Learning Education

The quality of instruction in Nepal’s  classrooms was an issue even 20 years ago. And so is the disparity between public and private schools. Covid-19 made the gap worse. Decline in the quality has often been used as an excuse for governments to take over the education system. 

Regulate private schools for sure, but more importantly the government should improve and upgrade the quality of education in public schools, where 80% of Nepali students are enrolled. 

Excerpts from an editorial 20 years ago this week on issue #150 20-26 June 2003:

Why are private schools the target of everyone's wrath? Every time anyone wants to make a political point around here, they force schools to shut. In effect, our way of taking revenge on political rivals is to punish our own children. Very few societies in the world have shown such consistently self-destructive behaviour. 

Earlier this month, the five main political parties signed a declaration making schools Zones of Peace. When we asked the parties why it is that they are once more threatening an indefinite closure of schools throughout the land, they washed their hands off it. It's not us, they said, it's the student unions. 

How convenient. It has become standard operating procedure for the vision-challenged party leadership to use their affiliated “student" unions to take aim at schools in order to create maximum social disruption with minimum effort. A few phone calls threatening violence usually does the trick. 

The main reasons for the rot in our school system is the mismanagement and corruption over the past 13 years by the mentors of the same student unions that are shutting down schools today. Successive elected governments abdicated their responsibility to provide affordable quality education even though the period saw the largest-ever infusion of foreign aid into the sector. So, private schools filled the vacuum. 

From archive material of Nepali Times of the past 20 years, site search: www.nepalitimes.com