Name: Raj Kumar Puri

Areas of the issue.: Free and Compulsory Education

Issue: Implementation of free education in secondary level

Objective:

 To explore the present status of implementation of free education at secondary

level.
Review of Literature

Free Education" means education to be provided by the school or educational

institution without receiving any fee under any heading from the student of
guardian (Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2075. Considering Universal
Declaration of human right, Nepal has constructed different Educational acts, and
constitutional mandatories regarding the Free and compulsory education up to
secondary level as a fundamental human right. But the implementation of these
rules are challenging. Still, we are listening community school are charging fee in
different subjects like admission, monthly fee, sports, health checkup and other
subjects. So, we guess there is a big gap between policy of free education and
implementation of it. By this reason, Implementation of free education at
secondary level has become the burning issue of the educational field in Nepal.
Article based review
The article, Research of Implementation of Right to education for free and
compulsory was written by Dr. Maneesh Singh published in international journal
of Research in all subjects in Multi langugages in 4 April: 2017. The objective of
this research is to find out the status of implementation of various provision of
Right of children to free and Compulsory Education RTE Act 2009 in Gujarat
State. In India the Government has enacted and implemented the Act in the right
spirit towards providing quality elementary education to all. The observation and
findings from the observation and interview show a gap between what was
expected and what and what has to far been done. The findings of this article show
that has been progress only in terms of enrollment/basic infrastructure but towards
guaranteeing quality education in term of student learning the state has go a long
way. From the finding of the research, it can be concluded that most of the parents
are aware about the free education provided to the students of elementary schools,
but, many of them are not aware of the benefits provided to the children.
Therefore, as per the findings parents and children should be made aware about the
benefits and provisions provided in the act. If we compare the implementation of
this Education Act 2009 with Nepal Education Act 2028, there is quite similarity.
In Nepal, schools are going to against the act, they are ignoring to implement free
education act properly and colleting fee from students going against the rules. But
in India, stakeholders are aware to implement free education act but parents and
students are not fully aware about the benefit of free education act in the nation.
So, to solve this problem from both side, there is a need of partnership among the
state, school functionaries, parents and other stakeholders which support us to
implement education acts and fulfill the expected outcomes with little effort.
Another article, right to free and compulsory education in Nepal: A study with
special reference to India's right of children to free and compulsory education Act,
2009, written by Jivesh Shah in 2019. The objectives of this article is to find out
the present status of the implementation of Free and compulsory education Act
2018 in Nepal. The Act, 2018 incorporates healthy provisions for free and
compulsory school education to children. Unlike international instrument to or
India's free and compulsory education only up to grade eight, our laws seek to
guarantee free school education up to grade 12 in state owned institutions.
Similarly, the state has been directed to provide education in mother tongue and
special education to the disabled persons or the victims of different political
movements. The children right to learn about the traditional norms of culture has
been duly secured by the law. The students who could not complete formal
education in regular mode could available school education through distance
learning. Still the Act lacks any strict measures to control the over privatization or
commercialization of education. The legislation also fails to provide teacher-pupil
ratio in a state owned school. Over and above this, the Act is home to progressive
provisions. The challenges lie in implementation.
The newspaper article School education is free but public school are forced to
raise fee Published in KATHMANDU POST in Nov 11, 2022 talks about the
present scenario of school to charge the fee from students. In Nepal most of the
policy makers and leaders have invested in institutional school and government
brings different acts and rules about free education but the implementers
themselves engage in opening and invest in institutional school so it has big
challenge to implement free education in secondary level. It has become the best
source of income for leaders and policy makers to get fee from community and
institutional school so it is not possible to implement in little effort. " Yes, the
constitution and other acts and laws ensured free and compulsory school education.
However, the government doesn’t allocate needed funds even for hiring teachers,"
said Indra Mohan Jha, principal at the school at an interaction in the Capital, " We
have two options: either to stop student enrollment or raise funds from school." By
this Newspaper article, we can say that, the implementation of free education in
school level is very challenging because there are different problems like financial
problems of school, political force, admission rate of students, ratio between
students and teachers, insufficient teachers allocated by government etc. so
implementation of free education in secondary level is itself a burning issue of
today's context in Nepal.
Another article Free education? Blurred Public-private boundaries in sate run
schooling in Nepal written by Uma Pradhan in (2020), talks about the
commercialization of the education system and the demand for private education is
by no means new in Nepal, but the extent of it has escalated profoundly over the
last two decades. The public education system, thus increasingly functions on
market mechanisms, which has led to a paradoxical situation in which government
school rely extensively on private funding and in the eyes of parents and students
gain their legitimacy exactly through this association with private schooling. With
the focus on the actual costs of free education and local-level modes of educational
financing of government schooling in Nepal, this articles contributes to ongoing
scholarly debates on increasing commercialization of the education system, not just
in Nepal, but across the world in the context of widespread neoliberal forces. It
particularly emphasizes the ways in which private-public dynamics in education
coexist, compete, and rely on each other. These complex interactions blur the
boundaries between public and private domain in the education system of Nepal
and reveal an interconnection between economic and symbolic values attached to
different educational practices. Such a process of construction legitimacy compels
us to acknowledge the new manifestations in commercialization of education that
insist in market-style models and that sidestep the norms that characterize
education as pubic good. By this article, we can say that the proper implementation
of free education is challenging and issue itself.
Policy based review

Education Act 2028, talked clearly about the admission of student who admitted to
a particular grade, the same school cannot collect any kind of tax from the same
students while readmitted to another class. But still this rule is not implemented
although, we are following Free and Compulsory Education act 2075. Still most of
the community schools are charging readmitted fee in every classes either in basic
level or secondary level. Similarly, this act talks about the Dlait, Tribial class that
fall below poverty line school cannot collect any fee but it is not implemented
properly. Still, Community schools are collecting fee in different titles specially
admission fee from all students. There is a certain rule to collect fee from lower
secondary level and Secondary level but rules are in one side but schools are
collecting fee according to their needs.
In my opinion, one rule has implemented which is mentioned in the Education Act
2028, I.e. school cannot collect fee from text book. Other rules are difficult to
implement in institutional school because they are charging high fee in the name of
quality education and even government is also silent in this matter. Rule no. 4 talks
about the permission of government before charging the fee from students but
Community schools never get permission from government, they collect fee
according to their needs. It means that they are not following any rules and
permission to get fee from students. Similarly, rule no. 5 talks about the
punishment to those schools who go against the rules but most of the schools are
preserved by policy makers that creates problem to identify the schools who go
against the rules.
Constitution of Nepal (2015), Considering this constitutional mandatory regarding
the free education, we can say that, secondary level education (9-12) which is not
possible to implement according to the constitution. Because, secondary level
education specially grade11-12 classes of different faculties are conducting
different program like science, management engineering, medical and other
technical subjects. They have compulsion to get fee from students due to the
problem of finance and provide salary to the hiring teachers. Government do not
have capacity to provide sufficient teacher for every subject of secondary level
education. School are obligated to put part time teachers to manage the program.
And it is necessary to get fee from students to provide salary for teachers. On the
other hand, some institutional schools who are conducting Secondary education
program specially 11-12 they are getting high fee from student in different subjects
like admission, books, monthly fee and library fee. Government is just watching
and do not punish those schools who are collecting high fee from students in the
name of quality education because some governmental agencies are also engaged
in this program. Similarly, the constitution has ensured physically impaired and
financially poor shall have the right to free higher education as provided in law but
still students do not get scholarship and financial support from university. They are
compelled to pay expensive fee for university. Similarly, the constitution has
ensured the visually impaired person shall have the right to free education with the
medium of brail script but visually impaired person do not get comfortable brail
script for their study because government has ignored the problems of visually
impaired person and the law of constitution.
Education mandatory 2059, talked about the free education related with no
member of the family of the students has a job, business, profession of means of
livelihood and unable to pay school fees for lack of minimum income required for
living and having income falling into the below poverty line as or below to it
defined by National Planning Commission.but the implementation aspect is so
poor. Especially institutional school are charging all students like Dalit, below
poverty line, girls and ethnic communities. School administration is ignoring the
problem of students and don’t following the education mandatory they are
collecting fee from all students in equal ratio. Similarly, SSDP (2016-2022), talks
about the all means of education should be free but in our context Nepal all modes
of education system are taking charge from students in different titles. In Gurukul
and Madrasa also, students are compelled to pay fee in different titles. In open
education system also there is certain criteria to pay the fee for university and
school. In Nepal all kinds of educational institutional are charging fee from
students. It has a big gap between policies and practices of free education in Nepal
so implementation of free education is a big issue of today's time in Nepal.
Methods of the study
Based on the reviewing of different policies and articles, like Constitutional
mandatories, Free Education Act 2018, Newspaper articles and Indian free
education act comparing with Nepalese Education Act, I will use
phenomenological research design under qualitative inquiry. I will use the primary
sources of data, the primary sources of data will be the secondary level teachers
and the students of grade ten who are getting free education. For data collection, I
will select one secondary community school where free education is implementing.
Using non random sampling, I will collect data from close ended questionnaires
and unstructured interview.

Conclusion
After reviewing the above mentioned literature, it can be concluded that, the
present status of implementation of free education in Nepal is challenging.
Policies are constructed without any study in the Nepalese context, it is just
copied from another country and try to implement here but the reality is
different in our context. If the implementation aspect is challenging why these
rules and Acts have constructed? Or why this rights are not eliminated from
constitution? Now, it has created huge question even in government, Policy
makers and educationist. In overall, I have taken two aspects regarding the
implementation of free education in secondary level. One is Leaders and policy
makers themselves invested in institutional school and some community school.
In this situation, they forced to charge fee from students and ignoring the rules
and regulation. Institutional schools have become the source of income for
Government related agencies which has created difficulty to implement Act.
Another aspect is Some community school who are popular in academic and
administrative work, there is a large number of students for admission but the
government doesn’t allocate sufficient teacher and school should be compelled
to keep teachers in private source. Those teachers who teach in private source,
obviously the salary should be provided from the fee of students. Same problem
is facing Shree Public school in Dharan which was published in KATHMANDU
POST in Nov 11, 2022, where students are more than 3200 but the government
has allocated only 40 teachers. But school has a compulsion to charge fee from
student to maintain the salary of teachers who are in private source. In my
opinion, to implement free education in secondary level, firstly Government
should be strict for those schools who are collecting fee from students going
against constitutional mandates. Another aspect is we need to transparency,
accountability, monitoring and supervision from related agencies in both
community and institutional schools. Similarly, government should be allocated
sufficient teachers in community school on the basic of numbering of students.
These may be the possible recommendation for related stakeholders.
Last but not least, still either community or institutional school are collecting
fee in different subjects. Policy is in one side and practices is in another side,
there is not the balance between policies and practices. By this reason the title
"Implementation of free education in Secondary level" becomes the burning
issue for researcher.
References
Jha, J. (2019). Right to free and Compulsory Education in Nepal with Reference to
Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009. Kathmandu.
Sing, M. (2017). Research of Implementation of Right to education for Free and
Compulsory Education. International journal of Research in all Subjects in Multi
Language, 2321-2853 April 2017.
Government of Nepal (2022). School Education is free but public schools forced to
raise fee. The Kathmandu Post, 11 Nov 2022.
Pradhan, U. (2020). Free Education? Blurred Public-private Boundaries in state
run schooling in Nepal. Kathmandu.
MoE (2016). School Sector Development Plan Nepal, 2016-2023. Kathmandu:
Ministry of Education, Government of Nepal.
Education Act 2028, Constitution of Nepal 2015, Education Mandatory 2059
Kathmandu: Law Book management committee.