In a desperate measure to meet the Millennium Development Goal target on education , the government is all set to impose compulsory schooling for children aged 5-15 by denying non-compliant parents a range of state facilities including social security schemes.

With this new measure, Nepal aims to achieve 100 percent “universal basic education ” by 2015. At present the net enrollment rate in grade one is 95.3 percent and seven percent of them quit schools before completing the first grade.

While compulsory education system has been in practice in many countries, there are concerns that it could backfire on Nepal as the new measure ignores the fact that basic education is still not free and affordable for a large section of the population (23.8 percent) under abject poverty line. Though there is no fee for basic education till Grade VII, there are other costs for text books, food etc, which the new system does not plan to cover.

The new measure is likely to come into force immediately after the government amends the Education Act incorporating a provision to ban those parents from the state facilities who do not send their children to school.

“An ordinance proposing necessary amendment to the Education Act has been prepared and it will soon be sent to the President for endorsement,” said an official. The new rule will come into effect in the 13 select districts from the new academic session starting in April 2014. The Department of Education (DoE) has selected Dhankuta, Saptari, Manang, Dolpa, Kapilvastu, Parsa, Rupandehi, Mustang, Bardiya, Dadeldhura and Kanchanpur for the pilot project. According to Education Minister Madhav Prasad Poudel, those who defy the government rule will be barred from the social security like old age allowance, widow allowance and soft loans among others.

“We are in consultation with different ministers to identify the sectors where we can impose the new rule,” said Poudel at the fourth Anniversary of Education Journalist Network Nepal in the Capital on Saturday. “The amendment will be done through an ordinance.”

The flash report of the DoE, a biennial report, shows around 20 percent of those enrolled in class one repeat the same grade which is 7.3 percent for Grade 2 and 7.4, 7.5 and 8.4 percent for Grades 3, 4 and 5, respectively.

Though the government has been providing free basic education , it is not compulsory till date. Under the new rules the government will conduct door-to-door programme to bring all the

children in the school system while another programme will be launched to end dropouts. The government has already prepared the Act and will be sent to the President’s Office for endorsement very soon.

According Poudel the new the amendment will also have a provision of automatic promotion at the basic level. The students will be evaluated by their day to day performance in the classroom unlike the present trend where one has to face the final examination for the promotion.

Though the government seems optimistic that the new provision will be beneficial in imparting the basic education to all the children, education experts doubt that it will be a failure as the government has made no provision for bearing opportunity cost.

“The out of school children come from the extremely marginalised and poor background and their parents hesitate to enroll them in schools as they support their family economically,” said Mana Prasad Wagle, education expert.

He said like in Brazil, the Nepali government should establish a state fund to compensate the parents who suffer income losses as their children go to schools sidelining their routine jobs.

source: the kathmandu post,29 Sep 2013