepal. Some pertinent issues are discussed below to provide some insights further reform effort. Structure of Education Another issue in the reform of school education is that the structure of school education. It is seen that different countries have adopted different structure of school education for different purposes. There is not fixed structuring provision. In India, there is 10+2+3 system of education i. e. ten years of high school, two years of higher secondary and three years of undergraduate education. In the Japan, there is 3 years Kindergarten education, six years of elementary education and 4 years so secondary school. Similarly, in USA, there are three structural pattern in common use, the K8-4 plan meaning Kindergarten plus 8 elementary grades followed by 4 high schools grade; the K6-3-3 plan, or Kindergarten plus 6 elementary grades followed by a 3-year junior high school and 3-year senior high school; and the k6-6 plan, Kindergarten plus 6-year elementary grades followed by a 6-year high school (Sharma, 2008). Nepal is structuring its school education system through School Sector Reform and it proposed that of 8-years of Basic Education and 4-years of High School Education. It is suggested that this model could be appropriate for Nepal. It is suggested that basic education should be the basis of education involving functional literacy as well as the foundation for secondary education. The secondary level education should be related to world of work, and academic studies. The students who achieved technical and vocational education can sell their skill in the market after graduating from secondary education and the general education will be the foundation for higher education. Provisions should be made for lateral entry at any level in order to avoid dead end in any career pathways. Open education The challenge of meeting the growing demand for the post primary education in Nepal could be the one of the most effective mean. It system envisioned would not only include formal education, it would consist of and integrated system of formal , non formal with a focus on technical vocational education and training (TVET) and other learning and training opportunities accessible through diverse models of delivery (Sinha, 2007). Distance education is an essential

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and growing trend in Nepal. Reaching a participant at any remote location in the country to impart knowledge is the goal of such initiatives. It is cost effective mode of education. It will serve to those students whose can not go to school due to different causes and can not continue their education. It could be the alternative approach of formal schooling system. It is better to establish one Open University in each state. Monitoring and Evaluation A principal factor that affects the student achievement is the quality of teaching. Teaching quality depends upon the kind of teachers having adequate academic preparation, pedagogical skills, professional commitment and motivation. School supervision is a notion evolved from the idea of controlling to supporting school education system. The structure of supervision is viewed relatively complex. It is suggest building four layers of monitoring and evaluating mechanism that is at the central level from the department of education, State level and District level and Resource Center level. The whole sole responsibility of monitoring should appropriate in the District level and supervisory responsibility is given to RC level. Head teacher could be enhanced to be able to supervise the classroom activities as a local supervisor. Access and inclusiveness in education Nepal made enormous progress in access to education in comparison to the period of democratic restoration of 1951. During this period it utilizes external sources as well as internal resources to bring the children to school. However, it has there is a large number of student out of school. 89.1 percent of NER (Flash Report, 2007) shows that there are a large number of students out of school. This cause of not going to school could be different. The children with school going age may not able to go to school unless something special is done for them for this purpose, ‘the idea of inclusion in education has to be appreciated and Nepal should make efforts to address this issue in the future reform. The movement like education for all and Universal and Compulsory primary education did make a contribution to enhance the enrolment rate in primary education. But such types of programs do not help adequate to bring the learner to school (Khaniya, 20007). There are people

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with certain difficulties because of language, ethnicity, poverty, location, gender etc, who in general conditions can not take benefit of what the state offer them (Khaniya, 2007). Nepal has identified 14 different types of hard core group for inclusion (Rai, 2008). It is necessary to have the policy on inclusiveness with all provisions on the top of social inclusion, wider access and disability. It is essential to have a good range of strategies for identifying marginal student’s needs and the opportunities for stakeholder to discuss their needs. It is necessary to rethink in different areas and manage the appropriate strategies for inclusion. Education Administration: Education administration is another pertinent area to be considered in the education sector reform. The central theme in educational administration is whether a system is centralized or decentralized. One of the scholars Kandel mentioned that from the educational point of view, a centralized system of administration seeks to secure uniformity and to mould the rising generation according to a pre-conceived pattern, its methods are those of indoctrination. The decentralized system aims to promote adaptation to the local environment and variety; its methods are empirical and experimental in a broad sense (Sharma, 2008: 83). It seems that there is no pure system anywhere. Crammer and Browne point (in Sharma, 2008) out strong local responsibility and decentralized control is to be found in USA; responsibility divided between national and local units characterizes the England and Indian system; and the national control of policy with decentralization of details exists in USSR (ibid). To Nepal, it is suggested that to apply the USSR model is better because of Nepal’s ground reality. Still there are large amount of people are illiterate and they are not seems capable of handling educational institutions and the teaching force seems against the pure decentralization. It is suggested that there should be five layers of educational administration such as central level, state level, district level, Resource Center level, and school level. Under the ministry of education at the central level there could be the central departments such as Department of Education, Curriculum Development Centre, Teacher Licensing Office, and

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Office of the School Supervisor etc. The task of the teacher management such as teacher selection, teacher training, deputation of teacher, teacher deployment, promotion of teacher etc could be decentralized under the state level. In the education reform, management of existing teaching force and educational administration personnel could be another issue in consideration. There could be one ministry of education in the state level and District Education Office in the district level. These offices need large numbers of educational personnel so the existing educational administrator could be managed in the central level and the state level but there should be the provision of choice where they want to be in the central level or state level. The administrators who like to be under the state government should be provided some additional benefits such as promotion of one layer and some monetary benefits. This provision will attract the educational personnel to the state government. Finance in Education: In the Central level there will be National Planning Commission. The financing policy could be prepared by planning commission. Thus the establishment of the basic principle governing education is the responsibility of the nation. State budgetary allocation could be the main source of funds for education federal Nepal. It consists of allocation from the central government and these from local government educational undertaking run and administered by local government i. e. state government will be financed by local budgets. Monetary assistance of external institutions such as UNNESCO, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and so other could be accept by the central government and can be allocate to the state governments. Under the constitution, responsibility for education is shared between central and state government. The central government sets policy, stimulates innovation and plans framework. The state governments are responsible for running the education system on the ground (Lall, 2005). Education is the state responsibility. It is obvious that the size of the fund available for education relates to the degree of quality of education. The country like Nepal, government has

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no sufficient fund for education. In this case, the government should mobilizing resources from different sources so that it becomes able to educate more and more people. It is the context; the involvement of the private sector in education can be visualized as one of the ways to generate funds for providing education to those who do not otherwise get education. The private sector therefore can act as a complementary partner of the public sector of education for providing quality education. So, the government should make provision of including private sector in education with state control. There are different models of privatization of education; this is the case for the academic debate what kind of model should apply. This is the point to keep in consideration during the reform process. Conclusion Nepal is going to write new constitute for federal Nepal. Education is the planning of all planning. It is the means of developing human resources. Investment in education is regarding as national investment in hardware. Efficiency in educational planning reflects in other planning. It is expected that the new constitution will secures equal dignity and respect for all Nepali citizens, regardless of ethnicity and caste, the voters also clearly supported parties that seek to create a federal Nepal. Much of the current discussion of federalism focuses on the geography and economics of federalism and on socio-cultural issues of ethnicity and language. Education is one of the most burning issues of federal Nepal which is necessary to reform in the changing context. Some of the issues of considerations are ‘functional areas’ which are mentioned in this paper. Providing quality education should be possible through the reforming the education sector efficiently. The areas that discussed in this paper should consider while the process of reform.

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Reference: Kaniya, T. R. (2007); New Horizons in Education in Nepal, Kathmandu, Kishor Khaniya Lall, M.; (2005), The Challenges for India’s Education System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs. MoES (2008), School Sector Reform Programm, Kathmandu, Author Regmi, A. (2008). Hard facts about federalism, Published in Kantipuronline, January 06, 2008, Item Number 133506. Available at http://www.kantipronline.com. Sharma, Y. K. (2008), Comparative Education: A Comparative Study of Educational Systems, New Delhi 110 002, Kanishka Publications, Distributors Sinha. R. S. (2007); Open Schooling: Rechcing to Unreached, In Distance Education, (Ed. Sinha Ram Sworup), Sanothimi, National Center for Educational Development. Timilsina, P. (2008), Skill based Education Viable option to End Unemployment, Published in Rising Nepal, Friday Supplement, (n. d.) , Item Number 11755. Available at http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np