Though Nepal has been widely appreciated for its achievements in the education sector, it is still unlikely to meet all the literacy targets of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) by 2015.

While the government claims that the total literacy target can be achieved in the next two years, the progress report of the MDG has, however, shown that it is likely to meet only two of the three major indicators pertaining to education.

In its second goal of universal primary education, the net enrollment rate has reached 95.3 percent this year, up from 63 in 2000. Now the government needs to meet cent percent target in the next two years, which seems achievable, said Jagdish Chandra Pokhrel, team leader of the MDG report committee under the National Planning Commission (NPC).

However, achieving the literacy rate of 15-24 years age group seem a far cry as around 12 percent of the youths under this group remain illiterate.
“Given the gap, the literacy rate needs to be reduced by a further 11.4 percent,” states the recently issued MDG progress report. “Unless the current growth rate is increased, Nepal is unlikely to meet its 2015 MDG.”

Of the total population above the age of five, only 65.9 percent are literate. The male literacy rate stands at 75.1 percent while the female literary rate stands at just 57.4 percent. Though there has been consistent progress in literacy, there are great disparities across the social groups, the comprehensive report of all governmental and non-governmental studies show.

At least 4.7 percent of the primary school age children, that is over 0.8 million children, are out of school. Likewise, the dropout rate of 7.7 percent per year is also a major challenge that needs to be addressed by improving the infrastructure of schools and the quality of learning process.

Likewise, the distance between the schools and houses of students is another major factor that is resulting in dropouts in the remote areas of the country.

Non-formal Education Center (NFEC), a government body that is responsible to organize campaigns and programs for literacy, has now integrated the non- formal education with the net enrollment of children at primary level in a bid to meet the MDG targets, according to Baburam Paudel, the NFEC Director.

source:republica,14 Sept 2013