Primary schooling for all in Nepal 

At first glance, talk of 25,000 primary schools sounds like a lot - even for a large country like Nepal. But the infrastructure is weak, the terrain mountainous and many children have far to go to the nearest school. Therefore since the mid-1980s a number of donors, with the World Bank and Danida in the forefront, have been assisting the Nepalese government to improve basic and primary education for all children in Nepal.

A new joint government-donor evaluation of the second phase of support programme, covering the last five years, shows that these efforts have borne fruit. The study was carried out by COWI in collaboration with the Canadian company Goss Gilroy and the local Nepalese company Organisational Development Centre (ODC). Between 1998 and 2002 the number of Nepalese children attending school rose from 70.5 to 82.3 per cent, and is projected to reach 86 per cent in 2004.

Poor education

These results were partly achieved by constructing new schools and improving sanitary conditions so that girls, too, can attend school. The support programme has also aimed at strengthening the capacity of the general education system and improving the quality of education.

"The latter has not improved much," admits COWI project manager Niels Eilschow Olesen. "Many primary school teachers have only very limited training and in general do not implement new pedagogics. Most of them still think along very traditional lines. The programme has provided support for in-service training of teachers, but perhaps it has not been particularly relevant to the reality in which the teachers find themselves."

In the shadow of conflict

Among other considerations, Niels Eilschow Olesen is referring to the fact that there are classes with up to 100 children. And because of the current insurgency in Nepal, large numbers of the population are fleeing to the lowlands – but schools and teachers are not following the population flow.

"The sheer number of children places limitations on the extent to which the education system can be developed. Also, the programme has been very much focused on building administrative capacity from the bottom up in a newly established Department of Education. It is perhaps unrealistic to think that this can be achieved simultaneously with equally grand leaps forward at the school level."

The assessment therefore recommends that in future the focus should be on the actual educational situation between teachers and pupils, as well as on improved access to primary school education for girls and vulnerable groups in particular.

Published: 05.10.2004
By: Janne Toft Jensen, jaje@cowi.dk