Education Challenges in Nepal

Nepal aims to achieve universal primary education goal by 2015, however, challenges to achieve this goal are mounted. A large number of children of 6-10 years are still out of school. As of 2004/2005, Nepal's net primary school enrollment rate was 78%; this rate was 87% for South Asia (UNESCO's global education database). That is to say that children in Nepal are more excluded from education than any other south Asian countries.

There are two levels of child education challenges in Nepal. First, there is a great lack of quality schools that are easy-accessible to all children around the country, and second, education is not enthusiastically endorsed and promoted by the parents and communities across the region, ethnicity, caste, and gender. The challenge of the lack of accessible quality schools can be addressed by an adequate resource investment to build school infrastructure, train and hire quality teachers, and by designing good curricula. This can probably be done with relatively easily by the government if seriously worked together with local institutions and international funding organizations. Role of international agencies such as World Bank, DFID, DANIDA, and GTZ can become significant in this area, in particular.

The second area of challenge is parents' realization on the importance of education to their children. This is not to blame the parents for existing poor status of education enrollment. Rather, it signifies the importance of examining possible reasons - social, cultural and economic -- which are not encouraging enough for parents to be serious about their children's education. Theoretically, for the parents to be able to be enthusiastic about their children's education, the social, cultural and economic environment should be motivating/stimulating. This is not only applicable to parents, but also equally important for the children to be motivated for their school and strive for the education.

The second area of challenge, therefore, is much more complicated than the first one. It is about changing social, cultural and economic environment; however, if fixed, it can greatly compliment to solve the first area as well. Unfortunately, no one seems to be talking about it. This area needs to be strongly advocated to address primary education problem in Nepal and to achieve universal education in a sustainable manner.

We would like to hear what you think about the challenges of achieving universal primary education. We would also like to hear what you think about the two areas of education challenges we mentioned here. Please give your opinion, as it will help broaden all of our understanding on child education in Nepal and possibly help us, as a group, to come up with certain policy recommendations.