Kathmandu: Would you believe if some one told you that a significant number of students in grade four do not even know Nepali alphabet? If you don't then you might find a latest survey report quite astonishing.

“Yes, many Nepali pupils do not know Nepali alphabets even when they have reached grade four,” Richard Thompson, a British educationist who was in Nepal for a survey about school effectiveness, says.

The survey entitled "research into school effectiveness" conducted by an independent team led by Thompson has revealed that 10 percent pupils in grade four do not know Nepali alphabets. “We used an innovative and internationally-recognized test method to find out if students are learning what they are taught by teachers in classrooms; and many pupils failed the test,” says Thompson.

Worse, an even higher number of fourth graders, at least 25 per cent, cannot recognize double-digit figures, states the survey.

“Those students who do not know alphabets and double-digit numbers certainly lag behind their classmates,” says Thompson. “As a result, they will probably drop out of schools later at some higher grade,”

Millions of students drop out of schools between grade 1 and 10. The latest flash report prepared by the Department of Education (DoE) shows that approximately five million out of 7.3 million of students enrolled in grade 1 to 10 dropped out of schools in 2009/10.

“The fact that many students fail to recognize alphabets even when they are all set to go above primary level has been reflected in the low pass percentage rate in the SLC exams as well,” argues Thompson.

Baburam Adhikari, the chairman of Nepal National Teachers? Organization, says, “If students taught by well-trained teachers cannot recognize alphabets, then we should seriously think of it.” According to Adhikari, over 90 per cent of teachers are trained in public schools.

The survey has also found a very low school attendance rate in public schools. According to the survey report, only 52.8 per cent of students regularly attend classes in public schools on an average.

“We checked registers for three days. We also did headcounts to augment our findings,” says Min Ranabhat, another member of the survey team. “What we found was quite shocking.” According to him, class attendance rate is higher in private schools, almost 84 percent.

The final report of the survey, which was made public Monday in Kathmandu, has already been submitted to the Ministry of Education (MoE). The survey, financially assisted by the DFID of the UK, covered 30 schools from six districts in different ecological belts.

source: Republica, 6 Dec 2011