Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Community Management of Schools in Nepal
Community Management of Schools in Nepal
Teertha Dhakal
Programme Director
Education and Human Resources Section
National Planning Commission Secretariat, Nepal
October, 2007
Context
Nepal has made significant achievements in the last decade improving educational status
of the country. The primary school enrolment rate has reached around eighty-seven
percent in 2006, literacy rate has reached to fifty-five percent and gender disparity in
educational status has been reduced. However, there are various issues in the educational
outcomes and management of education services delivery in the country. Some of these
issues include; low quality of public schools, vast disparity between the quality of private
and public schools and low ownership of community and civil societies in the
management of schools resulting in lack of accountability of schools to local people
(National Planning Commission [NPC], 2007). People tend to relate these problems of
school effectiveness especially with the crucial role played by the management factor
which is distinctly visible in the differences between the privately managed schools and
government managed schools in the country at present.
Communities have always been active and supportive of the development in education in
Nepal. However, the policy changes in the education sector gradually undermined the
role of the community. This was more after the introduction of the New Education Plan
of 1971 where a number of measures were adopted. This heralded an era of state
intervention in the school system. The state began to intervene in every sphere, thus
weakening the community's role in education (NPC, 2006).
Of late, there has been a realization that the nationalization of community schools was a
mistake and that the community's role in schools is a must. The government has,
therefore, initiated the transfer of the management of willing schools to the community of
parents and teachers. Thus the Seventh Amendment of Education Act, in 2001, was a
clear recognition that public schools have failed to meet expectations of the people to
improve quality in education. The Act paved the way for launching a major reform
initiative in school education- transfer of schools to community management- in 2002.
Since then the government has been promoting this policy through various incentive
schemes. So far, over 2500 schools have already been transferred to communities.
However, issues have consistently been raised by some of the stakeholders that it is not
the right approach to transfer school management directly to communities. They have
been arguing that this process has bypassed the local government bodies and hence been
disturbing the overall devolution to those representative bodies.
Some notable intermediate results have already achieved after transferring school
management to communities. Firstly, local guardians have become active in the schools
wherever the management of schools has been transferred to the communities. SMC
members have become pro-active in their roles towards reforming their schools (NPC
2006). They are gradually taking more and more responsibilities (Technical Review of
School Education [TRSE], 2006). Thus, school custodians living in the proximity have
begun visiting the transferred schools to understand the pros and cons of management
handover. This has contributed to improve transparency and direct route of accountability
to beneficiaries. Secondly, teachers’ absenteeism has been significantly reduced and
teaching learning has gained momentum. It is due to regular monitoring and supervision
by local people.
Thirdly, parents towards the schools their children attend have taken initiatives in raising
funds for their schools so that it has found that in these schools physical facilities have
been improved compared to other public schools. Overall, this has contributed to increase
the level of awareness and ownership at the local level. As one SMC chairperson noted
'compared to the past, parents have become more vigilant and pro-active towards the
school's activities and their children. However, this change came only after the
management transfer of the schools (NPC, 2006). Lastly, a recent independent study
found that students learning achievements measured in terms of mean scores on
specifically designed tests was generally better in community transferred schools than
control group (public) schools (New Era Ltd., 2006).
Issues
This reform initiative in public schooling system has been the centre of criticisms as well.
There is tremendous pressure from the teachers and their unions to stop the programme
because they want to be managed by the government instead of local community. This
shows that teachers and other stakeholders are still to be assured that central funding
support will continue and job security of teachers will be there even after the
management transfer. The other issue is that the capacity of the community to manage
the schools needs to be strengthened with support from the central level. Due to these
issues and also due to political instability, the programme slowed down and hence despite
the PRSP target of transferring 8000 schools, by July 2007 the achievements was only
2500.
Lessons learnt
Replicability
In countries where centrally managed public schools have not been delivering good
education results, this innovative policy measures tested in Nepal can be replicable with
marginal funding increment and by incorporating the basic features of MfDR in different
stages of the policy/programme processes.
References
Central Bureau of Statistics, GON, World Bank, ADB & DFID (2006). Resilience
amidst conflict: An assessment of poverty in Nepal, 1995/96 and 2003/04.
Kathmandu: Author.
Ministry of Finance, GON (2007). Economic survey, fiscal year, 2005/06. Kathmandu:
Author.
National Planning Commission (2007). Approach Paper of Three Year’s Interim Plan
(2007/08- 2009/10). Kathmandu: Author.
New Era Ltd. (2006). Pilot phase of community school survey. Kathmandu: Author.