In an attempt to make schoolteachers accountable, the Ministry of Education is preparing to announce the names of “poor” and “excellent” teachers in terms of their performance in the 75 districts every new fiscal year.

The decision follows the ministry’s conclusion that the teachers are to blame for the decline in the public education sector. The Department of Education has directed Regional Education Directorates and the District Education Offices (DEO) to collect the names of subject teachers from schools with achievements higher and lower than the national average.

Besides the publication of names, there will be reward and punishment depending on their performance. The DEOs will send the names of 20 well-performing and 50 poor-performing teachers to the regional offices for submission to the Department.

According to Tek Narayan Pandey, director at the Education Department, the plan is expected to increase the teachers’ commitment to instruction, ultimately reversing the deteriorating quality of education in state-funded schools .

“The names will be collected within a month and published on the websites of the Department and the ministry,” Pandey added. Teachers from all levels and subjects will be included in the study.

He claimed that the new initiative will motivate teachers to change their attitude and make them more accountable. “Those who don’t want their names published will definitely perform their duties well,” he added.

The Department has also decided not to extend the tenure of the resource persons who fail to provide progress reports of the schools to the DEOs by mid-July. Pandey said this will make resource persons more responsible in monitoring the academic environment of the schools under their jurisdiction.

417 schools open past fiscal year

A total of 417 schools were given the operating licence in the fiscal year 2012/13. The economic survey report released on Friday shows that the number of schools —private and public—has reached 34,298. About half of the new schools were institutional (private).

The total number of students, however, decreased by 167,000 in the past year to 7,278,000. From 4,783,000 to 4,577,000, the drop is the largest in the primary level. In the lower secondary level, the student number has fallen by about 10,000. But the number rose in the secondary level from 849,000 in 2011/12 to 878,000 in the current fiscal year.

According to Tek Narayan Pandey, director at the Department of Education, the decrease was attributed to the government tightening on the schools presenting fake statistics. According to the department, the number of fake students decreased by 300,000 in the current academic session.

The report has shown a good progress in the student enrolment rate. Net enrolment rate for the basic education (grades 1 to 8) has reached 87.5 percent while that for the secondary level (grades 9 to 10) increased by two percent to 32.4 percent in the period.

The survey shows that 91.5 percent teachers from the basic level are well trained while the rate is 90.7 percent for the secondary level. The student dropout rate for Grade 1 decreased to 19.9 percent but there is no change in the six percent dropout in Grade 8. (PR)

source: the kathmandu post,14 july 2013